Do i really have to mount my every partition first to use them??

theYinYeti · 02-19-2009, 08:01 AM

Were you using Mandriva, all of this would happen in a GUI tool. For Ubuntu, I don't know…

Yves.

pixellany · 02-19-2009, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenZ

Wow, you guys really are good at explaining how things work

Just wondering if there could be some program to manage partition mounting..

Why didn't we think of that???????........

mount -a ##mounts everything in fstab

mount <device> <mountpoint> ##manual mounting

mount <device>
OR
mount <mountpoint> ## mounts the specified device (by device name or mountpoint name---if there is an entry in fstab)

For more lite reading:

man mount
man fstab

QueenZ · 02-19-2009, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theYinYeti

Please be a bit more gentle with QueenZ. He/She obviously is newbie.

So you currently have /dev/sda2 mounted automatically (and /dev/sda5 is swap). Would you be able to tell us what partition you would also want to have automatically mounted*? Refer to the output of fdisk that you pasted in a previous post. Is it /dev/sda1 (should be your Windows C: drive) or is it /dev/sda4 (seemingly another Linux partition)?

As for the mount point, /mnt is usually for permanent storage, and /media is usually for removable (USB, floppy, CD…) media.

Yves.

the other linux partition..

i92guboj · 02-19-2009, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenZ

Just wondering if there could be some program to manage partition mounting..

It depends what do you mean.

For permanent mounts (i.e. non removable devices) the best bet is always to use fstab to mount them at bootup.

The rest of devices (removable disks, pendrives, optical disks like cdrom or dvd, etc) you can as well have an entry on fstab for them, and then just mount them with a simple command.

There are also desktop applets that can do this and there are also desktops like kde and gnome which have their own way to deal with devices and can even automount. It all depends on the concrete problem I guess.

Some people do like automounting, and you shouldn't have a problem with that if you use any of the major desktops. Some others like me do not like automount, and prefer to mount the drives manually in one or another way.

In either case, having a correct entry for every disk on your fstab never hurts.

ErV · 02-19-2009, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenZ

what's /etc/fstab anyway??

IN terminal type "man fstab" and read. Also check "man mount".

theYinYeti · 02-19-2009, 08:35 AM

So it is /dev/sda4. You'll have to find this partition's UUID. You'll find it by executing this command:

Code:

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

Here's my output:

Code:

[yves@localhost ~]$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 08:01 21f8c95d-78ba-4eef-b1e2-87127cd8580d -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 08:01 26b73a60-f487-4ee8-9bda-9b80cdc98c06 -> ../../sda6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 08:01 6A64F60A64F5D931 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 08:01 83a67e7e-6e4e-4c15-a7e1-5fa304c85825 -> ../../sda7

For me, the UUID for, say, sda1 (Windows C: drive) would be “6A64F60A64F5D931”.

What is your sda4's UUID?

Yves.

QueenZ · 02-19-2009, 08:49 AM

Here's mine..

Quote:

queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ man ls
queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ ls -l /dev/disk
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 280 2009-02-19 09:47 by-id
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2009-02-19 09:47 by-label
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 180 2009-02-19 09:47 by-path
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 120 2009-02-19 09:47 by-uuid
queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 09:47 56DC07E7DC07C06B -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 04:27 57bc2b98-6257-4270-8a8e-000c4c0ac505 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 04:27 b414c172-c717-4908-8bcd-3060cec08864 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-02-19 09:47 f8cbec94-b273-45e1-9b00-34aad25ccf0b -> ../../sda4
queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$

theYinYeti · 02-19-2009, 10:04 AM

OK. So “f8cbec94-b273-45e1-9b00-34aad25ccf0b” is sda4's UUID.
Open a terminal window (such as Konsole or Gnome-terminal), and become root by entering the command “su - root” and then providing root's password. Then, execute this command:

Code:

cat >>/etc/fstab <<-"ENDOFFILE"

# /dev/sda4
UUID=f8cbec94-b273-45e1-9b00-34aad25ccf0b /mnt/sda4 ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
ENDOFFILE

This will append three lines to your /etc/fstab, that will make sda4 be mounted automatically on next reboot exactly the same way sda2 is (alternatively, those three lines can be added by editing the file with “sudo kedit /etc/fstab”). You can see I chose /mnt/sda4 as a mount point but you can change that if you want. Whatever the name, the directory has to exist, so, still as root, in the same terminal window for example, run this command:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/sda4

Now if you don't want to wait for the next reboot to have access to the files in this partition, you can immediately mount the filesystem with (still as root):

Code:

mount /mnt/sda4

One small thing though… I've heard all sort of things about the root account on Ubuntu but I*never used it. If the “su - root” command doesn't prompt for a password, or if you don't know this password, then it is worth trying to use this command instead: “sudo su root”.

Yves.

QueenZ · 02-19-2009, 10:13 AM

sudo su root worked fine

QueenZ · 02-19-2009, 10:22 AM

hmm.. something's wrong..

Quote:

queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ su -root
su: invalid option -- 'r'
Usage: su [options] [LOGIN]

Options:
-c, --command COMMAND pass COMMAND to the invoked shell
-h, --help display this help message and exit
-, -l, --login make the shell a login shell
-m, -p,
--preserve-environment do not reset environment variables, and
keep the same shell
-s, --shell SHELL use SHELL instead of the default in passwd

queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ su - root
Password:
su: Authentication failure
queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ sudo su root
[sudo] password for queenz:
root@queenz-ubuntu:/home/queenz# mkdir /mnt/sda4
root@queenz-ubuntu:/home/queenz# cat >>/etc/fstab <<-"ENDOFFILE"
>
> # /dev/sda4
> UUID=f8cbec94-b273-45e1-9b00-34aad25ccf0b /mnt/sda4 ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
> ENDOFFILE
root@queenz-ubuntu:/home/queenz# mount /mnt/sda4
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda4,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

root@queenz-ubuntu:/home/queenz#

SkinnerC · 02-19-2009, 10:32 AM

Code:

sudo su <return>

Then enter your password (not root's)

This will give you a root terminal to work in. Make sure you close this terminal as soon as you finish what you are doing.

theYinYeti · 02-19-2009, 10:33 AM

There's good and there's bad

The good points are:
— The mount command looks at the /etc/fstab. It located the /mnt/sda4 right (hence the associated UUID).
— The mount command finds a UUID in /etc/fstab and reports an error on the /dev/sda4 partition. So the UUID is the good one.

In short, what you did, you did right. Good.

Now the bad point: it doesn't work. I see two possible reasons:
— Either the type isn't good (ie: it is not an Ext3 partition).
— Or the partition isn't formatted at all.

Do you have any clue which is the good one?
What is the output of this command?

Code:

lshal | sed -n '/sda4/,/fstype =/ p'

Yves.

QueenZ · 02-19-2009, 10:38 AM

Quote:

queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$ lshal | sed -n '/sda4/,/fstype =/ p'
block.device = '/dev/sda4' (string)
block.is_volume = true (bool)
block.major = 8 (0x8) (int)
block.minor = 4 (0x4) (int)
block.storage_device = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_1ATA_FUJITSU_MHV2060BH_PL_NW9AT662A20T' (string)
info.capabilities = {'volume', 'block'} (string list)
info.category = 'volume' (string)
info.interfaces = {'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume'} (string list)
info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_1ATA_FUJITSU_MHV2060BH_PL_NW9AT662A20T' (string)
info.product = 'other' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_f8cbec94_b273_45e1_9b00_34aad25ccf0b' (string)
linux.hotplug_type = 3 (0x3) (int)
linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sda/sda4' (string)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_argnames = {'mount_point fstype extra_options', 'extra_options', 'extra_options'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_execpaths = {'hal-storage-mount', 'hal-storage-unmount', 'hal-storage-eject'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_names = {'Mount', 'Unmount', 'Eject'} (string list)
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.method_signatures = {'ssas', 'as', 'as'} (string list)
storage.model = '' (string)
volume.block_size = 512 (0x200) (int)
volume.fstype = 'ext2' (string)
queenz@queenz-ubuntu:~$

....

frieza · 02-19-2009, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenZ

Wow, you guys really are good at explaining how things work

Just wondering if there could be some program to manage partition mounting..

there is one called webmin that provides a nice web based interface for administering common tasks
however it should be noted that this isn't a substitue for understanding how it works

one if the advantages is if gui programs fail we still have command line and all configuration files are plain text unlike windows where the registry is in a prorpietary binary format and if regedit breaks your outa lukc

schneidz · 02-19-2009, 11:09 AM

i'm not sure why universally unique identifiers are necessary ?

would putting this line in /etc/fstab work:

/dev/sda4 /mnt/sda4 ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

?