On a RHEL 5 server of mine, I have a usb drive connected to hold backups. I've noticed that it mounts automatically only if a User is logged into the server. For now I've put it in /etc/fstab so it's hard mounted at bootup, but I prefer the automount, as currently if the drive is not there at bootup, the system hangs looking for the absent filesystem.

I'm not really sure how usb drives are automounted currently. I don't see anything in /etc/auto.master. Whatever process does this, I just want it to run earlier, before/without User login.

Anybody know how?

-Van

p.s.

FWIW, permissions issues aren't relevant for me, as the drive's only use is for a backup process that runs as root. No non-Admins will ever be at the server anyway.

Maybe udev rule. Search around for that, since I think it was mentioned here before

Saw little I could make heads or tails of, and nothing that seemed relevant in /etc/udev .

Writing udev rules