I'm having problems mounting my ipod as a normal user. I can mount it fine as root.

my fstab

/dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod vfat noauto,rw,users 0 0


* I've tried user and users, same error.

fdisk -l


Disk /dev/sda: 20.0 GB, 20000010240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2431 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5 40131 0 Empty
/dev/sda2 6 2431 19486845 b W95 FAT32


which mount
/sbin/mount

ls -l /sbin/mount
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2006-05-20 17:40 /sbin/mount -> /bin/mount*

ls -l /bin/mount
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root bin 60576 2006-02-27 19:17 /bin/mount*



works as root:

mount /dev/sda2
# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 37G 15G 21G 42% /
/dev/sda2 19G 379M 19G 2% /mnt/ipod


does not work as me:

mount /dev/sda2
mount: must be superuser to use mount


This is driving me nuts. Any suggestions?

What are the permissions on the /mnt/ipod directory?

ahhh sorry, I knew I was forgetting something

drwxr-xr-x 3 "my user name" root 4096 2006-09-08 19:14 ipod


I changed my actual user ID with "my user name" above



Ok I changed the permissions to below and tried again

drwxrwxrwx 3 "my user name" root 4096 2006-09-08 19:14 ipod



mount /dev/sda2
mount: must be superuser to use mount

The manpage for mount says fstab needs to be "user" not "users". Maybe that will help?

I've tried user and users with the same result.

Check that you are a member of the users group, and change the group of /mnt/ipod to users.

Use the "user" and "uid=" options.
/dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod vfat noauto,rw,user,uid=ncsuapex 0 0

^,^^

Did both of those and still get the error:



mount /mnt/ipod
mount: must be superuser to use mount


mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod
mount: must be superuser to use mount

mount /dev/sda2
mount: must be superuser to use mount



Is there a setting somewhere that I need to change to let normal users use the mount command?




EDIT: Is the mount command supposed to be in 2 locations?


ls -al /bin/mount
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root bin 60576 2006-02-27 19:17 /bin/mount*

ls -al /sbin/mount
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2006-05-20 17:40 /sbin/mount -> /bin/mount*

/bin/mount /dev/sda2
mount: must be superuser to use mount

/sbin/mount /dev/sda2
mount: must be superuser to use mount

Could you post your /etc/fstab entry.

I would also recommend using either "UUID=" or "LABEL=" in place of the device name. When you plug in the i-pod, it may be given a different device.

I've used the user,noauto & uid options and have been able to enter a mount command as a normal user to mount an external (vfat) usb drive. I've also used the user & noauto options for an XFS formatted external drive (uid isn't an option here). I always use either LABEL= or UUID= instead of a device node like /dev/sdb1. Since the xfs drive is usually connected, I even have the mount command in the my .profile script.

Check if your mount program has the "SUID" bit set. How this all works, is that the mount command is run as root due to the SUID permission bit. The mount program then checks the permissions of the filesystem and the contents of /etc/fstab to determine whether to allow that user to mount the filesystem. Some filesystems like vfat and ntfs have the ownership set in the /etc/fstab entry instead of on the filesystem. In that case, you need a UID= entry and have read permissions with the fmask and dmask settings to be able to mount the drive and use it.

Also look at your mount command:
I don't see anything like libpam that might be involved with further restrictions.
---

Does your version of slackware use udev. If so you can get the label or uuid number easily using udevinfo:
udevinfo -q env -n sda2

cat /etc/fstab

/dev/hda1 / ext2
ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev2/hdc /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0


/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb vfat noauto,user,rw 0 0

/dev/sbd2 /mnt/ipod vfat noauto,user,rw 0 0

/dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod vfat noauto,rw,users 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb1 vfat noauto,rw,users 0 0




I have multiple entries for the sda devices as I was playing around with different settings.


ldd /bin/mount
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libblkid.so.1 => /lib/libblkid.so.1 (0xb7f4e000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0xb7f4b000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0xb7e1c000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f73000)



# udevinfo -q env -n sda2
no record for 'sda2' in database


I also did something I should have done earlier, I tried to mount a USB flash drive as my user, got the same error




EDIT:
ls -l /mnt

drwxrwxrwx 3 myusername users 4096 2006-09-08 19:14 ipod/

Not sure if this is needed but here is my dmesg from when I plug the Ipod in



ieee1394: Node changed: 0-00:1023 -> 0-01:1023
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for IEEE-1394 SBP-2 Devices
ieee1394: sbp2: Logged into SBP-2 device
ieee1394: Node 0-00:1023: Max speed [S400] - Max payload [2048]
Vendor: Apple Model: iPod Rev: 1.33
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 39062520 512-byte hdwr sectors (20000 MB)
sda: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
sda: asking for cache data failed
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 39062520 512-byte hdwr sectors (20000 MB)
sda: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
sda: asking for cache data failed
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: sda1 sda2
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

mount is only in one directory, /bin. A symbolic link (it's like a shortcut) to /bin/mount is in /sbin.

Hello,

Try changing your fstab entry to:

and then enter the command: