Read and write USB device with non-root access

halfzware_shag · 10-11-2004, 03:21 AM

Hello everybody, this is my first post...

Here's my issue, in short: I have access to a public Red Hat 9 box with normal user privileges, as I am no admin nor I know the password for root user. I'd like to read and write to an USB storage, but there isn't a mountpoint defined in /etc/fstab and I can't edit it. After I plug in the USB pen, the last lines of dmesg say:

Code:

hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.7-8, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0xc76/0x5) is not claimed by any active driver.
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
  Vendor: JetFlash  Model: TS64MJF2A         Rev: 1.00
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured
USB Mass Storage device found at 2
USB Mass Storage support registered.

and mount is

Code:

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
/dev/hda2 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)

Any suggestions?

Hope I explained it clear...

Thanks in advance!

andrade · 10-11-2004, 03:56 AM

I think that don't having root permissions you can do anything... if you had you just have to define a mount point in fstab without forget ,user,uid=(youruseridn.)

Bruce Hill · 10-11-2004, 04:02 AM

Welcome to LQ!

You'll have to get root to do some sysadmin for you.

Easiest is to give you a mount point, such as /mnt/JetFlash or if you
have your own user directory, perhaps /home/<username>/JetFlash
and then he's got to either give you something in /etc/fstab such as

Code:

/dev/sda1    /mnt/JetFlash    vfat    user,uid=<your_user's_number>,unhide,rw,noauto 0 0

so that you can mount and read/write the device. But if it won't be mounted
on /dev/sda1 every time, he may have to use something like udev and put
rules that know it's your flash drive. If you're the only one, and your drive
is the only one, I think the above example should work fine.

He could also setup rules for you using sudo. Read
man sudo
man sudoers
for more information.

halfzware_shag · 10-11-2004, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chinaman

You'll have to get root to do some sysadmin for you.
[...]

Ok, thank you... God, I'll try it!

Thanks again!
-h_s