Mounting two directories on a single device

damiendusha · 07-14-2007, 12:05 AM

Hello all,

I've been using Linux for about 2 years, but this feels like such a newbie question that I'm going to post it here. Actually, I still feel like a noob using it in general, but that's beside the point

I have a software RAID 5 array /dev/md0, and currently, I have /home mounted there. The remainder of the system is on a separate HDD (/dev/sda0).

However, what I would like to do is have a media directory (/media, for argument's sake) also on that RAID array. The idea being is that all the users in this house can consolidate our music collection and keep it backed up at the same time.

I was going to share using samba, because there's a mix of windows and linux boxes around the place.

What is the cleanest way to do this? Or better yet, I'm fully open to suggestions.

Cheers
Damien.

jschiwal · 07-14-2007, 12:17 AM

You have it backwords. You mount the filesystems found on a device on a directory, not the other way around.

Linux like Unix uses a hierarchal file structure. There is a root file system and all other filesystems are mounted on directories or subdirectories under root. So all you need to do is create a /media directory and use that. According to the LFHS (Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard), /media is used for mounting removable devices. /mnt is used for temporarily mounting devices. Most distro's are set up so that if you insert a usb or firewire drive, the udev and hal or udev and hotplug system will dynamically create a device node (i.e. /dev/sda ) for the device and any partition on the device (i.e. /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 ).

You could create a directory under /home. You could call it /home/media and share that using samba.
Your distro may have a configuration program to help you, or you could use samba swat to configure in. Swat is a web based configuration tool that comes with samba.
If you have samba installed, look at the /etc/xinet.d/swat file.

Code:

# SWAT is the Samba Web Administration Tool.
service swat
{
        port            =  901
        socket_type     =  stream
        protocol        =  tcp
        wait            =  no
        user            =  root
        server          =  /usr/sbin/swat
        only_from       =  127.0.0.1
        log_on_failure  += USERID
        disable         =  no
}

Yours probably looks like this, but you may have the line "disable = yes". Change the yes to no. And restart the xinet.d service: "sudo /usr/bin/service xinet.d restart". After that, see if you can browse to "http://localhost:901".

Note: sometimes the xinet.d itself isn't started. You can use your services gui tool to enable xinet.d to run when you enable. Sorry but not using Ubuntu, I don't know if, and debian use runlevels 3 & 5. You can read your /etc/inittab file for the answer. Mine looks like this:

Code:

# /etc/init.d/rc takes care of runlevel handling
#
# runlevel 0  is  System halt   (Do not use this for initdefault!)
# runlevel 1  is  Single user mode
# runlevel 2  is  Local multiuser without remote network (e.g. NFS)
# runlevel 3  is  Full multiuser with network
# runlevel 4  is  Not used
# runlevel 5  is  Full multiuser with network and xdm
# runlevel 6  is  System reboot (Do not use this for initdefault!)

On some systems you can use "chkconfig" to check or set the runlevels that a daemon runs on:

Code:

/sbin/chkconfig -l xinetd
xinetd                    0:off  1:off  2:off  3:on   4:off  5:on   6:off

Also see if you have some pdf or postscript files in your samba documentation. /usr/share/doc/samba-<version>/ or /usr/share/doc/packages/samba/. It may contain 3 or 4 books that can help you configure samba. One of them is "Samba 3 by Example". On of the first example configurations may be what you want.

Different distro's package things differently, so you may have a samba-doc package that supplies these books. Also, you may need to install a separate package maybe named samba-swat to get swat.

Good Luck!

damiendusha · 07-14-2007, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jschiwal

You have it backwords. You mount the filesystems found on a device on a directory, not the other way around.

Linux like Unix uses a hierarchal file structure. There is a root file system and all other filesystems are mounted on directories or subdirectories under root. So all you need to do is create a /media directory and use that.

Wow... fast reply, thanks

My stuff-up with /media.... let's call it /music instead.

My / resides on /dev/sda1. If if mkdir /music, then it will be located on the single HDD, not the RAID array. I'd rather it reside on /dev/md0. But I already have /dev/md0 mounted at /home.

Is there a way to have my cake and eat it too?

jschiwal · 07-14-2007, 06:02 AM

Since you already are using md0 for the /home directory, you can create a /home/music directory and share that directory as [Music] in samba. This isn't a lot different then how some distro's setup a /home/samba share. When someone browses to your server, they will see a "music" shared directory.
Have fun eating your cake.

pixellany · 07-14-2007, 07:12 AM

I think this has been covered, but:

You can mount (connect) a device to multiple directories (mount points). The device will be accessible from each mount point.

You can mount multiple devices to one directory. You can only access, however, the last device mounted.

Thus, you have unlimited opportunities to confuse your users---and yourself......

ak_random · 07-14-2007, 11:58 AM

If you want to avoid doing something like /home/media, I think your other choice is to use some sort of partition manager to make a little room on /dev/md0 in order to create a new partition (i.e., /dev/md1) that you can use for mounting /media or whatnot. That said, I think it would be easier to create /home/media and have a symlink at /media pointing to it.

jiml8 · 07-14-2007, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ak_random

I think it would be easier to create /home/media and have a symlink at /media pointing to it.

That is what I would do.

But I wouldn't name it "media" because many current distros use /media as a mounpoint directory for removable media.

Calling it "music" would be a better plan.

damiendusha · 07-16-2007, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiml8

That is what I would do.

But I wouldn't name it "media" because many current distros use /media as a mounpoint directory for removable media.

Calling it "music" would be a better plan.

Agreed. It's nice and easy to share homes using Samba.

Thank you all.