I recently changed the login manager (my sistem is a Debian etch 2.6.15-1) from gdm to kdm. I accomplished this by using the Synaptic Package Manager. Along kdm many depending packages were installed. After this installation whenever the system tries to mount a USB device the message "A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface "org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" member "Mount" error name "(unset)" destination "org.freedesktop.Hal")" appears. When I try to mount it manually the terminal sais "lazyboy:/media# mount sda1
mount: can't find sda1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab".


I appreciate any kind of help!! Thanks in advance!

Urs

I had a similar problem recently after a system update. It turned out to be a bug in hal or something. It was fixed the next time I updated my system.

Except that in my case, it didn't interfere with manual mounting.

I performed an upgrade and the problem remains the same. Thanks for your idea though!!!

Urs

Hi all!
It's obvious you get a message like that. You cannot just put
"mount sda1" on the console. How should /bin/mount know what file do you mean and where should it be mounted to?
Instad of that, try this out:
and you should have your usb disk mounted on /mnt
Am I right?

Best Regards,
OOZIE

I think you need to specify the file type with "-t auto" as well. Also, you need to do it as root by default.

A full mount command with some useful options would be something like this:

You can configure the mount command in the /etc/fstab file to make it easier to use. Then you only need to specify either the device or the mount point. But it doesn't always work correctly when it comes to removable drives due to various factors such as the order devices get plugged in.

Recent Debian systems can use pmount (and pumount) instead of the regular mount command for removable drives. On my system "pmount sda1" mounts my pendrive on /media/sda1. But I think pmount depends on the same hal system as the automounter lazyboy is having trouble with.

As for the update you tried, did you confirm that you installed a new version of hal, or did you just do a system upgrade? You might try downgrading to a older version instead.

Of course, the problem could be somewhere else, but considering that the error message is almost exactly like the one I had before, I'd still say it's the most likely cause.

thank you for all your suggestions! I did it the hard way and reinstalled the entire OS.

Appreciation!
Urs