halevt cannot mount because of permissions

senseproof · 05-05-2009, 03:48 PM

The halevt daemon starts itself as the user halevt. So when I put in my removable media I notice it tries to mount them (from /var/log/messages):

XXXXX localhost halevt: Running: halevt-mount -u /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/XXXXX -o sync -m 002

But no device is mounted. If I make halevt daemon start as root then the devices mount like they should so the problem is that the halevt user does not have the right permission to mount devices. How can I give it that permission? Since these are removable medias I can't add specific permissions for each media, the halevt user must be able to mount/unmount any removable media entered.

david1941 · 05-05-2009, 03:55 PM

set it up in /etc/fstab and give it the users flag (see man fstab)

senseproof · 05-05-2009, 04:12 PM

david one of us has not understood the other. I cannot add the devices to /etc/fstab because I do not know what their UUID's will be. These are removable USB keys, sd cards, etc. I knew of the existance of the /etc/fstab file and read the man page before posting this question. Sorry if I am missing something obvious but it does not describe how to grant a user the rights to mount/unmount ANY unknown devices I have to know their UUID in advance, which defeats a good deal of the point of having halevt at all.

Is my only option to run the daemon as root?

senseproof · 05-15-2009, 04:17 PM

I have written a udev rule to do this. It will be published on sourceforge in a couple of days (when they approve the project) and you can install it if it is something you want too. This post will be updated with the URL.

Ouiqui · 05-29-2009, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by senseproof

The halevt daemon starts itself as the user halevt. So when I put in my removable media I notice it tries to mount them (from /var/log/messages):

XXXXX localhost halevt: Running: halevt-mount -u /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/XXXXX -o sync -m 002

But no device is mounted. If I make halevt daemon start as root then the devices mount like they should so the problem is that the halevt user does not have the right permission to mount devices. How can I give it that permission? Since these are removable medias I can't add specific permissions for each media, the halevt user must be able to mount/unmount any removable media entered.

Hello Senseproof,

To allow the user "halevt" to automount your removables, you should add this to your /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf :

Code:

  <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable">
    <match user="halevt">
      <return result="yes"/>
    </match>
  </match>

(in between the <config></config> tags)

Then stop halevt daemon, restart hal, and start halevt.

I had the same problem and this fixed it.

(see http://hal.freedesktop.org/docs/Poli...it.conf.5.html)

Jeff91 · 11-20-2010, 11:06 AM

Hate to bump an old thread - but do you know how to apply that PolicyKit rule to Ubuntu 10.04 where they no longer use /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf?

~Jeff