Not sure if this is caused by Mepis or not... I'm attempting to automatically mount my hdc1 and hdd1 drives when Mepis starts. I've modified their entries to the following in /etc/fstab:

/dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1 vfat auto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1 vfat auto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0

However, when I restart the computer, the "auto" entry changes back to "noauto". Any idea what is causing this?


Full fstab file:

# Static entries below, do not use 'users' option in this area
/dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/hda5 swap swap sw,pri=1 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
# Dynamic entries below, identified by 'users' option
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=0222 0 0
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,dev,ro 0 0
/dev/floppy /mnt/floppy vfat,ext2,hfsplus noauto,users,dev,sync,dirsync 0 0

move them above the dynamic entries line, everything below gets regenerated on boot

It is not the dynamic entries line that matters, but the "users" option in the mounting option. It's stupid that Mepis uses "users", when "managed" is used by fstab-sync and others. I say it's stupid not because it's different but because users has a long recognized meaning of allowing ANY user to mount/unmount the drive in question.

Long story short: remove the "users," option.

no you can leave the users option alone, only things below it are considered valid. As the op of #mepis I deal with this question quite frequently, only that which is below that comment is mannaged. the users line is irrelevent.

Then the comment in the file ("# Dynamic entries below, identified by 'users' option") is very poorly phrased. It implies, to me anyway, that the 'users' field is key.

I have to wonder what kind of affect modifying/adding comments in fstab has on the Mepis management software.

editing that line, or just deleting it all together makes the whole thing set in stone, and screws up hardware detection

Interesting. Seems pretty inefficient to me, but to each their own.

Okay, so I see how adding hdc and hdd to the static portion of fstab should do what I'm trying to do (automatically mount the drives at startup). However, what hardware detection features will I be screwing up? Is there another way, possibly within the user interface, to get these drives to automatically mount?

On a side note, it seems logical that Mepis should mount these drives automatically. (I'm running Debian Sarge on another system and all hard drives come up mounted when I boot the computer.) Before looking into logging a Mepis enhancement request, can someone confirm/refute that Mepis does not/does mount extra drives? Just want to confirm that it's the distro and not me.

it does not automount anything but / and /home thats something you would have to take up with warren.