[SOLVED] Can't read/write to external hd until I click its entry in thunar's left panel

porphyry5 · 08-06-2011, 01:03 PM

Code:

g  rsync -a /home/g/ '/media/Expansion Drive/gbu'
rsync: writefd_unbuffered failed to write 4 bytes to socket [sender]: Broken pipe (32)
rsync: mkdir "/media/Expansion Drive/gbu" failed: No such file or directory (2)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(577) [Receiver=3.0.7]
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (9 bytes received so far) [sender]
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(601) [sender=3.0.7]
g  ls '/media/Expansion Drive/gbu'
ls: cannot access /media/Expansion Drive/gbu: No such file or directory

At this point I go to thunar's window, see "Expansion Drive" is listed in its left panel, so I assume it is mounted, and click it. There is a delay of several seconds before its content displays in the right hand panel. I then

Code:

g  ls '/media/Expansion Drive/gbu'
Books      LinuxUse      Pictures  growisofs.manual.html  lynxmanip.html~
Desktop    LynxBBC.pdf   Receipts  lynx.cfg               nohup.out
Documents  ManualsHTML   Scripts   lynx_bookmarks.html    tuts
Downloads  Music         allvar    lynx_bookmarks.html~
Essays     OtherManuals  envar     lynxmanip.html
g  rsync -a /home/g/ '/media/Expansion Drive/gbu'
g

Could someone kindly explain what I need to do at the command line to achieve the effect of that click in thunar's left panel.

george-lappies · 08-06-2011, 01:13 PM

It only gets mounted once you click on it in thunar. Otherwise you have to manually mount the drive before you can write or read to it.

porphyry5 · 08-06-2011, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by george-lappies

It only gets mounted once you click on it in thunar. Otherwise you have to manually mount the drive before you can write or read to it.

Then I should rephrase my question. On my system all other external devices automount when the system boots or when I attach them when the system is running. So how can I get this external hard drive to automount in the same way?

gazj · 08-06-2011, 02:24 PM

By adding an entry in the /etc/fstab file.

See `man fstab` for more information.

porphyry5 · 08-06-2011, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gazj

By adding an entry in the /etc/fstab file.

See `man fstab` for more information.

Now I'm completely confused. First, as this thing is a usb device, shouldn't it mount automatically like all my other usb devices, with fstab as is? Second, I'm missing something about fstab. I've made 2 attempts to include this device specifically, both having no effect other than to require that it be manually mounted by root. Thunar otherwise generates this message

Code:

Failed to mount "Expansion Drive".
mount: only root can mount /dev/sdb1 on /media/Expansion Drive.

My fstab contains

Code:

/dev/sda1        /                ext4        defaults         1   1
/dev/cdrom       /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
tmpfs            /dev/shm         tmpfs       defaults         0   0
#/dev/sdb1 /media/Expansion\040Drive fuseblk   rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions 0   0
#/dev/sdb1 /media/Expansion\040Drive fuseblk   defaults         0   0

gnashley · 08-07-2011, 01:15 AM

Maybe you don't have fuse hard-linked in the kernel. fstab gets processed very early, so fuse , if modularized, wouldn't be available.

Another possibility is that whatever is doing auto-mounting rules that drive out -possibly because it doesn't show up as being removable. Is it a real spinning hard drive whereas your other usb devices are flash drives?

germanopratin · 08-07-2011, 02:36 AM

maybe i am missing something, but you have to uncomment the entries in /etc/fstab. the fstab you listed has the entries commented out. Even if the system should be capable of auto-mounting usb drives for non-root users, it only does so if you provide appropriate fstab entries. try to add "user" in your mount options.

porphyry5 · 08-07-2011, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnashley

Maybe you don't have fuse hard-linked in the kernel. fstab gets processed very early, so fuse , if modularized, wouldn't be available.

That I don't know, I'm using 13.1 standard issue, all default options whenever possible, fluxbox window manager. How does one determine if fuse is hard-linked or modularized?

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnashley

Another possibility is that whatever is doing auto-mounting rules that drive out -possibly because it doesn't show up as being removable. Is it a real spinning hard drive whereas your other usb devices are flash drives?

Good hit, I thought it was flash, but it is a spinner, which makes it different to all the other usb devices. But I may be able to find the solution in this link http://http://www.linuxquestions.org...d-this-566862/

porphyry5 · 08-07-2011, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanopratin

maybe i am missing something, but you have to uncomment the entries in /etc/fstab. the fstab you listed has the entries commented out. Even if the system should be capable of auto-mounting usb drives for non-root users, it only does so if you provide appropriate fstab entries. try to add "user" in your mount options.

They are commented out because they didn't work, but I want them for reference until the solution is found, to avoid retrying them.

porphyry5 · 08-07-2011, 11:59 AM

Let this be a lesson to me; always use the command line, even when the gui method is easier. You get better diagnostics.
When I tried to mount the drive at the CL, it told me I did not have write access to the drive, which surprised me as I thought I was the owner of the drive. Which led me to:

Code:

root  ls -l /media
total 64
drwxr-xr-x 3 g root  4096 Aug  7 09:04 Expansion Drive
root  chown root:root '/media/Expansion Drive'
root  chown g:users '/media/Expansion Drive'
root  ls -l /media
total 64
drwxr-xr-x 3 g users 4096 Aug  7 09:04 Expansion Drive

Which fixed the problem completely. So there was no problem with the automount after all, the os would only let owner "g" of the "root" group write to the device. No such animal; though one can, its not a good idea to just change the owner with chown, one needs to check that the group is correct as well.
My thanks to all who helped, and my apologies for wasting your time.

dc_eros · 08-08-2011, 06:42 PM

If I'm not mistaken, (and if you are using XFCE), you can set to automount and even open the mounted drive in Thunar once plugged in. I have set it once but I found it annoying