How to mount a partition with GUI

[ronshor]

I already used System Settings / Removable Devices to automount my partition. What is a bit odd to me is the fact that the System partition on the Removable Devices GUI is not check marked as automount on login ... which doesn't make any sense.... If the system partition is not mounted on login then how am I using kubuntu at all ? but maybe it's just a bug in the GUI or something

As for the security issues you talk about...I get that, but as we can see it seems like everybody is automounting their partition/devices (experts to Home or "Data" and newbies to /media ) so eventually we get the same result.

[tek_heretik]

What is a bit odd to me is the fact that the System partition on the Removable Devices GUI is not check marked as automount on login ... which doesn't make any sense.... If the system partition is not mounted on login then how am I using kubuntu at all ? but maybe it's just a bug in the GUI or something

Nah, if I'm not mistaken, root primarily owns that partition, I wondered the same thing.

[vinnywright]

What is a bit odd to me is the fact that the System partition on the Removable Devices GUI is not check marked as automount on login ... which doesn't make any sense.... If the system partition is not mounted on login then how am I using kubuntu at all ? but maybe it's just a bug in the GUI or something

actually it makes perfect sense ,,,,, their is no kneed to have the system partition checked for auto mount (or on the list at all) as the system couldn’t boot without the system partition mounted , so / (root) and their for the partition / is on is always mounted if the system is running.

by default the only partitions that are mounted at boot are the ones that you assign to the system during the install of the system and they are automaticly added to /etc/fstab during the install process .

on this laptop I have 7 partitions spread over 3 OS installs ,,,,

vinny@vinny-HP-G62:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for vinny: 
Model: ATA WDC WD5000BEVT-6 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags
 1      32.3kB  4195MB  4195MB  primary   linux-swap(v1)
 2      4195MB  26.0GB  21.8GB  primary   ext4            boot
 3      26.0GB  237GB   210GB   primary   ext4
 4      237GB   500GB   264GB   extended
 5      237GB   268GB   31.6GB  logical   ext3
 6      268GB   300GB   32.0GB  logical   ext4
 7      300GB   500GB   200GB   logical   ext4

Kubuntu 12.04 has / on /dev/sda2 and /home on /dev/sda3 ,,,, if I need any thing from one of the others it's a click away in dolphin .

Kubuntu 12.10 has / in /dev/sda5 instead of having a large /home hear I just system link the folders in my /home to ones in both /dev/sda3 & /dev/sda7 ,,,,,this of course means I need /dev/sda3 & /dev/sda7 mounted at boot so the system links will be active at start .
So I make a mount point for them

sudo mkdir /mnt/disk && mkdir /mnt/disk1

now I open /etc/fstab for editing

kdesudo kate /etc/fstab

and add these lines to the fstab file

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=51916d2f-8366-4c7a-bccf-c40cc9d9b3bc /               ext3    errors=remount-ro,user_xattr 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=419b2146-8e8a-4d97-90ed-89e519e1dc0d none            swap    sw              0       0
[COLOR=#ff0000]/dev/sda3 /mnt/disk     ext4    defaults      0       2
/dev/sda7 /mnt/disk1    ext4    defaults      0       2[/COLOR]

then it just a

sudo mount -a

and the 2 partitions at /dev/sda3 & /dev/sda7 are avalable in /mnt/disk & disk1 and I can set up the system links to the locations I wish ,,,

like these

vinny@vinny-HP-G62:~$ ls -l | grep ">"
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny       24 Dec  7  2012 dwhelper -> /mnt/disk/vinny/dwhelper
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny       21 Dec  7  2012 Music 1 -> /mnt/disk/vinny/Music
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny       16 Dec  7  2012 Music 2 -> /mnt/disk1/Music
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny       22 Dec  7  2012 Videos 1 -> /mnt/disk/vinny/Videos
lrwxrwxrwx  1 vinny vinny       17 Dec  7  2012 Videos 2 -> /mnt/disk1/Videos

☢VINNY☢

[ronshor]

By the way, the etc/fstab folder you talk about is called etc/fstab.d on my system. Is that okay ? (the folder is empty but I guess it's because I didn't set any mount points and I'm using /media)

Another thing I would like to know is about the dolphin side panel. When you right click a partition icon on the side panel you get a few options to choose from Unmount, Add Entry, Hide Entry and Unlock Panels

If I unmount the system partition, what will happen ? will kubuntu shut down ?

And what are Add/Hide Entry and Unlock panels do ?
I'm afraid to play with it myself and change something I'm not supposed to.

[vinnywright]

By the way, the etc/fstab folder you talk about is called etc/fstab.d on my system. Is that okay ? (the folder is empty but I guess it's because I didn't set any mount points and I'm using /media)

no it is not /etc/fstab.d that is a folder ,,, you have a /etc/fstab file !!

Another thing I would like to know is about the dolphin side panel. When you right click a partition icon on the side panel you get a few options to choose from Unmount, Add Entry, Hide Entry and Unlock Panels

If I unmount the system partition, what will happen ? will kubuntu shut down ?

I do not know ,,,,, try it and tell us I did once do a "rm -rf /bin" as root ,,,,,at first lt looked ok ,,,,,,but then I realised I could do nothing anymore ,,, just look at the desktop but nothing would respond to a click or key stroke ,,,,,,,luckily I had a duplicate system I could boot to and copy /bin back over ,,,,,,,

And what are Add/Hide Entry and Unlock panels do ?
I'm afraid to play with it myself and change something I'm not supposed to.

just that ,,,,if you click "hide" it will not show that entry any more and "unlock panels" ,,,,,unlocks the panels in dolphin so you can move them or remove them ,,,,,,,,just now I clicked "unlock panels" and put the "places panel" (the one that showes the hard drives) and put it on the other side of the desktop from dolphin,,,,,,then put it back.

VINNY

[SteveRiley]

For those curious about the appearance of /etc/fstab.d: http://askubuntu.com/questions/16829...in-etc-fstab-d

[Frank616]

Steve:

So, is this an effort to automount drives in a way that the whole system can use it immediately?

This is one of the things that I liked about Xandros, but was too new to Linux to understand. Xandros looked after the mounting of additional drives without me having to adjust anything. How they did it I don't remember, but it seems that they used some non-standard little program that scanned the hardware, and then wrote fstab 'on the fly' IIRC.

It was only when I went to Fedora, and then to Kubuntu that I had to learn about, and start fiddling with fstab manually. Coming from Windows (as most of us did), the failure to automount drives was a puzzle to me. I'd been shielded from that prior to my foray into mainstream distros.

Frank.

[SteveRiley]

So, is this an effort to automount drives in a way that the whole system can use it immediately?

You'll note in the link that further upstream discussion has reverted fstab.d behavior from mount. That's because...

fiddling with fstab manually

...is really unnecessary these days. Udev, Udisks, Udisks2, and the Solid framework take care of most of the manual fiddling we used to have to do, and all in ways that are compliant with FreeDesktop.org specs.

[Frank616]

Steve:

fiddling with fstab manually
...is really unnecessary these days. Udev, Udisks, Udisks2, and the Solid framework take care of most of the manual fiddling we used to have to do, and all in ways that are compliant with FreeDesktop.org specs.

Three cheers for the devs!!

Frank.

[Frank616]

Steve:

...is really unnecessary these days. Udev, Udisks, Udisks2, and the Solid framework take care of most of the manual fiddling we used to have to do, and all in ways that are compliant with FreeDesktop.org specs.

I am putting together a new install of 12.10 on a dual-drive machine where sda is an SSD with the system on it, and sdb is a 1.5 TB mechanical disk in the same box that has all my data on it. In the past I have edited fstab manually so that I could symlink the /data directory on sdb to my /home directory. This has worked well.

In this new install, I did not edit fstab. Dolphin shows a disk drive 'backup' in the left pane (which is the name of the 1.5 TB HDD), and I can access it from Dolphin just fine. I dragged the /data directory from sdb (backup) in the right pane of Dolphin to my home directory in the right pane of a second instance of Dolphin, and selected 'link here'. Worked fine -- until I rebooted.

Initially there was no link. The symlink was broken -- for a few minutes. It now seems to work again without me doing anything to the machine.

1) Is what I have done an acceptable way to give my user account access to the /data directory on sdb?

2) Is it normal for there to be a time delay before the link is reformed after a boot?

Hope this makes sense.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Unless it's in fstab, it won't be mounted at boot. If you put it in fstab, it will be mounted before you log in and thus your link will be available.

Whether or not this works for you, only you can say. I have several local drives that do not mount at boot, but are defined in fstab so I can access them without trouble using Dolphin when I need to. I prefer this so I can control the mount parameters.

[Frank616]

ohunluvr:

I have several local drives that do not mount at boot, but are defined in fstab so I can access them without trouble using Dolphin when I need to. I prefer this so I can control the mount parameters.

So "Udev, Udisks, Udisks2, and the Solid framework" don't really mount the disk?

My main reason for asking is that I use rsync to keep all my /data directories mirrored across my 5 or so machines. I give rsync a mount point to sync to. AFAIK, rsync won't sync to an unmounted disk.

If you put it in fstab, it will be mounted before you log in and thus your link will be available.

However, this means that it WILL be available as a mounted drive AFTER I log in?

That is all I need, though modifying fstab is no longer a chore after doing it for so many years.

I've been a Linux USER for a long time, but I am pretty much on a need to know basis as to its internal workings. My depth of knowledge is abysmally shallow.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Udisks2 will mount the disk fine, it's just a matter of when and how. The default behavior is to not mount unused file systems. Admittedly, one could write a udev rule to accomplish exactly what is wanted but I've never been able to get a udev rule to work. Likely my fault, but I'm too busy to figure it out right now. The system doesn't "know" you want to run rsync so it doesn't mount the file system for you.

Keeping in mind I'm a rather "old school" linux user so I always default to the old ways of doing things: My fstab has all my filesystems in it. The ones I don't use all the time are set with "noauto" and "users" options so a simple click with dolphin and they mount and open. Rather than a separate /home for my installs, I keep my personal files in /data and then bind mount to the appropriate folders. This is my preference because it gives the appearance of a local file system rather than using a symlink. I also have my server shares mounted in fstab because the lions share of my data resides there. I also have a networked DVR that uses samba, but I don't have in in fstab because a rarely access it from the computer and Dolphin will mount it when needed.

If you wanted to automate the whole thing, you could write a script to mount and sync your folders at log in or boot up. I'm curious, how do you sync five separate file systems on five PC's?

[Frank616]

I'm curious, how do you sync five separate file systems on five PC's?

One at a time.

I did have a CRON job that ran at night to do this, but I've since gone back to doing it by hand. It is not so much a sync as it is a copying of files from the source machine to the target machine that are either newer than the files on the target machine, or do not exist at all on the target machine.

While rsync will also delete files from the target machine that have been deleted on the source machine, I have never enabled that because I fear than an accidental erase on one machine will remove all backup copies on the other machines. This means that I manually have to delete any files I remove on all my machines, which is a bit of a pain, but disk space is cheap, and I generally do this sort of housecleaning about once/year. I clean up one machine the way I want it. I then rename the whole /data directory to /data-old on the desktop downstairs, then just re run my script. It takes a while, but the script will just plain copy the whole 'cleaned' /data directory to my desktop machine downstairs. I then go around and manually delete the /data directories on the other 3 machines, and run the scripts on those machines as well.

Not elegant, but it works, and I've never lost any data now in some 8 years of using Linux -- despite two hard drive crashes.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Any of these machines on 24/7? Would be a lot easier IMO to have a central location.