Re: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:27:12 +1000 From: David Ryder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root To: Ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi, HARDY I have a drive which at various times in the day and week, I want to mount/umount, via cron and a script, in ?/media or another folder /media/this-drive-folder/. Because I want to use different folders at different mount times (for valid business reasons) the drive can not be in fstab, as I understand it, because then I would not have the choice of which folder to mount it in. But - mount wants root only to mount. I think users can mount fstab drives if noauto, user (or suid using sudoers?) are used but that does not overcome my mount location needs. So, the crux of all this is, is it possible to mount an ntfs drive that is not in fstab, as a user in a script, without needing sudo? Thanks, David Hi David, The only way I know to do what you're trying to do is to add a line in /etc/sudoers for the user that will be mounting the drive. Using the command - sudo visudo - in a terminal you can add the line - [username] ALL = NOPASSWD: /bin/mount, /bin/umount where [username] is the users' login name. The user will need admin rights and you will still need to have sudo mount in you're script but it won't ask for a password. Hope it helps. Paul -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
RE: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root (David Ryder) [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
David Ryder wrote: -- Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:27:12 +1000 From: David Ryder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root To: Ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I have a drive which at various times in the day and week, I want to mount/umount, via cron and a script, in ?/media or another folder /media/this-drive-folder/. Because I want to use different folders at different mount times (for valid business reasons) the drive can not be in fstab, as I understand it, because then I would not have the choice of which folder to mount it in. But - mount wants root only to mount. I think users can mount fstab drives if noauto, user (or suid using sudoers?) are used but that does not overcome my mount location needs. So, the crux of all this is, is it possible to mount an ntfs drive that is not in fstab, as a user in a script, without needing sudo? Thanks, David -- Hi David, You could take a look at the pmount/pumount commands ... you will need to install the pmount package first Regards, Lawson Hanson -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... Hi, HARDY I have a drive which at various times in the day and week, I want to mount/umount, via cron and a script, in ?/media or another folder /media/this-drive-folder/. Because I want to use different folders at different mount times (for valid business reasons) the drive can not be in fstab, as I understand it, because then I would not have the choice of which folder to mount it in. But - mount wants root only to mount. I think users can mount fstab drives if noauto, user (or suid using sudoers?) are used but that does not overcome my mount location needs. So, the crux of all this is, is it possible to mount an ntfs drive that is not in fstab, as a user in a script, without needing sudo? ... Hi David, The only way I know to do what you're trying to do is to ... That's like a red flag to a bull. There's *always* more than one way to do it. :-) Here are two more suggestions: 1. Use autofs with two mount points defined, each addressing the same device. e.g., put this in /etc/auto.master: /mymedia/etc/auto.mymedia --timeout=10 # seconds and this in /etc/auto.mymedia: cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom hd1 -fstype=auto:/dev/sda hd2 -fstype=ext3:/dev/sda Then when you want to use the drive, just cd to /mymedia/hd1 and it will be ready to go. 2. Use manual mounting: /dev/sda /mymedia/hd1 ext3 user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sda /mymedia/hd2 ext3 user,noauto 0 0 Then you can just 'mount /mymedia/hd1' as a normal user, and neither point will mount automatically when the system boots. Note that if this is a USB or similar device (firewire, eSATA), you'll probably need to disable automatic mounting of devices with the GNOME tools. (I can't remember how to do this.) Paul smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root
Thanks everybody for replying. My questions are below: Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:27:12 +1000 From: David Ryder [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mounting a drive - not using fstab or root To: Ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi, HARDY I have a drive which at various times in the day and week, I want to mount/umount, via cron and a script, in ?/media or another folder /media/this-drive-folder/. Because I want to use different folders at different mount times (for valid business reasons) the drive can not be in fstab, as I understand it, because then I would not have the choice of which folder to mount it in. But - mount wants root only to mount. I think users can mount fstab drives if noauto, user (or suid using sudoers?) are used but that does not overcome my mount location needs. So, the crux of all this is, is it possible to mount an ntfs drive that is not in fstab, as a user in a script, without needing sudo? Thanks, David Hi David, The only way I know to do what you're trying to do is to add a line in /etc/sudoers for the user that will be mounting the drive. Using the command - sudo visudo - in a terminal you can add the line - [username] ALL = NOPASSWD: /bin/mount, /bin/umount where [username] is the users' login name. The user will need admin rights and you will still need to have sudo mount in you're script but it won't ask for a password. Hope it helps. Paul Thanks Paul. This *seems* easy to me - but when I type sudo visudo I get the terminal and file but no way of editing or saving it. Please may I ask how to type these commands in the file in terminal and where is the 'Save' ability? Also, presumably the entry would go in the section: # User privilege specification rootALL=(ALL) ALL myusername ALL = NOPASSWD /bin/mount, /bin/umount Problem - having opened it once I now get the message when opening it: E325: ATTENTION Found a swap file by the name /etc/.sudoers.tmp.swp owned by: root dated: Thu May 29 07:11:32 2008 file name: /etc/sudoers.tmp modified: YES user name: root host name: ubuntu-server process ID: 14019 While opening file /etc/sudoers.tmp dated: Fri May 23 09:43:58 2008 (1) Another program may be editing the same file. If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two different instances of the same file when making changes. Quit, or continue with caution. (2) An edit session for this file crashed. If this is the case, use :recover or vim -r /etc/sudoers.tmp to recover the changes (see :help recovery). If you did this already, delete the swap file /etc/.sudoers.tmp.swp to avoid this message. /etc/sudoers.tmp 23 lines, 470 characters Press ENTER or type command to continue Can I just delete /etc/sudoers.tmp and restore /etc/sudoers from last night's backup to overcome this? Thanks. Hi David, You could take a look at the pmount/pumount commands ... you will need to install the pmount package first Regards, Lawson Hanson Thanks Lawson. It says pmoun/pumount is a wrapper for removeable drives - these are fixed discs, not unpluggable usb/hot swap drives. I find that often the word 'removeable' has different meanings in documentation - the drive in question is simply a non ubuntu drive in the same box. Is that 'removeable'? That's like a red flag to a bull. There's *always* more than one way to do it. :-) Here are two more suggestions: 1. Use autofs with two mount points defined, each addressing the same device. e.g., put this in /etc/auto.master: /mymedia/etc/auto.mymedia --timeout=10 # seconds and this in /etc/auto.mymedia: cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom hd1 -fstype=auto:/dev/sda hd2 -fstype=ext3:/dev/sda Then when you want to use the drive, just cd to /mymedia/hd1 and it will be ready to go. 2. Use manual mounting: /dev/sda /mymedia/hd1 ext3 user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sda /mymedia/hd2 ext3 user,noauto 0 0 Thanks Paul. The fstab entry, taken out, was: LABEL=hardy-backups /media/hardy-backups ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_AU.UTF-8 0 0 Would this then be: LABEL=hardy-backups /media/hardy-backups ntfs-3g user,noauto 0 0 because if so, I have already tried that and it doesn't work. Is there still an issue with user,noauto? Then you can just 'mount /mymedia/hd1' as a normal user, and neither point will mount automatically when the system boots. My scripts rely on the LABEL to mount the drive and a different mount point, described in the scripts, for different uses, eg, mount LABEL=hardy-backups /media/loc1, mount LABEL=hardy-backups /media/loc2 to mount and umount /media/loc1/ to unmount. Note that if this is a USB or
