Ubuntu's automounter: Configuration

[Gabriel M Dragffy]

On Tue, 2006-09-26 at 01:34 -0500, Scott Severance wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> I've noticed many questions on the forums about permissions and other
> problems on removable Windows-formatted disks. Fixing the permissions
> is simple in fstab; the problem is that removable devices have
> changing names. If they were ext3 partitions, they could be mounted
> using a LABEL= device, but that doesn't apply to vfat/ntfs AFAIK. All
> that means that the ideal solution would bypass fstab for removable
> media--while still allowing configuration of mount options.
> 
> 1. What program does Ubuntu use to auto mount?
> 
> 2. I know that pmount is involved in the process, but I haven't been
> able to figure out what program calls pmount (gnome-volume-manager?)
> and how to configure the mount options that program uses. For example,
> I think that Win filesystems should be mounted with umask=000. How do
> I set that up?
> 
> 3. How do I make the automounter use ntfs-3g instead of ntfs?
> 
> 4. I've messed with udev, but it isn't general enough. I'm looking for
> a change that will affect EVERY vfat/ntfs removable device.
> 
> 5. I decided to hunt through the gnome-volume-manager source code to
> find out where the mount options get set. Beginning on line 1400 of
> src/manager.c, there are a number of mount options--presumably
> constants. But I'm not a C programmer, and I can't find where those
> constants (or variables?) get set. I've searched through every file in
> the source distribution and I can't find a single occurrence of the
> string "MOUNT_UMASK" aside from the section I mentioned. MOUNT_UMASK
> has to be defined somewhere, but where? Anyone able to find that?
> 
> 6. Is there any documentation on this somewhere? I couldn't find
> anything useful through Google. I've also asked on the forum--that
> discussion is here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=262696
>  		
> -- 

Hi, I myself, am not sure of the answer, however a while back there was
another email posted on this list by some kind soul named Raphael. I
have quoted that email as follows, hope it is useful:

"I am using udev rules to assign fixed names to my USB devices. 
In /etc/udev/rules.d I have the file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-locals.rules
with 
the following content:
BUS="scsi", SYSFS{model}="iPod            ", KERNEL="sd*", NAME="%k", \ 
SYMLINK="ipod"
BUS="scsi", SYSFS{model}="Flash Disk      ", KERNEL="sd*", NAME="%k", \ 
SYMLINK="usb1gb"
BUS="scsi", SYSFS{model}="2500JB External ", KERNEL="sd*", NAME="%k", \ 
SYMLINK="wd250g"
BUS="scsi", SYSFS{model}="5000KS External ", KERNEL="sd*", NAME="%k", \ 
SYMLINK="wd500g"
BUS="scsi", SYSFS{model}="USBDrive        ", KERNEL="sd*", NAME="%k", \ 
SYMLINK="usb2gb"

('\' means "real" line continues on next "text" line)

This entries generate symlinks in /dev to the actual used sd entry. For 
example when I attach my 250GB Western Digital external drive, the 
entry /dev/wd250g is created and I can use this to mount the drive.

To get the name your drive is used, look in /var/log/messages after
attaching 
your drive to see what name your drive is using.

HTH
Raphael"