Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Auto mounting File Systems in Linux

Some Linux Distros (like Fedora Core 6 FC6) do not automatically mount the local file systems such as FAT/FAT32 systems that belong to the windows drive. To mount and unmount file systems you must be logged on as a root user or must have root privileges

Mounting Manually

First change to root


@localhost ~]$ su
Password: Password
root@localhost ]# mount -t Filesystem Device Directory

Mounting the file system manually is done by the mount command.

Filesystem is vfat for FAT/FAT32 File System.
Other filesystems that could be given can be found on
/etc/filesystems


The Device can be got from System > Administration > Logical Volume Management which shows local hard drives and its name as
/dev/sdaX
or
/dev/hdaX
etc.

The Directory specifies which folder must the file system be mounted into. For example if you want to mount to mnt/hddC/ the device /dev/sda8 (FAT32) , the full command is

@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
root@localhost ]# mkdir /mnt/hddC
root@localhost ]# mount -t vfat /dev/sda8 /mnt/hddC


NTFS
Install ntfs-3g module by yum install ntfs-3g

root@localhost ]# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /mnt/hddD -o force

Unmounting the File System


@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
root@localhost ]# umount /dev/sda8


Automatcially Mounting File Systems :

To automatically mount certain file systems, so that we do not want to do the same procedure each time the computer starts, we have to edit the
/etc/fstab
file. To edit the same you must have root access. Assuming you have root access to mount a local Filesystem, add the following line.


Device ID Mount Directory FileSystem Options

Eg:
/dev/sda8 /mnt/sda1 vfat rw,umask=0000,uid=500,gid=500 0 0


where the uid=500, gid=500 must be replaced by the proper user ids which can be got from System > Administration > Users and Groups in Fedora Core 6.

Automounting NTFS
Append
/dev/sda8  /mnt/hddD  ntfs-3g  default 0 0



Help me
I did this in Fedora Core 6. If any of you guys have any information on how to do the same on other linux distros , or if you have any other information, please post a comment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

/etc/fstab is a typical linux thing and can be found on every distribution which caters to desktop... (not sure about embedded linux)..fstab --> file system table.

Check out http://www.humbug.org.au/talks/fstab/fstab.html

Anirudh said...

You can use fdisk to find out the partitions that you want to mount -

debian-indraprastha:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1912 15358108+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 1913 3960 16450560 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 3961 4870 7309575 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 1913 3187 10241406 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 3917 3960 353398+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 3188 3916 5855661 83 Linux

and..when mounting fat32 partitions using the mount command, you don't have to specify the filesystem type. It will be autodetected. For eg:
debian-indraprastha:~# mount /dev/sda1 /disks/c