Automount Options

[pkelly]

So, I'm trying to figure out the best/easiest way to automount removable drives such as USB sticks and external USB hard drives. I'd like to go with the main repository and not AUR to make sure that the packages do not get orphaned. I've looked at a few different options so far. I'll list and share my experience:

1. Udisks2 - sounds promising. I installed it but I can't find any decent documentation on it to help me figure out how to use it. I know it utilized polkit-1, but that doesn't help me understand how to interact with it to get it going. Any help with this would be much appreciated

2. autofs - this sounds tried and true, but it also sounds like it has serious issues under certain conditions. I won't go into the issues, they're listed in the wiki. If I'm wrong about the stability of autofs, please encourage me in the other direction. Some setup instructions would also be nice. I was confused by the wiki when it was going through using templates. So a straight forward "this is how you use it" would be nice.

3. udev - i've heard you can simply set up udev rules, again I have no experience with, but I've also read this is not recommended for just randomly automounting/auto-unmounting drives. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me.

At the end of the day, I'd really like a simple solution to automounting and unmounting drives as they are plugged in and unplugged at random. Perhaps with a common folder where they are mounted. I'm also all ears for all other well maintained, stable options. Thanks everyone, you've been a big help.

[grayman4hire]

The issue with automounting is, what's your plan for unmounting? How would you "auto-unmount" and make sure your drive doesn't get corrupted?

[pkelly]

Well, some of these programs unmount drives after so many seconds of inactivity. I would see that as a valid option. How does windows accomplish this? I'm not as familiar with behind-the-scenes windows stuff, but if they are able to accomplish being able to yank a usb drive out at any time and the drive be fine, then is there something out there that could manage write cache for linux to protect the drive? Sure if it was in mid-write of a file, that file wouldn't survive the yank, but when you plugged it back in it could finish it via the write cache right? If i'm way off, just say so. I'm just asking questions to see what's possible. Thanks.

[grayman4hire]

Windows require you to "eject" the USB drive manually. If your device has a button (like the Pogoplug V4), you can probably set it up so that the button does the umount.

[Waynosan]

Total noob here and in the process of setting up my PPv2 and Archlinux but found that udevil is an option for automount

Scroll a little ways down and you should see the instructions:
http://obihoernchen.net/770/plug_computer_arch_linux/