fstab-sync Issue - I Think

[C. Beamer]

David Zeuthen wrote:

>On Sat, 2005-01-29 at 23:16 -0500, C. Beamer wrote:
>  
>
>>The situation is this:
>>
>>A couple of weeks ago, I installed Fedora Core 3.  This is my home 
>>computer.  When everything was up and running, I tried to mount my zip 
>>drive under my normal user id using 'Disk Management' from the menu, 
>>only to be told that there were no file systems that I was permitted to 
>>mount.
>>    
>>
>
>This got fixed in an update IIRC - 'Disk Management' needed to be
>taught about the new pamconsole user.
>
>  
>
I'm not sure what you mean here.  I regularly update my system.  I have 
the Redhat Alert icon sitting on my desktop, and whenever it flags that 
there is an update available, I update.  However, I use yum to do the 
actual update.  The repositories I use are the stable-release ones for 
Redhat, Freshrpms, kernel.org and one for updates-testing.

>>  "No problem", I thought.  I just went in and proceeded to edit 
>>the fstab file.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Have you applied all the latest updates? There were some issues with
>IDE zip drives that got fixed around hal version 0.4.3. USB Zip drives
>works pretty much out of the box in the hal shipped with FC3.
>
As previously stated, yes I keep my system updated.

> 
>
>With the updates it should "just work" (assuming your zip media is
>partitioned in the standard way, e.g. the data on partition 4 - this
>will get fixed in hal 0.5.x although it will require minor surgery
>to the gnome-vfs and konqueror hal patches)
>  
>
My zip and CDROM drive do "just work" (and with no file added in 
/usr/share/hal/fdi/50userpolicy/)  if I use another method for mounting 
them - i.e. KDE's kwikdisk.  However, I've always been used to using 
"Disk Management", so that is what I used when I first wanted to mount 
my zip drive and I got the message that there were no filesystems that I 
was permitted to mount.

Also, with no file in /usr/share/hal/fdi/50userpolicy/, as root I can 
mount my zip drive from the command line, but can't as a normal user (of 
course, this latter is normal because back in the days of RH 5.x, 6.x, 
7.x, 8 and 9, you could not mount a device from the command line as a 
normal user).

>SCSI Zip drives won't work unless you add a file with these contents
>
> <deviceinfo version="0.2">
>   <device>
>     <match key="storage.bus" string="scsi">
>       <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount" type="bool">true</merge>
>     </match>
>   </device>
> </deviceinfo>
>
>in /usr/share/hal/fdi/95userpolicy and make sure it ends in ".fdi".
>This is intentional since, in FC3, we don't want to allow an
>unprivileged
>authorized console user to mount SCSI devices since SCSI devices is
>not necessarily close the console (think iSCSI).
>  
>
Well, I created a file with this code in 
/usr/share/hal/fdo/95userpolicy/ but it didn't make any difference 
(refer to comments above).

>  
>
>>Well, the first surprise that I got was that devices are now stored in 
>>/usr/media.  
>>    
>>
>
>I think you mean /media. This is what FHS suggests; we're just trying
>to be compliant in FC3 :-)
>  
>
Well, this was just a stupid "typo" - I know that the media directory is 
in the / directory, as was it's predecessor mnt  :-)

>  
>
>>However, this was not a problem.  Despite the comment at 
>>the beginning of the file that the fstab file was edited by fstab-sync, 
>>I went ahead and edited my fstab file anyway.  This worked, but of 
>>course, on reboot, the fstab file was reloaded and I was back to square one.
>>
>>So, I read the man page for fstab-sync, which wasn't very helpful other 
>>than being told that to add a new entry, I was supposed to use 
>>'fstab-sync - - add [UDI], but I couldn't figure out the exact syntax I 
>>was supposed to use to supply the UDI.
>>    
>>
>
>Just remove the option 'managed' and fstab-sync won't delete your entry.
>  
>
Do you mean that I should edit the fstab file directly and remove 'managed'?

If so, that might solve the problem of me being able to use 'Disk 
Management' to mount my devices.  However, I would still like some 
examples of how to edit the fstab file using fstab-sync and the man page 
does NOT provide very clear instructions to a normal user.  If you can 
point me to a place where I can get some examples, I would appreciate it.

>  
>
>>Then, tonight  I found an article on the web from Red Hat magazine.  It 
>>explained why the terms 'pamconsole' and 'managed' were used in the 
>>fstab file.  From this, as far as I can see from my fstab file, I should 
>>be able to mount my peripheral devices as a normal user.
>>
>>My fstab file:
>># This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
>>/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
>>LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
>>none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
>>none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
>>none                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
>>none                    /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
>>/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
>>/dev/sda4               /media/ZIP750           vfat    
>>pamconsole,exec,noauto,iocharset=utf8,noatime,sync,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,managed 
>>0 0
>>/dev/hdc                /media/cdrecorder       auto    
>>pamconsole,exec,noauto,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,managed 0 0
>>/dev/fd0                /media/floppy           auto    
>>pamconsole,exec,noauto,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,managed 0 0
>>
>>First, since the entries for my peripherals contain 'pamconsole' and 
>>'managed', I don't understand why I can't mount them as a normal user.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>This should work from Nautilus or the command line.
>  
>
I can mount from the command line if I am root.

>  
>
>>Third, if my problem is not related to HAL, then I would be open to 
>>suggestions as what my problem IS related to.
>>    
>>
So, after my responses, do you feel that the problem is with "Disk 
Management" as opposed to fstab-sync, in which case, I should file the 
suggested bug report?

Regards,

Colleen
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