Disable automount of all USB and Firewire

[David Zeuthen]

On Sun, 2006-08-06 at 16:57 -0400, maillist wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Due to security reasons, I need to disable automounting of all USB and
> Firewire devices for all users. From Googling around, I believe I need
> to do this with HAL. However, I haven't really found any good docs on
> how to do this. 

That's a fair request. If you have been following the list you will see
that with PolicyKit there are more advanced ways of doing this. However,
it will take a 6-12 months for that to be available in distros etc.

> If it matters, I am using Fedora Core 5.

On FC5 you will a file

 99-redhat-storage-policy-fixed-drives.fdi

in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/ that contains this

        <deviceinfo version="0.2">
           <device>
            <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
              <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.removable" bool="false">
                <merge key="volume.ignore" type="bool">true</merge>
              </match>
            </match>
          </device>
        </deviceinfo>
        
It sets the volume.ignore flag on fixed disks and this flag has the
following effects

 1. HAL will refuse to mount / unmount / eject volumes where
    volume.ignore == TRUE

 2. The drives won't show up in Nautilus' computer:/// window

So it seems you want a file like e.g. 

 99-ignore-some-drives.fdi

in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/ that looks something like this

        <deviceinfo version="0.2">
           <device>
            <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.bus" string="usb">
              <merge key="volume.ignore" type="bool">true</merge>
            </match>
          </device>
        </deviceinfo>
        
Happy experimenting.

HTH,
David