Ubuntu
gnome-vfs2 package

disk-mount applet produces additional, confusing icons for fstab entries

Bug #42017 reported by ClemensBier
22
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GnomeVFS
Won't Fix
Medium
gnome-vfs2 (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

I have a USB hard disk with several partitions. In order to have persistent mount points, I assigned persistent device names to the partitions via udev. Secondly, I set up an fstab entry like this one

/dev/hdusbext3 /mnt/usbext3 ext3 user,defaults 0 0

The applet shows now all the time an icon (grey disk like icon)for this partition even though the physical USB drive is not connected to my computer. Thus, I can click on the icon trying to mount the partition yielding the correct error message the device "/dev/hdusbext3" cannot be found. I propose not display the icon at all.

Worse, when the drive is connected,I have two icons (the grey disk like one and an USB type icon)for the same partition(s).
The USB icon points to the partition with the correct context menu entries:
- Open "device blah"
- Eject "device blah"
The first hard disk like icon has also two context menu entries"
- GREYED out: Mount "device blah"
- Mount "device" blah"
Clicking the mount entry I get a correct error message:
mount: /dev/hdusbext3 already mounted or device busy.
mount: according to /etc/mtab /dev/hdusbext3 is mounted at /mnt/usbext3

The wanted behavior would be:
- /etc/fstab entry to pinpoint mount point
- no icon in the apllet visible
- user pluggs his USB drive in the machine
- icons (one per partition)appear in the applet
- applet (I think it is pmount indeed)recongnizes that one partition has an /etc/fstab entry

In my eyes, the relation between /etc/fstab, disk-mount applet and pmount is nor obvious nor logical.

If this problem nees further bug reports for other related packages (pmount?), please let me know.

Thanks for your help,

Clemens Bier

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thanks for your bug. That's somewhat the same request than bug #42810. Why do you want to force the mountpoint for USB drives like that?

Martin, is there a way to force the mountpoint that will be used without modifying fstab?

Settings as minor because the standard usecase is to let the desktop do its magic instead of modifying fstab

Changed in gnome-applets:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

The prefered way of getting consistent mount points is to label partitions.

Revision history for this message
Christof Krüger (christofkr) wrote :

The problem is that the USB entries entries are marked as user_visible by gnome-vfs. When booting with the usb drive not connected, gnome-vfs lists the drive without any mounted volumes. The entry has no hal udi and the device_path is the same that is listed in /etc/fstab. Additionally, activation_uri is set to the mount point set in fstab. In my case it is a /dev/usb200gig and /media/200gig.

Now when you plug in the USB drive, udev creates a dev file, let us say /dev/sda1. Because of the custom udev-rule, a symlink to /dev/sda1 is created. In this example /dev/usb200gig is now pointing to /dev/sda1.

Gnome-vfs now lists an _additional_ drive entry with an hal udi and device_path being /dev/sda1.

The diskmount applet displays all "user_visible" drives, so now there is one button for the /dev/usb200gig (which has no volumes mounted, because gnome-vfs ignores it) and one button for "/dev/sda1" which can have a volume entries when it is actually mounted.

A workaround for this is to 'killall gnome-vfs-daemon' from console. It will respawn immediately and only list the one device from there on. This entry has an hal udi, actuvation uri, the device path is /dev/sda1. Looks like gnome-vfs follows the symlink now. It couln't follow it back then because it didn't exist the last time gnome-vfs checked. And here lies the problem: It doesn't check often enough. When a new device is being attached, gnome-vfs should check if one of the already present devices is available now and if it is actually the same one.

The fact that the device list is _not_ invariant (it's different, after restarting gnome-vfs) shows that this is actually a bug.

Revision history for this message
Christof Krüger (christofkr) wrote :

this is a bug in gnome-vfs, the diskmounter applet relies on correct information from gnome-vfs. Visit computer:/// in nautilus and you'll also see the duplicate drives.

Changed in gnome-applets:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-vfs:
status: Unknown → Unconfirmed
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-vfs:
status: New → Won't Fix
Revision history for this message
swordphsh (swordphsh-gmail) wrote :

I'm having the same problem and am looking for a work-around. I would be fine with mounting the usb device via its label, but I have usb auto-mount disabled in gnome because I found it rather annoying. I cannot figure out any way to automatically mount a usb device other than using fstab.

Revision history for this message
MSH (mhimeles) wrote :

This really ought to be fixed. In my case, the external hard drive is connected by e-SATA, but I have the same problem. I need to automount the drive because it's the backup drive I use with my backup application (backintime), and backintime runs on a schedule set using crontab. If the drive isn't mounted, my data isn't backed up. Without automounting it I have to remember to mount it every time I boot up. Unless there's another way to automount a drive that I'm not aware of.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-vfs:
importance: Unknown → Medium
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