kioslaves / pmount only mounts as root. [solved] by ntfs-3g

tipp98 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

So I'm trying to mount removable usb drives with user access ( write permission ) through KDE media and it's not working. I see dozens and dozens of threads regarding the same/similar issues and wonder, what is making this so difficult? Is it a kernel issue? Is it a portage problem? Is there some rogue file left over from something I previously did? ...

I once had ivman trying to get this to work, it's gone now. I did have the gparted lock file that I've seen mentioned and that has been deleted. This allowed me to mount filesystems by clicking on them in KDE media (but with root:root owner, except for vfat, that gives me kyle:root). I've removed/installed hal, hal-info, dbus, kioslaves, pmount several times in different orders hoping to get it going right, but it works less now than it did before ( now ext3 won't mount, giving me "TODO: have to rethink extra options" ). I am running from kdebase-startkde install and no kdm (although it is installed). KDE starts by mean of /etc/conf.d/local.start as described here. At first I thought well shoot, if kioslaves supposedly uses pmount, and pmount doesn't work right, then I need to get pmount working right. But now, I'm not sure pmount isn't working right. It says it allows normal users to mount filesystems, and it does this for me. So can someone confirm that pmount is doing what it was designed to do, and more importantly if I can/how can I get this setup working the way I want it?

Also, what's the deal with kioslaves, there are 4 different styles in portage, all with different sizes? Are they all the same or do some provide functionality that others do not?

tgurr · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:20 am Post subject:

You don't need pmount (anymore) for kde-base/kdebase-kioslaves to work, USE="hal" should be sufficient. However there are two problems left:

1. udev: USB devices are owned by root:disk so you'll also have to put your users also in the disk group which is not a very good idea since it enables users to do some fancy stuff with your harddrives as well. Another solution to this would be to write your own udev rule for usb devices to put them under control of the plugdev group.

2. hal: hal won't let you mount ntfs stuff anymore, see Bug 205901.

tipp98 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

Hmmmm..... very interresting. First off, I grabbed an external ntfs drive, as I will be using these, to verify my stuff won't work, and it indeed does not work with the error that you gave me.

Also, why is it that vfat works, meaning I am the owner and root is the group (silly, as I am not part of root)? And if root:disk owns the drives, the why do the partitions (ext2,3) get mount root:root?

Now for the interresting part. This "TODO: have to rethink extra options" business... I was receiving this on ext3 partitions after trying to ignorantly hack /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-storage-methods.fdi:

tipp98 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

Well, I don't have write access to ext2/3, as I haven't looked at the udev rules yet, but I managed to get ntfs accessible and writable. And that is good enough for me, for now.

tipp98 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

So I lied. Instead of actually writing anything I was just looking at the permissions. If I try to write something I receive an "Access denied." error.

Apparently, udev rules have nothing to do with the way kioslaves mounts drives. I added the following rule for the firewire interface.

tipp98 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 113

Bingo!
From this top

d2_racing · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:35 am Post subject:

The best thing to do is this :

mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

Hi,

I worked with ntfs-3g and decided to give a try to ntfsmount but it gives me errors, ntfs-3g does it well (but manually) for me.

Still no way for ntfs partitions to be mounted automatically under KDE? What about the bug?
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mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

Hi,

Someone found a fix for the bug, you can now mount your ntfs external usb drive with r/w access.

Just need to modify hal ebuild and emerge the instable ntfs-3g with hal flag.

Enjoy!
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d2_racing · Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:24 am Post subject:

Can you post the exact solution plz ?

mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

I'd say:

1. fetch only hal package

d2_racing · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:19 am Post subject:

I guess that this little problem will be solve in a near futur officially ?

mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

I think it will be officially fixed when the fix for hal will be published in its stable version, and when ntfs3g-1.2531-r1 will be declared as stable as it's the first version to have 'hal' USE flag.

I have no idea how long it could take.
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d2_racing · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:36 pm Post subject:

No problem, for now I use NTFS-PROG and I mount my partition with root, and after that it automagically works with my user.

When I do that, I see a new icone on my KDE desktop and everything works like the old time.

renrutal · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:06 am Post subject:

Sevein · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 2:29 am Post subject: