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Automatically mount stuff like CD-ROM disks when inserted.

• Auto-autofs

  • .. detects Disks, Partitions, CD-ROMs, Floppies etc. and sets up an automount configuration.

Basic setup ∞

• 2009-03-17 – (version not recorded) on (distribution not recorded)

Specify mountpoint directories and map files ∞

Edit the main configuration file:

su
nano /etc/autofs/auto.master

There are three things to learn:

/mnt/autofs/optical  /etc/autofs/optical.txt  --timeout=4
/mnt/autofs/sd       /etc/autofs/sd.txt       --timeout=4
1                    2                        3

1. The directory which autofs will control.

   • WARNING: Make certain this is a unique directory which autofs can delete and create directories at will!
2. The map file which will be used. More on that next.

3. The number of seconds of disuse before autofs unmounts it.

   • This is important, because regular users won’t be able to eject a cdrom without a timeout.

Create your map file(s) ∞

Edit the configuration file(s):

su
nano /etc/autofs/optical.txt

There are 3 things to learn:

dvdr    -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev   :/dev/hda
dvdrw   -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev   :/dev/hdb
1       2                                 3

1. The mountpoint. This will be created in /mnt/autofs/optical/ in this example.

   • /mnt/autofs/optical/dvdr/
   • /mnt/autofs/optical/dvdrw/
2. The options given. This is like mount.

3. The device to watch.

OPTIONAL: It’s the same for everything else, if you keep them in different configuration files:

su
nano /etc/autofs/sd.txt

and add:

sdh1    -fstype=auto,rw,nosuid,async,nodev  :/dev/sdh1

• NOTE: async is used to help the SD card’s longevity.

Set up your system ∞

OPTIONAL: If you don’t like a mountpoint like /mnt/autofs/dvdr then change it with ln:

ln -s /mnt/autofs/optical/dvdr/  /mnt/dvdr
ln -s /mnt/autofs/optical/dvdrw/ /mnt/dvdrw

Note that these will flash red until the item is mounted.

If you cannot eject your disks by pressing the button on the device

1. You cannot eject when the disk is in use by any program.
2. You need to wait for the timeout – four seconds in these instructions.

3. Lastly, you can fix it with this:

su
chmod a+r /dev/hda
chmod a+r /dev/hdb

NOTE

I had no success with this surviving when I rebooted. I tried pcc and then Security > Tune permissions on system. But that doesn’t seem to do anything. Hrm.

Test ∞

1. Restart the service (do this whenever you make configuration changes):

su
service autofs restart

2. Insert a disk.

3. View the appropriate directory:

ls /mnt/autofs/optical/dvdr/

4. Wait 4 seconds. This is the value we specified with --timeout

5. Eject the disk by pressing the button on the device

Auto-mounting an ISO ∞

• 2009-05-22 – (version not recorded) on (distribution not recorded)

For playing a movie-ISO, I can just use VLC directly on it.

mount ∞

(mount)

mount -o loop test.iso /mnt/mnt

mount: only root can do that

fstab ∞

(fstab)

I see no way to give permission for a user to do something like this.

Autofs ∞

I thought this might be a cool idea. I played with it, and it didn’t work.

Make something prompt for the root password, and run as root ∞

(Make something prompt for the root password, and run as root)

su
ln -s /usr/bin/consolehelper /usr/bin/mount-root
cp /etc/pam.d/synaptic /etc/pam.d/mount-root
ln -s /bin/mount /usr/sbin/mount-root

Aha, it works!

In your file manager, you could associate .iso with a few things:

mount-root -o loop '%s' /mnt/iso
umount-root /mnt/iso
mount-iso-and-play.sh '%s'

# Check parameters
# Needs proper sanity-checking (is the file there and readable)
"mount-root" -o loop "$1" "/mnt/iso"
# Check for an error when mounting.
"cd" "/mnt/iso"
if [ -d "VIDEO_TS/" ]; then
  "cd" "VIDEO_TS/"
  gmplayer "./VTS_01_1.VOB"
fi
cd /
"umount-root" "/mnt/iso"

Notes ∞

• Build a Virtual CD-ROM Jukebox

  • Use a low-cost, scalable Linux server to share CD-ROM image files to Windows clients.
• Nautilus Script to Mount ISO files