--- name: "gnome-mount" section: "1" platform: "linux" package: "gnome-mount" version: "0.7-2" release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/gnome-mount" --- # gnome-mount(1) Mount drives and volumes using HAL and read settings from the GNOME desktop configuration system gconf. ## NAME gnome-mount - Mount drives and volumes using **HAL** and read settings from the GNOME desktop configuration system **gconf.** ## SYNOPSIS **gnome-mount** \[-?\|--help\] \[-v\] \[-n\] \[-t\] \[-b\] \[-d /dev/file \| -h /org/fd/Hal/udi \| -p nickname\] \[--unmount \| --eject \| --write-settings \| --erase-settings \| --show-settings\] \[--mount-point where-to-mount\] \[--mount-options opt1,opt2=foo,opt3\] \[--extra-mount-options opt4,opt5=bar\] \[--fstype fstype-to-use\] ## DESCRIPTION This program is used to mount and unmount file systems for GNOME desktop users. It can also be used to eject discs from CD drives and other devices that needs to be ejected. For example, iPod's needs this to make the "Do not disconnect" message go away. Normally, this program is invoked by software in the GNOME stack (specifically **gnome-vfs-daemon** and **gnome-volume-manager** ). End users should never have to deal with gnome-mount directly on the command line, nor should they have to read this manual page. Mounting a file system into the root file system involves a certain degree of configuration and as such is subject to whatever preferences an user might have. **gnome-mount** allows the user to control the mount point location, the mount options and what file system to use for mounting a file system. The settings are read from the **gconf** database (which is per-user) and can also be overridden on the command line using the appropriate parameters. See below. ## SPECIFYING THE TARGET The target (e.g. the partition or file system to mount, unmount or eject) can be specified using the **HAL** UDI (Unique Device Identifier), e.g. **/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume\_uuid\_E18B\_10EC** , the name of the special device file, e.g. **/dev/sda1** or a pseudonym. The latter is a textual string used to locate the target and it makes **gnome-mount** search for the target by comparing the given textual string to the mount points and file system labels. ## DETERMINING SETTINGS Settings (e.g. mount point, mount options, file system type) are read in the order below. Note that each option is treated individually; for example it is valid for a drive to only specify the mount point setting and not the mount options. Also note that the even if the drive specifies mount options, these can be overridden on a per-volume basis. - *FILE SYSTEM DEFAULTS* First, default mount options are read from **/system/storage/defaults/FS\_TYPE/** for the probed file system type of the volume. The option **uid=,** is treated specially by **gnome-mount** and will be replaced by **uid=UID\_OF\_USER** to cope with the fact that the **uid** is a function of the user calling it. - *PER DRIVE* Second, the gconf tree at **/system/storage/drives/UDI\_OF\_DRIVE/** is consulted for options that depend on what drive the volume belongs to. For example, this is useful for configuring that volumes inserted into a given drive is always mounted at the same location. For example, this can be used to emulate **/etc/fstab** behaviour by where CD media is always mounted at e.g. **/media/cdrom** - *PER VOLUME* Third, the gconf tree at **/system/storage/drives/UDI\_OF\_VOLUME/** is consulted for options that are specific to a particular piece of media and as such depends on either the file system label (e.g. **EOS\_DIGITAL** ) or the file system UUID (e.g. **E18B\_10EC** ) or both. - *COMMANDLINE OPTIONS* Users can pass **--mount-point** , **--mount-options** or **--fstype** on the commandline to override settings. - *EXTRA COMMANDLINE OPTIONS* Finally, if mount options are passed via **--extra-mount-options** these are not replacing the mount options, they are simply added. This is useful for doing e.g. gnome-mount --extra-mount-options remount,exec -d /dev/sda1 to remount a volumes such that programs can be run from the media. This is useful for e.g. gnome-volume-manager if it discovers an autorun file on the media. ## PASSWORDED MEDIA **gnome-mount** supports passworded media through the *org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto* interface supported by **HAL** and this includes volumes formatted in a way that adheres to the **LUKS** (Linux Unified Key Setup) specification. In addition, **gnome-mount** uses **gnome-keyring** to retrieve and store the pass phrase. If no key can be retrieved, **gnome-mount** will prompt the user for one. In addition, if the keyring is locked, the user may be prompted to unlock it via standard **gnome-keyring** mechanisms. ## PRIVILEGES **gnome-mount** is intended for unprivileged users and **HAL** ultimately controls if the calling user is allowed to mount, unmount or eject volumes as well as what mount options are valid. As such, requests may be denied. See the (human readable) exception returned from **HAL** for details if a request fails. Note that **HAL** has a notion of what mount options are valid for a given volume. They are listed in the HAL property *volume.mount.valid\_options* on the device object representing the volume to mount. Consult [**lshal**(1)](/lshal/1.md) for details. Also note that HAL by default appends the options **nosuid** and **nodev** to prevent privilege escalation. In addition to using **HAL** as the mechanism for mounting file systems, the **/etc/fstab** file is also consulted as **HAL** will refuse to mount any file system listed in this file as it would violate system policy. If this is the case, **gnome-mount** will invoke **mount**(1) as the calling user rather than invoking the **Mount** method on the *org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume* interface on the device object representing the volume / drive. This means that settings (mount point, mount options, file system type) read by **gnome-mount** are not passed along as these are already specified in the **/etc/fstab** file and there are no mechanism to override them. When parsing the **/etc/fstab** file, **gnome-mount** (and also **HAL** for that matter) resolves symbolic links and also respects the **LABEL=** and **UUID=** notations. For example, if this line is in **/etc/fstab** LABEL=MyVolume /mnt/myvolume auto user,defaults 0 0 then **gnome-mount** mounts the file system with the label MyVolume via **mount**(1) and **/etc/fstab** rather than using the **HAL** mechanisms. ## OPTIONS Options available for the **gnome-mount** command: - **-v, --verbose** Verbose operation, shows debug messages. - **-n, --no-ui** Don't show any dialogs the user needs to dismiss. If X11 is available, **gnome-mount** may pop up transient notification bubbles e.g. suggesting the user to remount a volume with different options to streamline access to file systems with ownership attributes. This is the option that storage policy daemons such as **gnome-volume-manager** should invoke **gnome-mount** in. File managers, however, such as **Nautilus** , should never use this option as the user should get e.g. an error dialog if he tries to access a volume with a missing, unsupported or unknown file system. - **-b, --block** Allow **gnome-mount** to block even if an error occured. By default, **gnome-mount** will daemonize so it can return control to the invoking application as soon as possible (e.g. when an operation either fails or succeeds ) while still showing an error dialog to the end user. Useful when debugging. - **-u, --unmount** Use this for unmounting rather than mounting. If **gnome-mount** is invoked as **gnome-umount** (a symlink to **gnome-mount** ) then this option is automatically selected. - **-e, --eject** Use this for ejecting rather than mounting. If **gnome-mount** is invoked as **gnome-eject** (a symlink to **gnome-mount** ) then this option is automatically selected. - **-d, --device** Specify target volume by the special device file. - **-h, --hal-udi** Specify target volume by **HAL** UDI (Unique Device Identifier). - **-p, --pseudonym** Specify target volume by pseudonym. See above for how this works. - **-t, --text** Never use X11 dialogs or notification bubbles even if an X11 server is available. Also prohibits the use of **gnome-keyring** to retrieve pass phrases for passworded media because this might require unlocking the keyring which happens through an X11 dialog out of process. Useful for command line operation. - **-m, --mount-point** Specify mount point to use; don't include **/media** as this is automatically appened by the mechanism used to mount, e.g. the **HAL** methods. - **-o, --mount-options** Specify mount options. Separate by comma. - **-f, --fstype** Specify file system type. This is useful for using e.g. the **msdos** file system instead of the **vfat** file system. - **--write-settings** Instead of mounting a drive, specify what options to store in the gconf database. Can be used on both drives and volumes. Be careful using this with the **--device** option as optical drives (among others) use the same special device file for both the drive and the volume. One trick is to ensure the optical drive has no media when configuring it via this option. Another possibility is to use the **HAL** UDI instead. - **--display-settings** Display settings for a drive or volume. - **--erase-settings** Erase settings for a drive or volume. ## RETURN CODES **gnome-mount** will return zero if the request succeeded or non-zero if it failed. Note that **gnome-mount** is specifically designed to run in a graphical user environment and as such all error reporting (and resolution) is through X11 dialogs. For example, if **HAL** reports that a volume could not be mounted because of a missing file system driver, **gnome-mount** might, one day, launch a tool to ask the user if he wants to download and install the driver. In a similar way, all error dialogs are presented via X11 dialogs to the user as well. ## EXAMPLE We want to make sure that the discs inserted into an optical drive are always mounted at **/media/cdrecorder** instead of using the default which is using the label specified in the **iso9660** or **udf** file system header. Assuming that the drive is empty and the special device file for the drive is **/dev/hdc** the following command will work gnome-mount --write-settings\ \--device /dev/hdc\ \--mount-point cdrecorder This can be inspected via the **--display-settings** option and the settings can also be erased via the **--erase-settings** option. Also note that [**gconf-editor**(1)](/gconf-editor/1.md) can be used for tasks like these. ## HARDWARE THAT CANNOT BE POLLED **HAL** polls most storage devices for media insertion / removal and maintains the list of devices exported. However, some hardware cannot be polled for media changes without making noise or for other reasons. PC floppy drives, Zip drives connected through an IDE interface and broken optical drives falls into this category. For such hardware **HAL** only exports the drive and rather than exporting volume as childs of the drive, the *org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume* interface is exported on the drive itself. **gnome-mount** supports this but it means that it is impossible to know ahead of time what file system is on the media in the problematic drive, so in this case **gnome-mount** passes **auto** as the file system type and passes the mount options **uid=UID\_OF\_USER** as most media in such devices are formatted with either the **vfat** , **udf** or **iso9660** file systems. This also means that per-volume settings are not possible; one can only specify settings per-drive. ## AUTHOR **gnome-mount** was written by David Zeuthen \. ## SEE ALSO [**fstab**(5)](/fstab/5.md), [**mount**(8)](/mount/8.md), [**umount**(8)](/umount/8.md), [**eject**(1)](/eject/1.md), [**cryptsetup**(8)](/cryptsetup/8.md), [**gconftool-2**(1)](/gconftool-2/1.md), [**gconf-editor**(1)](/gconf-editor/1.md), [**lshal**(1)](/lshal/1.md) **http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/** **http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME\_Keyring** **http://freedesktop.org/Software/hal** **http://luks.endorphin.org**