[Hardware] mounting of new drive

[b1-66er]

i formatted the drive, created the mount point, edited the fstab file and reloaded systemctl like you're supposed to but it didn't work.. trying to copy files over to the new drive doesn't work

the mount -a command gives me an error.

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user@host:~$ sudo mount -a
mount: Partition: mount point does not exist.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

the mount command sepcifying the newly formatted drive tells me it's already mounted

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sudo mount /media/Zauberlaterne
mount: /media/Zauberlaterne: /dev/sda1 already mounted on /media/Zauberlaterne.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

dmesg gives me this

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[36045.141309] systemd-fstab-generator[79069]: Mount point Partition is not a valid path, ignoring.
[36083.185988] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Quota mode: none.

i'm confused
i didn't change anything else in my fstab except for adding the new drive at the bottom..
here's my edited fstab

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# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p2 during installation
UUID=1e6068ae-c6a2-4b71-907c-adb9c2797d8a   /           ext4    errors=remount-ro   0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation
UUID=179C-5FF0                              /boot/efi   vfat    umask=0077          0 1
# /home was on /dev/nvme0n1p6 during installation
UUID=cc77da13-dd86-4731-91d3-d6a614029e63   /home       ext4    defaults            0 2
# /tmp was on /dev/nvme0n1p5 during installation
UUID=1cc13daf-a7cf-43f8-83ea-769bdacbff91   /tmp        ext4    defaults            0 2
# /var was on /dev/nvme0n1p3 during installation
UUID=464abeac-882c-468c-b537-241cce1cbc29   /var        ext4    defaults            0 2
# swap was on /dev/nvme0n1p4 during installation
UUID=3929b0bc-d507-440f-a006-a11aa000fddf   none        swap    sw                  0 0
/dev/sdb1                                   /mnt        exfat   defaults            0 0
#
#Zauberlaterne
UUID=235de5c8-dd4f-40d9-a5d3-c0e18907e606       /media/Zauberlaterne    ext4    defaults        0       0

please help i just wanna archive my movies

[Dai_trying]

Does the folder exist /media/Zauberlaterne ?

If so could it be a permissions problem?

My fstab entries for anything mounted at /media are usually used in conjunction with a user, and so would be like /media/dai/Zauberlaterne which is what makes me think it might be permission related.

EDIT Just to add that many on this forum advise against using /media location for mount points that are not system generated (i.e. automount external devices) but I haven't personally had issues arising from this.

[Trihexagonal]

I have never edited /etc/fstab once in 25 years. I've never had to.

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sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/username
sudo umount /dev/sdb1 /media/username

[b1-66er]

Does the folder exist /media/Zauberlaterne ?

If so could it be a permissions problem?

My fstab entries for anything mounted at /media are usually used in conjunction with a user, and so would be like /media/dai/Zauberlaterne which is what makes me think it might be permission related.

EDIT Just to add that many on this forum advise against using /media location for mount points that are not system generated (i.e. automount external devices) but I haven't personally had issues arising from this.

it was an owner issue
i had used sudo mkdir. now its fixed and works as intended thank you!

i also used /media/user/folder to mount

another question, what's the reason for not using media? i always thought it's intended to be used that way

[b1-66er]

I have never edited /etc/fstab once in 25 years. I've never had to.

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sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/username
sudo umount /dev/sdb1 /media/username

i want the drive to be automountable since some app doesn't recognise it otherwise..

(if there's a better way then please elaborate (i'm still learning))

[lindi]

/media is handled by udisks, you should not do any manual operations to it. If you use gnome you can use for example the Disks utility to create filesystems or mount them there.

[Dai_trying]

another question, what's the reason for not using media? i always thought it's intended to be used that way

I thought so too when I was early in my Linux journey and it is only using the words of others that I mentioned it, as I said I have never had any issues using this location but have tried to use /mnt when I remember to, this had the added benefit of not having the username in the path and is likely a more "appropriate" location (but I could also be wrong about that).

[b1-66er]

/media is handled by udisks, you should not do any manual operations to it. If you use gnome you can use for example the Disks utility to create filesystems or mount them there.

thanks! the tutorial i used on youtube told me to use /media.. i fixed it for all the ssd's now

is there another way to add drives so they mount at boot without having to edit the fstab file?

[Dai_trying]

is there another way to add drives so they mount at boot without having to edit the fstab file?

There are, as always "many ways to skin a cat" If this is an always connected device i.e. a second hdd/ssd then you could always write a very short shell script to run at startup, if it is a removable device i.e. usb drive or external drive you could write a udev rule to mount it when inserted, there are other ways to do most things with Linux but the most common way (in this case editing fstab) is usually the best/easiest method really IMHO.

[b1-66er]

I thought so too when I was early in my Linux journey and it is only using the words of others that I mentioned it, as I said I have never had any issues using this location but have tried to use /mnt when I remember to, this had the added benefit of not having the username in the path and is likely a more "appropriate" location (but I could also be wrong about that).

i read a bit up on it and it seems /mnt is for drives and /media is the newer thing made for removable drives mostly managed by udisk. mounting drives in media might cause udisk wanting to mount an already mounted drive but that's no big deal i guess? since both mounting points worked equally well for me..

and i also find editing fstab the easiest way. i don't see why making a bash script when there's already a file and a step at boot that does that..

[lindi]

FHS says that /mnt is reserved as a temporary mount point. But you can of course create a new directory for this purpose.

[Dai_trying]

FHS says that /mnt is reserved as a temporary mount point. But you can of course create a new directory for this purpose.

yes,I probably should have stated that I use directory names in that location i.e. my nas drive is /mnt/nas and so on...

[CwF]

Here's my two cents to confuse the situation...

There are factors not mentioned in all of this concerning the purpose of the drive in question. It is a root owned drive, not used by non-interactive local users, without user login or maybe even without a DE? In my thinking that's the only time fstab needs to be used. Both /mnt and /media have similar usefulness that should be automated outside of user interaction - they are not initiated by the user but on behalf of the user via DE interactions, as in automagic.

If the drive is intended for user interaction within a DE then a few of those points are clarified. First, there is no need to mount at boot when mounting at logon for all practical purposes has the same effect. With automount declarations in ~/.profile there is no root involvement needed in the setup. If the mount points are within /home, then there is no root space cruft at all, unless we chose to hide drives from the DE with udev. Many DE's will do their automagic independently from and in parallel to the ~/.profile automounts.

So this drive in question is going to be single user path, or multi-user path, is owned by the local user, or is a temporary mount of a foreign device. Not all the same solution!

So I continue to recommend for a single user system ‘systemd-mount --automount=yes what where’ declared in ~/.profile with 'what' typically '/dev/disk/by-label/label' and ‘where’ always ‘~/$XDG/.somewhere’, that's somewhere in user home...

Short, single line, to the point, simple. And likely a solution too new to compete with obsolete archaic norms. You might see it on page 50 of the google search ‘How to mount a drive in Linux’

You do need configured polkit authority for this user. When drives are not mounted they will not show for ‘df’ but do show for ‘lsblk’
Examples: the first are virtual drives in a vm, the second are real devices on a host server;

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 $  lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk 
└─sda1   8:1    0 111.8G  0 part 
sdb      8:16   0  30.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0  30.5G  0 part 
sdc      8:32   0  30.5G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   0  30.5G  0 part 
sdd      8:48   0  95.4G  0 disk 
└─sdd1   8:49   0  95.4G  0 part 
sde      8:64   0   8.4G  0 disk 
└─sde1   8:65   0   8.4G  0 part 
zram0  251:0    0   3.1G  0 disk [SWAP]
vda    254:0    0   8.4G  0 disk 
└─vda1 254:1    0   8.4G  0 part /

$  lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk 
└─sda1   8:1    0  16.8G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 931.5G  0 part
sdc      8:32   0 931.5G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   0 931.5G  0 part 
sdd      8:48   0   1.8T  0 disk 
└─sdd1   8:49   0   1.8T  0 part 
sde      8:64   0 953.9G  0 disk 
└─sde1   8:65   0 953.9G  0 part 
zram0  252:0    0  25.2G  0 disk [SWAP]

[sunrat]

So I continue to recommend for a single user system ‘systemd-mount --automount=yes what where’ declared in ~/.profile with 'what' typically '/dev/disk/by-label/label' and ‘where’ always ‘~/$XDG/.somewhere’, that's somewhere in user home...
[/code]

Could you please show an actual example of the line added to ~/.profile ?
I have always used fstab entries and mount in a subdirectory of /mnt which work fine, but this seems like a good and simpler solution.

I create another /mnt subdirectory called /temp for any temporary manual mounts I wish to do. Never had anything automatically try to mount in /mnt. udev always uses /media.

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ls /mnt
music  sessions  stash  temp  vault

[CwF]

Could you please show an actual example of the line added to ~/.profile ?

The above systems:
‘front end’ vm

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#create tmpfs disk savers
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=12G ramdesk ~/Desktop
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=8G dram ~/Downloads
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=1G thram ~/.cache/thumbnails
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=1G mram ~/.cache/mozilla

#start cow automounts
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/m4av ~/Music/.m4av
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/music ~/Music/.music
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/noise ~/Music/.noise

host, by the way all the above cow's and OS / disk reside on 'images'

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# tmpfs disk savers
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=1G thram ~/.cache/thumbnails
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=4G dram ~/Downloads
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=80G vram ~/Videos/vram
systemd-mount -t tmpfs -o size=60G ram ~/Public/ram

# off disk automounts
systemd-mount /dev/disk/by-label/images ~/Public/.images
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/dvr ~/Videos/.dvr
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/vcr ~/Videos/.vcr
systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/tree ~/Public/tree

[CwF]

Note, this can be tried in a terminal to verify things work as expected.

for a USB, I've used

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systemd-mount --owner=1001 --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/USB_POOL ~/Public

formats w/o permissions need --owner. Disk formats with rights should be formatted w/ user rights. or fixed after. So in the examples above without --owner, the initial format is done with specified permissions, eg

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/sbin/mkfs.ext4 -L images -E root_owner=1000:50 /dev/vdb1

To dismount on recent editions

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systemd-umount ~/Public

Or a systemctl stop on older editions. Either way there are two systemd units created, one mount and one automount - systemd-umount will stop both.

These systemd-mount declarations are tolerant. On a logoff/logon cycle they are ignored. If the storage doesn't exist, it is ignored. The user can dismount at any time. They are invoked with a remote login and autologins. They can ask for a password, or not. Root involvement is limited to one time actions of formatting the disk and setting up the user with the permissions to mount. fstab remains untouched. Easy.

[sunrat]

I'm more confused now @CwF

Looking into this a bit more, the normal way to mount a local disk with systemd would be to write a systemd .mount unit as described at https://hackmd.io/@yujungcheng/BJ8ezKAQ6
Example:
create systemd file "/etc/systemd/system/mnt-data.mount". The unit filename must reflect to the mount point path. For example, path "/mnt/data" has unit filename "mnt-data.mount".

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[Unit]
Description = mount /dev/sda to /mnt/data

[Mount]
What = /dev/sda
Where = /mnt/data
Type = ext4
Options = defaults

[Install]
WantedBy = local-fs.target

Then start the unit and it should mount at boot (or also immediately?)

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# systemctl start mnt-data.mount

More explanation and options - https://manual.siduction.org/systemd-mount_en.html
man page - https://www.freedesktop.org/software/sy ... mount.html

One thing I'm wondering about is mounting by LABEL, would this be correct?:

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What = LABEL=Music

[CwF]

Secret, I tend not to ask how and just do...
I didn't look up this technique, it occurred to me and I tried it. Since stretch!

Point - ~/.profile can execute stuff - check
Point - systemd has a facility to mount and dismount ad hoc on the cli - check
...and that's all there is to it!
Things did come together over the last few releases and it really wasn't complete until bookworm.

the normal way to mount a local disk with systemd would be to write a systemd .mount unit

Ya, normal sure, skip all that...systemd-mount on the command line will dynamically create and destroy the units that typical we would think of as persistent files describing the unit. Manually creating the units is necessary only if no user will be logging in. Those mounts happen seconds after boot. Simple question, do they need to?

If a user is going to log in then the ~/.profile invocation will happen a few seconds after the drives could have already been mounted...not pertaining to anything required by the system to get to the 'target', overall time to the desktop is unaffected. Actually the tmpfs mounts are much slower than the disk mounts, the request gets a pause as the host says - wait, you want what?..really, ok. The above vm:

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$  systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 4.270s (kernel) + 3.730s (userspace) = 8.001s 
graphical.target reached after 3.579s in userspace.

It's a lazy computer.

Your profile line @sunrat; if 'Music' is the label and you want it to swallow the whole directory '~/Music'

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systemd-mount --automount=yes --timeout-idle-sec=60 /dev/disk/by-label/Music ~/Music

I typically don't use the existing Music directory directly, but we can. I use a subdirectory for the mount point, ~/Music/.music
The ‘dot’ in ~/Music/.music in my scenario hides the mount from display as an automount device in the file manager, thunar, others may act different. A device for the mount may be displayed also, I hide that with udev. Those details are essentially to disable DE automagic that will not respect systemd's ad hoc ‘where’ - so will mount them if enabled in parallel in /mnt/user/label. We don't want that...but it shares fine if by accident.

Note that without a ‘where’ ad hoc cli systemd-mount will mount at /run/media/system/label. Why, I have no idea?

Better?

[dilberts_left_nut]

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