Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 19:15:53 +0100 (CET) From: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Cc: doc@freebsd.org Subject: [PATCH] extend the documentation for handling USB drives Message-ID: <20061201181553.67AA8B844@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Originator: Roland Smith
>Organization:
>Confidential: no
>Synopsis: [PATCH] extend the documentation for handling USB drives
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Category: docs
>Class: change-request
>Release: FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE amd64
>Environment:
System: FreeBSD slackbox.xs4all.nl 6.2-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE #0: Sat Nov 25 00:14:25 CET 2006 rsmith@slackbox.xs4all.nl:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/RFS amd64
>Description:
The disks chapter of the handbook is quite short in its description of the
handling of USB mass-storage drives. The included patch is an attempt to
expand/clarify this for new users.
>How-To-Repeat:
N/A
>Fix:
This patch has been tested to apply cleanly on revision 1.265 and 1.267.
------- patch for en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.sgml -------
--- chapter.sgml.orig Sun Oct 8 17:01:02 2006
+++ chapter.sgml Sun Oct 8 17:48:40 2006
@@ -777,6 +777,68 @@
<para>to your configuration file for USB 2.0 support. Note
&man.uhci.4; and &man.ohci.4; drivers are still needed if you
want USB 1.X support.</para>
+
+ <para>To make these devices mountable as a normal user, certain steps
+ have to be taken. First, the devices that are created when a USB
+ storage device is connected need to be accessible. A solution is to
+ create a group (e.g. named usb) that users of these devices need to
+ belong to. This is done with &man.pw.8;. The users in question also
+ need to be added to that group. This is also done with
+ &man.pw.8;. Second, when the devices are created, they have to be
+ accessible by this group. This is accomplished by adding a line for
+ these devices to &man.devfs.rules.5;;
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>add path 'da*' mode 0660 group usb</programlisting>
+
+ <note>
+ <para>If you already have SCSI disks in your system, you want to
+ do this a bit different. E.g., if you already have
+ disks <filename>da0</filename> through <filename>da2</filename>
+ attached to the system, change the line as follows:
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>add path 'da[3-9]*' mode 0660 group usb</programlisting>
+
+ <para>This will exclude the already existing disks from the usb
+ group.
+ </para>
+
+ </note>
+
+ <para>Next, the kernel has to be configured to allow regular users to
+ mount filesystems. The easiest way is to add the following line to
+ &man.sysctl.conf.5;:
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>vfs.usermount=1</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Note that this only takes effect after the next
+ reboot. Alternatively, one can also use &man.sysctl.8; to set this
+ variable.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>The final step is to create a directory where the filesystem is
+ to be mounted. This directory needs to be owned by the user that is
+ to mount the filesystem. One way to do that is for root to create a
+ subdirectory owned by that user
+ as <filename>/mnt/$USER</filename> (replace $USER by the login name
+ of the actual user):
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>
+mkdir /mnt/$USER
+chown $USER:$USER /mnt/$USER</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Suppose a USB thumbdrives is plugged in, and a
+ device <filename>/dev/da0s1</filename> appears. Since these devices
+ usually come preformatted with a FAT filesystem, one can mount them
+ like this:
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>mount_msdosfs -m 644 -M 755 /dev/da0s1
+ /mnt/$USER</programlisting>
+
</sect2>
<sect2>
------- patch for en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disks/chapter.sgml -------
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20061201181553.67AA8B844>