From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 15 17:48:59 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D887C106564A for ; Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:48:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 94E068FC18 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:48:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-196-27-202.dynamic.qsc.de [92.196.27.202]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 927EA3CDAB; Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:48:57 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n3FHmm70001826; Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:48:48 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:48:47 +0200 From: Polytropon To: utisoft@gmail.com Message-Id: <20090415194847.2337d439.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <991123400904150450p56d24ba5vcd15de8c34096ab0@mail.gmail.com> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Odhiambo Washington , FreeBSD Mailing List , Chris Rees Subject: Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:49:00 -0000 On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:44:40 +0100, Chris Rees wrote: > Automounting > is a fiddly thing, and is not necessary for the majority of > applications; remember FreeBSD is primarily a server OS. Well, I'm using it exclusively as a desktop since 4.0, what am I doing wrong? :-) No, honestly: There are additional security considerations. Do you want anyone to plug in an USB stick and steal your data while you're not at your computer? Or put crap onto your machine? In some settings, especially the "desktop-class installations at home", automounting of USB sticks and other media is a very good thing. It makes life easier. Desktops in a corporate environment may require this functionality explicitely to be disabled - theft of data can be made more complicated by such a means. In most cases, there are guidelines by the corporation that determine which features are allowed and which aren't. In development settings, it may be interrupting. Sometimes, I just want to put in a blank CD to use it later on - not now, so I don't want any interaction now. Or a USB stick that I want to newfs, I don't want to get it mounted with its crappy MSDOS file system on it before (which would require more interaction to unmount it). In server settings, automounting is mostly completely useless because there is nothing to mount. What would be the next request in this line? "I want to put in a USB stick and then FreeBSD should automatically execute what's on this stick, and it should do this by default without any questions." :-) And yes, I'm paranoid and old-fashioned. =^_^= -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...