Results of USB auto-mount test

Thu Apr 9 02:36:11 PDT 2009

I have been trying to get my arms around the USB auto-mount function.
Sorry, no solutions here, just some data that I hope will be useful to
developers. If you spot something I could do better please comment.

I have done all of the configuration steps listed in the on-line
documentation. I would like that to be an install option, default yes.

The table below presents findings for four USB devices. The first three
are flash drives ("thumb" drives). Entries #4 and #5 are separate
partitions on the same external hard drive. Following the table are log
messages associated with device insertion; the numbers coincide with the
table rows. The ufs partition in #5 does not create a separate log entry
even though /dev/da0s1 is created.

Only #1 and #4 operate successfully; the drive mounts automatically and
can be unmounted from the desktop icon. 

The documentation on the FreeBSD Gnome web site states that volume
labels must not contain spaces. All of my thumb drives had labels with
spaces or no label at all. I was unable to find a method for changing
the volume label on an msdosfs volume. The tunefs -L command only works
with ufs. I thought glabel might do it, but either it cannot or I did
not stumble upon the right command line. Of course my iMac had no
problem with any of these, and renaming a volume is a snap. Just open
the "get info" dialog. I left #2 with a space for comparison.

I expected my newly assigned volume labels to appear under the desktop
icon. In the table the LAB column shows the assigned volume label, and
DTL shows the label that appears under the desktop icon. I see that #2
and #3 failed to unmount and have desktop labels that are different than
the assigned volume label, and they contain spaces and dots. This could
be significant. Where do those labels come from?

When a device would not unmount by way of the desktop icon I could
unmount it manually (command line umount /media/aName) after doing a
shutdown now. Apparently something in Gnome is hanging onto a file
handle even when I did not have anything open; dropping into single user
mode killed whatever it was.

In addition to these drives I have a Nikon camera that auto-mounted
perfectly in Gnome 2.22 but will not unmount in 2.24. I also have a Sony
PCM-D50 digital recorder that should appear to be a USB drive, but umass
cannot understand it. It works perfectly with Vista and OS X ... :-(
When I plug it in the system freezes, and when I unplug it I get the
famous kernel panic even though the device was never mounted. I have
already been in contact with the author of umass about that.

Is there a reason why my ufs partition does not auto mount? I prefer to
use ufs over FAT32 so that ownership and permissions are not borked. I
should be able to plug it in, wait for the desktop icon, do my backup,
then unmount from the icon.

Why doesn't dropping a disk icon into the trash trigger an unmount
action the way it does in OS X?

I hope someone finds this helpful!

USB DEVICE TEST
FreeBSD 7.1 RELEASE
Gnome 2.24
Fujitsu T1010 laptop

#  NAME       GB   FS  LAB         DTL           AM  UMD UMM  
1  Connect     1   fat CONNECT1GB  CONNECT1GB     y   y   -
2  EP Memory   8   fat USB DISK    8.2 GB Media   n   n   y
3  Transcend   8   fat TRANS8GB    8.0 GB Media   y   n   n
4  Lacie HD   83   fat XCHG        XCHG           y   y   -
5  Lacie HD  208   ufs lacie       lacie          n   n   n

(#4 and #5 are same device, two partitions)

NAME - printed on case
GB - capacity in GB
FS - file system
LAB - Label on OS X
DTL - Label on Gnome desktop icon
AM - auto mounts, icon appears on desktop
UMD - can unmount from desktop icon
UMM - can unmount manually

UMASS Log Messages
#1 
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: umass0: <vendor 0x3538 USB Mass Storage
Device, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2> on uhub3
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x3538 product
0x0042 bus uhub3
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: da0: <Generic USB Flash Disk 0.00>
Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device 
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: da0: 984MB (2015232 512 byte sectors:
64H 32S/T 984C)
Apr  8 06:56:33 slate01 kernel: GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider da0s1 is
msdosfs/CONNECT1GB.
Apr  8 06:56:35 slate01 gnome-keyring-daemon[1043]: adding removable
location: volume_uuid_0528_67B7 at /media/CONNECT1GB

#2
Apr  8 07:13:29 slate01 kernel: umass0: <vendor 0x0457 USB Mass Storage
Device, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2> on uhub3
Apr  8 07:13:29 slate01 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x0457 product
0x0151 bus uhub3
Apr  8 07:13:30 slate01 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Apr  8 07:13:30 slate01 kernel: da0: <Flash Drive UT_USB20 0.00>
Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device 
Apr  8 07:13:30 slate01 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Apr  8 07:13:30 slate01 kernel: da0: 7840MB (16056320 512 byte sectors:
255H 63S/T 999C)
Apr  8 07:13:30 slate01 kernel: GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider da0s1 is
msdosfs/USB DISK.

#3
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: umass0: <JetFlash Mass Storage Device,
class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2> on uhub3
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: umass0: Get Max Lun not supported
(STALLED)
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x058f product
0x6387 bus uhub3
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: da0: <JetFlash Transcend 8GB 8.07>
Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device 
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Apr  8 07:18:27 slate01 kernel: da0: 7660MB (15687680 512 byte sectors:
255H 63S/T 976C)
Apr  8 07:18:28 slate01 kernel: GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider da0s1 is
msdosfs/TRANS8GB.
Apr  8 07:18:32 slate01 gnome-keyring-daemon[1043]: adding removable
location: volume_size_8027897856 at /media/disk

#4
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x059f product
0x100c bus uhub3
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 kernel: umass0: <LaCie LaCie Rugged FW/USB,
class 0/0, rev 2.00/0.01, addr 2> on uhub3
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 kernel: da0: <LaCie Rugged FW/USB > Fixed Direct
Access SCSI-4 device 
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Apr  8 07:34:46 slate01 kernel: da0: 305245MB (625142448 512 byte
sectors: 255H 63S/T 38913C)
Apr  8 07:34:47 slate01 kernel: GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider da0s2 is
msdosfs/XCHG.

-- 
Gary Dunn, Honolulu
osp at aloha.com
http://openslate.net/
http://e9erust.blogspot.com/
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