automounting cd-rom & cd-rw devices

[Malcolm Kay]

On Sunday 28 March 2004 11:43, Jay Moore wrote:
> I have a FreeBSD 4.9 system; I am also running KDE...
>
> I'm building this system for my son (college student) who has been (until
> now) a Windoze user :(   I'm trying to set this sytem up so that he'll be
> able to use it with a minimum of calls to tech support (me). One of the
> issues I am struggling with is how to make the cd-rw & cd-rom devices
> usable without requiring him to start a root shell and mount/umount these
> devices.
>
...
> 1) Should I automount cd's?

Depends what you mean by auto-mount

>
> 2) What is the "best way" to allow ordinary users to mount cd's?
>

The best way is inevitably a matter of opinion.
But it can be done without installing any additional ports.

First:
# sysctl vfs.usermount=1
allows users to mount and then unmount drives provided other things 
are in order. You can make this happen during the normal boot by adding 
  vfs.usermount=1
to /etc/ sysctl.conf

The user must also have suitable permissions on the drive i.e. rw
on say /dev/acd0c. This of course is a one time operation by root.

And he must mount on a mount point for which he has rwx permissions.
He may also need to own the directory (I'm not sure about this). 
He might, for example, create a mount point
under his home directory, say /home/fred/mnt

Now he should be able to mount the cdrom
% /sbin/mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0c /home/fred/mnt

and unmount with
% /sbin/umount /home/fred/mnt


Malcolm