Allowing a group to use fstab mount-points

[RW]

On Sunday 24 April 2005 21:41, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> RW <list-freebsd-2004 at morbius.sent.com> writes:
> > I have fstab entries for several devices that aren't mounted at boot, but
> > when mounting as an ordinary user, I can only mount a device on a
> > mount-point that I own.
> >
> > Is it possible to relax this so that any user in the operator group can
> > make use of the same fstab entries? I know I could make separate entries
> > for each user, but it's a bit cumbersome.
>
> Most people don't really want a user to be able to mount devices any
> time, but only when that user is on the console.  fbtab(5) and
> equivalent functionality under X take care of that quite well.

That's interesting, I wasn't aware of fbtab before. However it doesn't really 
help. As I read it, it only allows the ownership of devices to be changed, 
not mount-points. 

On a desktop machine, without remote access, there isn't really any 
significant problem with users mounting dvds etc. Actually, I normally mount 
devices as root, it's just that when other people (who are definitely never 
going to be in my wheel group) borrow my computer they make patronizing 
comments if this kind of thing isn't straightforward, and clean.

Basically, what I'd like is for users to be able to mount certain devices from 
KDE, without going through hoops, or using strange mount-points.