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January
Asked: 2012-09-30 23:52:30 +0800 CST

What happens under the hood when an USB drive is inserted?

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Some systems use udev / pmount to automatically mount thumbdrives. How is that solved in Ubuntu (specifically, Ubuntu 12.04)? Apparently, neither the pmount package nor the corresponding udev rules are present, yet Ubuntu mounts the inserted USB drives automatically. How does that happen?

12.04

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    In Ubuntu 12.04 (Unity, and presumably Gnome Shell/Classic) automounting is handled by GNOME Desktop/Nautilus, which monitors DBus events for insertion, etc. The gvfs* backend is used, in co-operation with udisks for the low-level mounting, etc.

    gvfs-mount is used internally, and running it in monitor mode with the -o switch will show, for example:

    $ gvfs-mount -o

Monitoring events. Press Ctrl+C to quit.
Drive connected:    'usb Flashdisk'
Volume added:       'DISK_IMG'
Volume changed:     'DISK_IMG'
Mount added: 'DISK_IMG'
Volume changed:     'DISK_IMG'
Mount changed: 'DISK_IMG'
Mount removed: 'DISK_IMG'
Volume changed:     'DISK_IMG'
Drive disconnected: 'usb Flashdisk'
Volume removed:     'DISK_IMG'
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  3. mount:

    /usr/bin/gvfs-mount --device=/dev/sdd1

    unmount/eject:

    /usr/bin/gvfs-mount --eject /media/$USER/disk
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