When I (manually) mount my crypted document partition on ubuntu 19/04, it is mounted on /media. When I'm in Fedora, it's mounted on /run/media.

I would like udisks2 to mount it on /run/media, as it should be, so I made a udev rules like this :

# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/99-udisk2.rules 

# UDISKS_FILESYSTEM_SHARED
# ==1: mount filesystem to a shared directory (/media/VolumeName)
# ==0: mount filesystem to a private directory (/run/media/$USER/VolumeName)
# See udisks(8)
ENV{ID_FS_USAGE}=="filesystem|other|crypto", ENV{UDISKS_FILESYSTEM_SHARED}="0"

But, even after reboot, the document parition is still mounted on /media. Can someone help me to mount it on /run/media ?

Problem

I have an external HDD with one logical volume perfectly working that can be mounted with:
udisksctl mount -b /dev/mapper/wd0hdd-wd0
It will create a new directory under /media/username/wd which is the expected behavior since wd is the label of my disk wd0 the name of my logical volume and username my username.

However, I would like that this logical volume could be mounted automatically (without typing this command) when I plug the external HDD in, just like udisks2 does usually with standard linux partition (non-lvm). [Problem1]

Besides, I have noticed that /media/username/wd belongs to root:root with 755 rights which is problematic since I cannot create files/directory at the root of my partition as a normal user. For standard linux partition, the directory created belongs to username which is expected [Problem2]

Finally, Nautilus does not display the volume in the left pane as usual for standard linux partition instead it is in Other Locations. However, the gnome-extension Place Status Indicator list the new wd correctly below my other drives. [Problem3]

Expected solution

Find a way to tell udisks2 to consider a given logical volume to be auto mounted as a removable media.

Reproduce

Setup an external drive with a single logical partition:

sudo lvmdiskscan # Suppose sdc is the candidate
sudo pvcreate /dev/sdc
sudo vgcreate wd0hdd /dev/sdc1
sudo lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n wd0 wd0hdd
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/wd0hdd/wd0

[Facultative] use Gnome-Disk to change the label of the disk to wd

Reboot Ubuntu and see what happens in nautilus and in /media/username when

• disk plugged-in during boot
• disk plugged-in after startup has completed

Diagnostic

Tell me what could be useful here.

I tried to find something useful in the log to help track the problem, there is nothing relevant displayed by journactl however there might be some hints about what is going wrong thanks to udisksctl monitor right after I mount the device with udisksctl mount -b /dev/mapper/wd0hdd/wd0

17:49:54.019: Added /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/jobs/2
 org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Job:
   Bytes:              0
   Cancelable:         true
   ExpectedEndTime:    0
   Objects:            ['/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/dm_2d5']
   Operation:          filesystem-mount
   Progress:           0.0
   ProgressValid:      false
   Rate:               0
   StartTime:          1553186994019094
   StartedByUID:       0
17:49:54.095: /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/jobs/2: org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Job::Completed (true, '')
17:49:54.095: Removed /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/jobs/2
17:49:54.140: /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/dm_2d5: org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Filesystem: Properties Changed
 MountPoints:          /media/mil/wd1
17:49:54.141: /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/dm_2d5: org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Block: Properties Changed
 UserspaceMountOptions:        uhelper=udisks2
17:49:54.141: /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdd: org.freedesktop.UDisks2.PartitionTable: Properties Changed
 Partitions:           ['/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdd1']

I don't know if this UserspaceMountOptions: uhelper=udisks2 could help me if I manage to change these mount options.

Failed attempts

The HintAuto property and udisks2

The HintAuto is a property that can be overridden thanks to UDISKS_AUTO in udisks2. I spotted that the physical partition udisksctl info -b /dev/sdc1 | grep HintAuto -> HintAuto: true. However, HintAuto is false for the logical device udisksctl info -b /dev/mapper/wd0hdd-wd0 | grep HintAuto -> HintAuto: false

I managed to override the value of HintAuto for the logical volume thanks to a udev rules as discussed in Automount LVM logical volume with a udev rule and udisks2 however it has not solved my problem since udisks2 still does not automount the partition.

Unsatisfactory solution

Use /etc/fstab either by editing directly or using gnome-disk-utility, it just solves the problem to auto-mount at startup but not if I plug the disk latter. Also, it does not solve Problem 2 nor Problem 3 (I thought x-gvfs-show would solve but no) and as far as I know /etc/fstab is for static drive and udisks2 is for all kind of removable drives, so I would prefer a udisks2 solution.

Use awesome shell script started by some daemon detecting when the disk is plugged. Huum well maybe if I have no other choice but I did not find any script solving all the three problems mentioned above. Also I still believe the work could be done by udisks2.

Tell udisks2 to auto mount all the logical volume. That would be undesired since some of my logical volume are other linux system. Anyway I did not find any way to do that.

Motivation

People could ask:
- Why a single LVM partition on the whole disk instead of a single standard partition ? KISS !
- Yes you are right ! However what I try to achieve here is just a simpler scenario of what I want to achieve in the end. I have another disk on which I installed a small ESP partition to multi-boot in EFI mode and another LVM physical volume containing two logical volumes with two different linux and a third huge logical volume for media data storage. Most of the time this disk is just plugged in my personal computer, so I only use the media data storage partition for backup and music however sometimes I go to other places without my computer and only bring my disk, thus I can boot with my own linux, emacs and music player configured as I like and start working in a pleasant environment. In this context, LVM is really useful for this setup to easily resize and manage encryption.

Introduction

I'm using Ubuntu MATE 16.04.5 LTS with latest 4.4 Linux kernel on several machines (laptops and desktops with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0).

For me it seems that something was changed inside USB driver internals of the kernel (or maybe udisks). Or USB flash hardware become cheaper and low-quality.

My USB flash has LED indicator. It is no-name gift (ChipsBank CBM2099E controller).

When I connect it to the computer - it has LED indicator on, it blinks when data is transferred.
My main idea: when I see blinking indicator I suppose that flash is busy, so I should not disconnect it to prevent data corruption.

Problem

Expected behavior

Many flashes - old Transcend JFV60, JF110, JF150, JF500, modern JF790; Kingston Data Traveller G2 and ADATA UE700, SanDisk Extreme Pro do not have such continuous blink problem. They stop blinking exactly after selecting Eject option and show bubble message that device is safe to remove:

Behavior of problematic flash

When I eject problematic USB flash drive from Caja file-manager or from GNOME Disks by pressing Eject menu option the flash LED is continuous blinking with fast rate. I tried to wait for about one hour, but is still blinks after this period of time. This happens even if I do not write anything on the drive. The notification bubble is not shown.

Question

My questions - what may be the reason of such blinking problem? Is it just me? Is it safe (for data) to disconnect such blinking flash?

Notes and updates

Notes

1. I do not ask here about slow drop of write cache and/or sync the drive. It highly depends on RAM size and on real write speed of the flash. The mentioned behavior exists in cases when no data were written.
2. All these flashes do not have problems with eject functionality on Windows. They get LED off just after clicking on Eject/Safely remove.
3. Selecting Power off this disk () in GNOME Disks forces flash to stop blinking, but I'm not sure about data safety in such case (for this particular flash; for other flashes and USB HDDs or SSDs it is safe, I know it).
4. I know that for example WD MyPassport USB hard-drives changes blink rate from fast to slow glow-fade after safely remove, but is other story as it have had spin-down and parked before, so it is safe to unplug it afterwards. So I do not think that the blinking of USB flashes indicate their polling and force user to detach it...

Updates

1. below is live output of tail -f /var/log/syslog

Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.101403] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     General  UDisk            5.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.102526] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.104745] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] 31129600 512-byte logical blocks: (15.9 GB/14.8 GiB)
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.107594] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.107611] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.107792] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.107805] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.109561]  sdc:
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname kernel: [32596.110621] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
Nov 11 23:37:35 hostname udisksd[2294]: Mounted /dev/sdc at /media/username/FLASHDEVICE on behalf of uid 1000
Nov 11 23:37:52 hostname udisksd[2294]: Cleaning up mount point /media/username/FLASHDEVICE (device 8:32 is not mounted)
Nov 11 23:37:52 hostname udisksd[2294]: Unmounted /dev/sdc on behalf of uid 1000

note last lines here, at 23:37:35 device was unmounted/ejected from file manager, at 23:37:52 udisks removed it, but its LED still blinking.

2. Followed @WinEunuuchs2Unix ideas I tried both UDisks (legacy, it remains on my system because of upgrades from 12.04) and UDisks2 (modern and actual) to perform safely remove procedure - both

#udisks1 (legacy)
udisks --unmount /dev/sdc1 && udisks --detach /dev/sdc
#udisks2 (modern)
udisksctl unmount -b /dev/sdc1 && udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdc

ended with same LED blinking problem with only one of my flashes.

3. Repeated the method above on my old Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS and here LED is blinking on problematic flash. So it is a USB flash hardware issue.

Conclusion

There is some software-hardware incompatibility between my no-name ChipsBank CBM2099E based flash and Linux and/or Udisks. Other flashes (listed above in expected behavior) do not have problems.
^{In the Windows 8.1 running on the same laptop its safe removal is successful and LED is off.}

I'm on Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I would like someone to give me a short introduction to the basic usage of the udisks utility on Linux systems. Specifically, I would like to know how to properly mount and unmount an external USB drive.

System > Administration > Disk Utility

What's the difference between "Unmount Volume" and "Safe Removal"? Say you insert a flash drive and open the Disk Utility UI, if you click on "Safe Removal" you receive an "Error Detaching Drive" notification, because it's busy. You must first click the "Unmount Volume" button, and then follow it with the "Safe Removal" button.

A couple questions here: Does this mean all these times I've been "ejecting" the drive (via context menu) before removing it, I haven't been "safely" removing it? And what are the command line equivalents for the two different operations?

(This question was somewhat addressed here but the answers seem to contradict what I'm pointing out about the Disk Utility options. Thanks.)