Recognising Partitions

[david]

Hi,

This is my first mail so please excuse me if I do something wrong (and
let me know so I can do it right next time).

I installed FC3T3 on my Sony Laptop and found to my delight that it
recognised the other partitions on my hard drive including Fat32 and
NTFS partitions. (I run Windows 2000 from one of them). It also mounted
the Fat32 ones for me and just identified the NTFS ones giving me a
message that they were not supported even for read only.

I have used up2date to update both kernel and software over the last
week or so (now up to kernel 649).

I have just noticed that the automatic recognition and mounting no
longer happens - though I can of course mount them manually or
automatically so long as I enter the appropriate lines in fstab.

Did this automatic facility disappear on purpose or by accident, and is
there some way I can get it to start again without having to manually
add things to fstab?

Regards,

David Franks

[Féliciano Matias]

Le mardi 02 novembre 2004 à 16:58 +0000, David Franks a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> This is my first mail so please excuse me if I do something wrong (and
> let me know so I can do it right next time).
>
> I installed FC3T3 on my Sony Laptop and found to my delight that it
> recognised the other partitions on my hard drive including Fat32 and
> NTFS partitions. (I run Windows 2000 from one of them). It also mounted
> the Fat32 ones for me and just identified the NTFS ones giving me a
> message that they were not supported even for read only.

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora3.html

You need to compile the module. There are some potential patent problems
with ntfs.
> I have used up2date to update both kernel and software over the last
> week or so (now up to kernel 649).
>
> I have just noticed that the automatic recognition and mounting no
> longer happens - though I can of course mount them manually or
> automatically so long as I enter the appropriate lines in fstab.
>
> Did this automatic facility disappear on purpose or by accident,

Not by accident.
> and is
> there some way I can get it to start again without having to manually
> add things to fstab?

Read "man fstab-sync" :-)
> Regards,
>
> David Franks

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 04:58:08PM +0000, David Franks wrote:
> ... and just identified the NTFS ones giving me a
> message that they were not supported even for read only.

None of Red Hat distros ever supported NTFS for reasons which
were repeated on this list over and over again.  See archives
and also http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/
> ...  so long as I enter the appropriate lines in fstab.
>
> Did this automatic facility disappear on purpose or by accident, and is
> there some way I can get it to start again without having to manually
> add things to fstab?

Mounting automatically everything "in blind" which happens to lay
around can screw you very badly in more ways than one (security,
things which are really parts of RAID volumes, file systems which
really belong to other installations and which selinux can make
unmountable there by adding attributes - ugh!, ... ).  This is a bit
more selective nowadays.  If you have some file system you want
always mounted at a particular mount point then adding it to
/etc/fstab sounds like exactly the correct thing to do.

Michal

[Colin Walters]

On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 10:29 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> which selinux can make
> unmountable there by adding attributes - ugh!,

This is not SELinux's fault.  If you created ACLs there things also blow
up.  I'm pretty sure if you even create small (fast) symlinks, old ext3
versions get confused.  It's clearly an ext3 bug wrt backwards
compatibility.

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 12:43:32PM -0500, Colin Walters wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 10:29 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> > which selinux can make
> > unmountable there by adding attributes - ugh!,
>
> This is not SELinux's fault.  If you created ACLs there things also blow
> up.

I am not saying that this SELinux's fault.  But if a filesystem got
mounted in a "stealth mode" that something may get "helpful" and
will add for you bits-and-pieces which you never wanted there in 
the first place and which will mess up that filesystem for original
purposes.  That is one of reason why an indiscriminate mounting of
everything which looks like mountable is really bad.

Michal

[Kyrre Ness Sjobak]

tir, 02.11.2004 kl. 18.55 skrev Michal Jaegermann:
> On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 12:43:32PM -0500, Colin Walters wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 10:29 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> > > which selinux can make
> > > unmountable there by adding attributes - ugh!,
> >
> > This is not SELinux's fault.  If you created ACLs there things also blow
> > up.
>
> I am not saying that this SELinux's fault.  But if a filesystem got
> mounted in a "stealth mode" that something may get "helpful" and
> will add for you bits-and-pieces which you never wanted there in 
> the first place and which will mess up that filesystem for original
> purposes.  That is one of reason why an indiscriminate mounting of
> everything which looks like mountable is really bad.
>
> Michal

Is it possible to have the kernel to detect an "old-format" ext, and
mount it in "compitability mode"? And if you wanted to add the extra
bits'n'pieces - tune2fs --something?

[Kyrre Ness Sjobak]

tir, 02.11.2004 kl. 18.43 skrev Colin Walters:
> On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 10:29 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> > which selinux can make
> > unmountable there by adding attributes - ugh!,
>
> This is not SELinux's fault.  If you created ACLs there things also blow
> up.  I'm pretty sure if you even create small (fast) symlinks, old ext3
> versions get confused.  It's clearly an ext3 bug wrt backwards
> compatibility.

Of cource it is SELinux! It is _ALWAYS_ SELinux!

*joking*

[David Zeuthen]

On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 16:58 +0000, David Franks wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is my first mail so please excuse me if I do something wrong (and
> let me know so I can do it right next time).
>
> I installed FC3T3 on my Sony Laptop and found to my delight that it
> recognised the other partitions on my hard drive including Fat32 and
> NTFS partitions. (I run Windows 2000 from one of them). It also mounted
> the Fat32 ones for me and just identified the NTFS ones giving me a
> message that they were not supported even for read only.
>
> I have used up2date to update both kernel and software over the last
> week or so (now up to kernel 649).
>
> I have just noticed that the automatic recognition and mounting no
> longer happens - though I can of course mount them manually or
> automatically so long as I enter the appropriate lines in fstab.
>
> Did this automatic facility disappear on purpose or by accident, and is
> there some way I can get it to start again without having to manually
> add things to fstab?

It did disappear on purpose, however you may remove this section

<!-- Dont want to mount non-hotpluggable fixed disks since ideraid
       detection isnt complete as hald wrongly detects e.g. partitions
       from some IDE RAID controllers -->
  <device>
    <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
      <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
        <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
type="bool">false</merge>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>

from your /usr/share/hal/fdi/90systempolicy/storage-policy.fdi but do
note that this may be replaced on hal updates. I plan to readd this
feature for FC4 when the filesystem probe code in hal is more up to date
(right now we may wrongly add entries for block devices stemming from
IDE RAID controllers, that's partly why we pulled this feature).

HTH,
David

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 01:23:51PM -0500, David Zeuthen wrote:
> It did disappear on purpose, however you may remove this section
>
>   <!-- Dont want to mount non-hotpluggable fixed disks since ideraid
>        detection isnt complete as hald wrongly detects e.g. partitions
>        from some IDE RAID controllers -->
>
>   <device>
>     <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
>       <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
>         <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
> type="bool">false</merge>
>       </match>
>     </match>
>   </device>
>
> from your /usr/share/hal/fdi/90systempolicy/storage-policy.fdi but do
> note that this may be replaced on hal updates.

A question.  If one will drop into /usr/share/hal/fdi/95.... 
a .fdi file which looks like that fragment above but with

<merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
           type="bool">true</merge>

will be this not an override for whatever happen to be system
defaults?
> (right now we may wrongly add entries for block devices stemming from
> IDE RAID controllers, that's partly why we pulled this feature).

As far as I understand this is only one of possible nasty suprises
with "should_mount" set to widely to "true".  Some of them we may
yet to see. :-)

OTOH if there would be application allowing 'root' to generate
these XML files without doing that "raw", and while presenting a
clear picture of keys and values, that would be nice.

Michal

[David Zeuthen]

On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 13:28 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 01:23:51PM -0500, David Zeuthen wrote:
> > It did disappear on purpose, however you may remove this section
> >
> >   <!-- Dont want to mount non-hotpluggable fixed disks since ideraid
> >        detection isnt complete as hald wrongly detects e.g. partitions
> >        from some IDE RAID controllers -->
> >
> >   <device>
> >     <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
> >       <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
> >         <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
> > type="bool">false</merge>
> >       </match>
> >     </match>
> >   </device>
> >
> > from your /usr/share/hal/fdi/90systempolicy/storage-policy.fdi but do
> > note that this may be replaced on hal updates.
>
> A question.  If one will drop into /usr/share/hal/fdi/95.... 
> a .fdi file which looks like that fragment above but with
> <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
>        type="bool">true</merge>
>
> will be this not an override for whatever happen to be system
> defaults?

No, that would be a bit dangerous as we blacklist other things as well
(such as SCSI drives except optical ones).
> > (right now we may wrongly add entries for block devices stemming from
> > IDE RAID controllers, that's partly why we pulled this feature).
>
> As far as I understand this is only one of possible nasty suprises
> with "should_mount" set to widely to "true".  Some of them we may
> yet to see. :-)

Well, if you find a bug in the filesystem probing code let us know.
> OTOH if there would be application allowing 'root' to generate
> these XML files without doing that "raw", and while presenting a
> clear picture of keys and values, that would be nice.

Not sure - ideally users shouldn't have to fine tune this.

For FC4 I hope to have an option in the installer for selecting the
default policy and one option would include "allow full use of all
storage devices" (including non-hotpluggable fixed drives, e.g. your FAT
and NTFS partitions), another one could be "read-only access to
hotpluggable drives" and of course an option to completely lock things
down (e.g. no entries are ever added to the /etc/fstab).

Cheers,
David

[Deji Akingunola]

David Zeuthen wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 16:58 +0000, David Franks wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> It did disappear on purpose, however you may remove this section
>
>  <!-- Dont want to mount non-hotpluggable fixed disks since ideraid
>       detection isnt complete as hald wrongly detects e.g. partitions
>       from some IDE RAID controllers -->
>
>  <device>
>    <match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
>      <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
>        <merge key="storage.policy.should_mount"
> type="bool">false</merge>
>      </match>
>    </match>
>  </device>
>
> from your /usr/share/hal/fdi/90systempolicy/storage-policy.fdi but do

I guess that was supposed to be /usr/share/hal/fdi/90defaultpolicy/storage-policy.fdi, on my system (FC3-RC5) the location above doesn't even exist.
> HTH,
> David

Deji