[Grml] Re: RFC: handling of external usb devices

[Michael Prokop]

(Readded grml-user and grml-devel mailinglists to Cc so other users
and devs stay informed as well.)

* Mark <27e3kk302 at sneakemail.com> [20060911 03:15]:

> > Ok, I just took some minutes to finally implement it.
> > (grml-)rebuildfstab supports LABELs and UUIDs now.

> Fantastic.  In response to the solicitation for feedback:

> An issue we have with USB hard drives is that /mnt subfolders get stale
> as hardware changes.  Grml creates the /mnt subfolders, but never
> deletes them.  Obviously not a problem for live CDs, but it is for USB.

ACK, good catch.

> It would be nice if grml would delete /mnt subfolders for hardware that
> it does not detect at boot.

> So, how can grml know that it (not the user) created the folder.  If the
> user created a /mnt subfolder grml probably should not delete it
> automatically.

> Well, my suggestion:  Every time grml creates a /mnt subfolder, drop an
> empty file into it named ".grml-auto-created-do-not-delete-this-file" or
> something like that.  Actually, grml could put useful data into the file
> (such as date, UUID, filesystem type, etc.).  This file lets grml know
> that it has permission to delete the folder.

Nice idea! I just implemented it. :)

Now running [grml-]rebuildfstab handles the /mnt/*-directories as
well. It generates directories for all defined "mounting-targets"
and adds an entry to /mnt/.grml-auto-created-do-not-delete-this-file
for all automatically generated devices as well. When running
[grml-]rebuildfstab once more it checks for present entries and
deletes all auto-generated directories in /mnt if there does not
exist an entry in /etc/fstab anymore. If you manually create a
directory in /mnt/ it won't be touched at all.

I'm just preparing the packages grml-rebuildfstab-0.3 and
grml-scanpartitions-0.3 and write documentation for all the new
stuff.  When I've finished testing the packages I'll upload them to
the grml-repos and will included them in the upcoming grml 0.8-1
develrelease so you see it in action. :)

regards,
-mika-
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