# Automounting USB sticks and CDs?



## grateful (Sep 12, 2011)

Hello.

I'm new to the magical world of FreeBSD, but I already have worked with Net-/OpenBSD several times, here is my very first question: How do I make my BSD machine automatically mount USB sticks, CDs, DVDs, whatever ...

I've installed Xorg, Gnome2 and stuff like Firefox, Pidgin, Abiword, .. so far. Here's my uname -a:


```
FreeBSD styx 8.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011     root@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
```

I do have HAL and DBUS installed, and they're also mentioned in the /etc/rc.conf:


```
styx# cat /etc/rc.conf 

# -- sysinstall generated deltas -- # Sun Sep 11 23:00:08 2011
# Created: Sun Sep 11 23:00:08 2011
# Enable network daemons for user convenience.
# Please make all changes to this file, not to /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
# This file now contains just the overrides from /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
hostname="styx"
ifconfig_sk0="DHCP"
keymap="german.cp850"
sshd_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
gnome_enable="YES"
gdm_enable="YES"
```

... but I guess, the user does have to have special permissions to automount stuff without root privileges. When I simply click an attached HDD (formatted with vfat!), I get the following error message:

```
[B]Unable to mount 320.1 GB Media[/B]
DBus error org.gtk.Private.RemoteVolumeMonitor.Failed:
An operation is already pending
```

What do I have to do now?


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## zeiz (Sep 12, 2011)

if in /etc/rc.conf

```
gnome_enable="YES"
```
then gdm is enabled too, no need to have the separate entry. 
For mounting in Gnome as regular user see for example http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/halfaq.html#q3


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## neurosis (Sep 17, 2011)

I am curious if you were able to find a solution?  I am having the same problem.  If I am reading the faq correctly, if you are using GDM then you should not have to modify anything else correct?



> Step 2: In order to mount volumes using hal, you must be authorized. This authorization is carried out by ConsoleKit and PolicyKit. If you are a GNOME user, and you use GDM to login to GNOME, then you do not need to make any additional configuration changes in order to mount removable media.



I have a newly updated ports tree and everything was installed fresh. Any help would be appreciated.


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