usbmount - folder permissions (root)

Question

I have a question related to usbmountand the root rights. I installed usbmount on my Ubuntu (18.04.2 LTS) and it mounts various USB-Sticks to the right folder (/home/user1/USB) I have specified in the /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf file.

I can open the folder and view the content in the GUI, but I can't open a media file (e.g. watch an .mp4 with VLC). VLC would open but not show anything.

Checking the folder permissions, it seems like the /home/user1/USB folder permits access from root only. If I want to change the owner of the folder I get an error message.

I also tried the suggestions in usbmount + samba permissions, which don't change anything.

Does anyone have any other suggestion how I could access the files?

Here is my usbmount.conf:

ENABLED=1
MOUNTPOINTS="/home/user1/USB"
FILESYSTEMS="vfat ntfs fuseblk  ext2 ext3 ext4 hfsplus"
MOUNTOPTIONS="sync,noexec,nodev,noatime,nodiratime"
FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177"
VERBOSE=no

NTFS-formatted sticks also don't get mounted, but I think it's better to focus on the other problem first.

Answer 1

Can't test this myself as I do not use usbmount, but I am guessing the variable

FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177"

needs to be modified.

According to the documentation:

# Filesystem type specific mount options: This variable contains a space
# separated list of strings, each which the form "-fstype=TYPE,OPTIONS".
#
# If a filesystem with a type listed here is mounted, the corresponding
# options are appended to those specificed in the MOUNTOPTIONS variable.
#
# For example, "-fstype=vfat,gid=floppy,dmask=0007,fmask=0117" would add
# the options "gid=floppy,dmask=0007,fmask=0117" when a vfat filesystem
# is mounted.
FS_MOUNTOPTIONS=""

The documentation is perhaps a little bit ambiguous, but it seems to suggest that you should use the following (as an example for the vfat filesystem):

FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="-fstype=vfat,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177"

If needed, add more strings of the type "-fstype=xyz, options" to that line for each additional filesystem.

Answer 2

After further research I made it work, for reference:

• Clean install the usbmount via a self-compiled .deb-File (Instructions: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/04/automatically-mount-usb-drives-on.html)

• configure /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf as indicated above, but there was a small error I believe FS_MOUNTOPTIONS should be:

  FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="-fstype=vfat,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0007,fmask=0177"

Hope this helps. This currently only works for FAT formatted USBs. NTFS-formatted sticks I wasn't able to automount (yet) even though I added the FS_MOUNTOPTIONS commands.