How to run a script when a specific flash-drive is mounted?

Question

Is there a way to run a script when a particular USB device is mounted?

I keep my videos on a separate USB and would like to run a script that would mount the video folder on the USB device to the one in the home folder.

Answer 1

There's much nicer solution with systemd now. You create a service which depends and is wanted by you media e.g.: /etc/systemd/system/your.service

[Unit]
Description=My flashdrive script trigger
Requires=media-YourMediaLabel.mount
After=media-YourMediaLabel.mount

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/you/bin/triggerScript.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=media-YourMediaLabel.mount

Then you have to start/enable the service:

sudo systemctl start your.service
sudo systemctl enable your.service

After mount, systemd fires your trigger script. The advantage over udev rule is that the script really fires after mount, not after adding system device.

Use case: I have an encrypted partition which I want to backup automatically. After adding the device I have to type in the password. If I hooked the backup script to udev, the script attempts to run at the time when I'm typing password, which will fail.

Resource: Scripting with udev

Note: You can find your device unit with:

systemctl list-units -t mount

Answer 2

Start by finding your device in lsusb. Note the ID (eg 0a81:0101)

Create a new udev rules file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ via sudoedit /etc/udev/rules.d/100-mount-videos.rulesand plonk a new rule in there like this:

ACTION=="add", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0a81", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0101", RUN+="/home/your_username/bin/mount_videos.sh"

Note how I used the ID from lsusb.

Then you just need to write the script to do the work. A simple mount command should work. You might need a sleep 5 command in there to wait for the filesystem to initialize (if you leave gnome to do the main mounting -- but you're free to mount it first and then you might not need the sleep).

Addition from Allan: Long running scripts might block "all further events for this or a dependent device". My Mint man page further states "Long running tasks need to be immediately detached from the event process itself." No tip is given on where to gain the skill to do this.

Reply from Oli: Wrap it like so: https://askubuntu.com/a/106359/449

Answer 3

Another way to get the values for ATTRS{idVendor} and ATTRS{idProduct} (tested in Ubuntu 12.04) is:

1. Find where your usb is mounted:

   $ mount | grep /dev/sd*
   

   this shows something like the following:

   /dev/sdb on /media/SOMEDIR type vfat ...
   

2. Use udevadm to get that device info:

   udevadm info -q all -n /dev/sdb | grep -E -i -w '.*VENDOR_ID.*|.*MODEL_ID.*'
   

   the output should be something like:

   E: ID_MODEL_ID=001a
   E: ID_VENDOR_ID=002b
   

3. Now use the model id for ATTRS{idProduct} and vendor id for ATTRS{idVendor}

   ACTION=="add", ATTRS{idVendor}=="002b", ATTRS{idProduct}=="001a" ...
   

Answer 4

In Nautilus under Edit>Preferences>Media you can choose "other action" and than "custom command" for different kinds of scripts/commands to be executed. By that time the usb drive is already mounted, but I suppose you could still link it (with a custom command) to the folder you want the drive to appear in. I couldn't tell whether this is easier or better than using udev.

Answer 5

If you don't want to interfere with your filemanager (nautilus, konquerer, gnome, etc) 's control over mounting and unmounting your device, I suggest not going the udev route.

Instead, use udisks-glue if your system uses udisks (almost all do).

After installing, just create a config file ~/.udisks-glue.conf in your home directory like this.

My following example updates GPS-Assist data on my camera everytime I plug in the SD-card.

filter BT16EXTREME {
  optical = false
  partition_table = false
  usage = filesystem
  label = BT16EXTREME
}
match BT16EXTREME {
  post_mount_command = "/home/bernhard/update-gps-assist-data.pl %mount_point"
}

Afterward just make sure udisks-glue starts when you boot or log-in. I.e. via gnome's startup applications

Answer 6

@sumid's answer has a problem. You should not start the service. You just need to enable it.

file: /etc/systemd/system/your.service

[Unit]
Description=My flashdrive script trigger
Requires=media-YourMediaLabel.mount
After=media-YourMediaLabel.mount

[Service]
ExecStart=/any_path_even_inside_the_mount_point/script.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=media-YourMediaLabel.mount

Then enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable your.service

That's all.

Note: You can find your medial label with: sudo systemctl list-units -t mount

Note2: If the service is failed somehow (for example, the script is not executable), your mount point will change to <old_mount_point_name>1 next time you mount the usb device. To fix this issue, you just need to execute sudo systemctl reset-failed