Udisks
Related articles
udisks provides a daemon udisksd, that implements D-Bus interfaces used to query and manipulate storage devices, and a command-line tool udisksctl, used to query and use the daemon.
Contents
Installation
There are two versions of udisks called udisks and udisks2. Development of udisks has ceased in favor of udisks2. [1]
udisksd (udisks2) and udisks-daemon (udisks) are started on-demand by D-Bus, and should not be enabled explicitly (see man udisksd
and man udisks-daemon
). They can be controlled through the command-line with udisksctl and udisks, respectively. See man udisksctl
and man udisks
for more information.
Configuration
Actions a user can perform using udisks are restricted with Polkit. If your session is not activated or present, for example, when controlling udisks from systemd/User, configure policykit manually.
See [2] for common udisks permissions for the storage
group, and [3] for a more restrictive example.
Mount helpers
The automatic mounting of devices is easily achieved with udisks wrappers. See also List of applications#Mount tools and File manager functionality#Mounting.
devmon
udevil includes devmon, which is compatible with udisks and udisks2. It uses mount helpers with the following priority:
- udevil (SUID)
- pmount (SUID)
- udisks
- udisks2
To mount devices with udisks or udisks2, remove the SUID permission from udevil:
# chmod -s /usr/bin/udevil
udevadm monitor
You may use udevadm monitor
to monitor block events and mount drives when a new block device is created. Stale mount points are automatically removed by udisksd, such that no special action is required on deletion.
#!/bin/bash pathtoname() { udevadm info -p "/sys/$1" | awk -v FS== '/DEVNAME/ {print $2}' } while read -r _ _ event devpath _; do if [[ $event == add ]]; then devname=$(pathtoname "$devpath") udisksctl mount --block-device "$devname" --no-user-interaction fi done < <(stdbuf -o L udevadm monitor --udev -s block)
udiskie
udiskie is a mount helper using either udisks or udisks2. It includes support for password protected LUKS devices. See the udiskie wiki for usage details.
udisksvm
udisksvm is a graphical udisks2 wrapper application written in Python3 and using the Qt5 framework. It uses only mouse clicks to mount, unmount removable devices or eject a CD/DVD. It is well adapted to light weight graphical environments, like Openbox with Tint2. It is a stand-alone mounting/automounting application running in background (see the README file in the package for details).
Tips and tricks
Mount to /media (udisks2)
By default, udisks2 mounts removable drives under the ACL controlled directory /run/media/$USER/
. If you wish to mount to /media
instead, use this rule:
/etc/udev/rules.d/99-udisks2.rules
# UDISKS_FILESYSTEM_SHARED # ==1: mount filesystem to a shared directory (/media/VolumeName) # ==0: mount filesystem to a private directory (/run/media/$USER/VolumeName) # See udisks(8) ENV{ID_FS_USAGE}=="filesystem|other|crypto", ENV{UDISKS_FILESYSTEM_SHARED}="1"
Mount loop devices
To easily mount ISO images, use the following command:
$ udisksctl loop-setup -r -f image.iso
This will create a loop device and show the ISO image ready to mount. Once unmounted, the loop device will be terminated by udev.
Hide selected partitions
If you wish to prevent certain partitions or drives appearing on the desktop, you can create a udev rule, for example /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules
:
KERNEL=="sda1", ENV{UDISKS_PRESENTATION_HIDE}="1" KERNEL=="sda2", ENV{UDISKS_PRESENTATION_HIDE}="1"
shows all partitions with the exception of sda1
and sda2
on your desktop. Note that if you are using udisks2, the above will not work as UDISKS_PRESENTATION_HIDE
is no longer supported. Instead, use UDISKS_IGNORE
as follows:
KERNEL=="sda1", ENV{UDISKS_IGNORE}="1" KERNEL=="sda2", ENV{UDISKS_IGNORE}="1"
Because block device names can change between reboots, it is also possible to use UUIDs (as gathered from executing the blkid /dev/sdX
command) to hide partitions or whole devices:
For example:
# blkid /dev/sdX /dev/sdX: LABEL="Filesystem Label" UUID="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXXX" UUID_SUB="YYYYYYYY-YYYY-YYYY-YYYY-YYYYYYYYYYYY" TYPE="btrfs"
Then the following line can be used:
ENV{ID_FS_UUID}=="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXXX", ENV{UDISKS_IGNORE}="1"
The above line is also useful to hide multi device btrfs filesystems, as all the devices from a single btrtfs filesystem will share the same UUID across the devices but will have different SUB_UUID for each individual device.
Troubleshooting
Hidden devices (udisks2)
Udisks2 hides certain devices from the user by default. If this is undesired or otherwise problematic, copy /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/80-udisks2.rules
to /etc/udev/rules.d/80-udisks2.rules
and remove the following section in the copy:
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------ # ------------------------------------------------------------------------ # ------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Devices which should not be display in the user interface [...]
Devices do not remain unmounted (udisks)
udisks remounts devices after a given period, or polls those devices. This can cause unexpected behaviour, for example when formatting drives, sharing them in a virtual machine, power saving, or removing a drive that was not detached with --detach
before.
To disable polling for a given device, for example a CD/DVD device:
# udisks --inhibit-polling /dev/sr0
or for all devices:
# udisks --inhibit-all-polling
See man udisks
for more information.