Automount Drive Setup

Warning

(1) Connecting external drives over eSATA for scheduled backups can result in corrupted RAID arrays on some motherboards which do not organize SATA ports based on boot status.

(2) Zentyal 3.0 through 3.3 automounts USB devices, which interferes with fuse autofs mounts for backup drives connected using USB.

In this example, a backup drive is configured as an extended partition hard drive formatted NTFS. Since Linux does not honor file permissions on NTFS volumes, the backup will be readable by anyone.

Part 1: Install autofs [1]

Display a terminal command line on the server console, or ssh to a server command shell. At the command prompt, type:

sudo apt-get install autofs ntfsprogs ntfs-3g

Part 2. Format drive NTFS

A drive must be formatted before use. We recommend NTFS file system for the external backup drive, as then it can be read from either Linux or Windows. Use the following instructions to perform this format:

Warning

These instructions assume that the external drive is device sdc, and you are using data partition sdc1. Verify this, or replace sdc1 in the following instructions with the correct parameter for your specific system. All instructions are intended to be executed at a terminal command prompt.

  1. Identify the device, format, and mount status using the following commands:

    ls -al /dev/sd*
sudo blkid
mount -l

  2. If mounted, unmount the drive volume with one of the following commands:

    sudo service autofs stop (for an automounted drive).
sudo umount /dev/sdc (For a standard mount point).

Note

For Zentyal 3.0 through 3.3, modify the udev rules to prevent USB drives from automounting. [2] :

sudo bash < <(echo ‘echo “SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, ENV{UDISKS_AUTO}=”0”” >> /etc/udev/rules.d/85-no-automount.rules’) sudo service udev restart

  1. Verify the device is unmounted:

    mount -l

  2. Use fdisk to remove partitions, create a fresh partition, set type to 7 (NTFS/HPFS):

    sudo fdisk /dev/sdc
u
c
n,p,<Enter>,<Enter>
t,7
w

  3. Format the new partition NTFS, label it BACKUP:

    sudo mkntfs -L BACKUP -f /dev/sdc1

Warning

Creating a new drive partition changes the UUID for the drive mount. When a drive has been automounted in the past, partitioning must be followed by the automount steps below before autofs can mount the drive.

Part 3: Identify the device

Note

Once a drive is formatted, a bash script is provided to perform Parts 2 and 3 of this document. From the web browser on the server, download this script and save it in your home folder. Then execute the script with the commands:

cd ~/Downloads
bash backupdrive.sh BACKUP
rm backupdrive.sh

The drive device will be discovered and then mounted to logical mount point /home/mnt/backup. [3]

  1. Plug in the hot-pluggable device on a USB port (eSATA is risky).

  2. At the command prompt, type:

    sudo blkid

  3. Output similar to the following will be displayed:

    /dev/sda1: UUID="27d7b97c-d615-4fff-9c55-ab714176ab29" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="25630530-a7b8-442c-9c2d-57ea5eab109b" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda6: UUID="cf5aed21-730f-42bc-8a63-b068884772b5" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="27d7b97c-d615-4fff-9c55-ab714176ab29" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="25630530-a7b8-442c-9c2d-57ea5eab109b" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="cf5aed21-730f-42bc-8a63-b068884772b5" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/mapper/ddf1_aaltsys1: UUID="27d7b97c-d615-4fff-9c55-ab714176ab29" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/mapper/ddf1_aaltsys5: UUID="25630530-a7b8-442c-9c2d-57ea5eab109b" TYPE="swap"
/dev/mapper/ddf1_aaltsys6: UUID="cf5aed21-730f-42bc-8a63-b068884772b5" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc5: LABEL="HD-HSQ" UUID="363404743404397F" TYPE="ntfs"

This example shows block device /dev/sdc5, UUID 363404743404397F, of TYPE="ntfs".

Warning

In the following commands, replace $UUID with the identifier YOU OBTAINED from the instructions in Part 3.

Note

The output above shows LABEL=”HD-HSQ”. If desired, change the volume label with the command:

sudo ntfslabel {block_device} {new_label}

For example, the command sudo ntfslabel /dev/sdc5 BACKUP would change the label from HD-HSQ to BACKUP in the previous output.

At the command prompt, type:

sudo service autofs stop
sudo mkdir -p /home/mnt/backup/source_config
sudo bash < <(echo 'echo "/-  /etc/auto.backup  --timeout=30 --ghost" >> /etc/auto.master')
sudo bash < <(echo 'echo "/home/mnt/backup  -fstype=auto,sync  :/dev/disk/by-uuid/$UUID" >> /etc/auto.backup')
sudo service autofs start

Hint

Did you remember to replace $UUID with your partition identifier?

Part 4: Verify drive mounting

Type the commands:

ls /home/mnt/backup
touch /home/mnt/backup/@@external@@

Note

This procedure created a file directory on the local drive as well as the target directory on the external drive. When the external drive is disconnected, turned off, or failed, the file @@external@@ will not display with the command ls /home/mnt/backup/@@*.

Disconnect automounted drive

Your device is mounted with a 30-second timeout. To avoid corruption, count to 60 before disconnecting the drive. When a drive will remain disconnected, autofs interferes with using the underlying file system of the system drive. Reconfigure autofs to ignore the file system mount point as follows:

sudo sed -i '$d' /etc/auto.master
sudo service autofs restart

Footnotes

[1]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Autofs
[2]http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85061/automount-not-disabling-in-ubuntu-12-04-or-13-04
[3]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB