Topic: Auto-mount/unmount DVD to i-bay?

[wjhobbs]

I have an unusual requirement and am seeking suggestions for addressing it.

A client has a dvd that contains about 30GB of data that he needs to reference/share from time to time and has asked to be able to put it into a dvd drive on the server to make it accessible over the network. (This would require that I change the current CD drive for DVD.)

My immediate reaction was to suggest that I create a separate i-bay for the data and have him simply copy the necessary folder(s) from the dvd on his workstation to this i-bay. (There is lots of space on the system's hard drives.) The down side is the time it would take to copy all this data over the network.

However, I wondered if there was a way to auto-mount this dvd to the dedicated i-bay (assuming I installed a dvd drive). And if there was, how would the user initiate an unmount when he was finished and wanted to remove the dvd.

The client has physical access to the server but I am a 2-hour drive away and administer it remotely.

Any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

John

[bpivk]

Well one of the solutions would be by using simlinks, but he'll still need access to SSH. The other (and for me the most simple) solution would be via ibays.

[Confucius]

simlinks

Means SymLinks (Symbolic Links).. otherwise you'll have trouble searching. No offence to the writer  

[bpivk]

Sorry. Yes symlinks. I didn't think when i was writing.

[pfloor]

A client has a dvd that contains about 30GB of data

Is this multiple DVD's?  I haven't heard of a DVD that can hold that much data.

My solution would be:

-Install a DVD player into the server.
-Create ibay if needed.
-# mount /media/cdrom (or possibly /media/dvd, etc)
-Copy over the needed files.
-Remove DVD player.

Less hastle, he can add and remove files as needed, assign ibay to a group and assign users for controlled access, etc.

Just makes sense and after the somewhat slow copy process (shouldn't take more that a few hours) the files will be readily accessable.

-Paul

[byte]

I haven't heard of a DVD that can hold that much data.

Blu-ray does  

[wjhobbs]

My thanks to all of you for your comments.

Since there didn't seem to be an easy way to do it the way the client thought he wanted it done, I asked him to copy the dvd contents to a separate i-bay I created for him. He mapped the i-bay to a drive letter on his Windows machine and was able to access his data.

He was surprised at the simplicity of the solution and very happy with the result.

John

btw, he was wrong about the data volume. There were 2 DVDs and about 7GB of data.