Topic: 8.2: connecting external usb drive does not auto-mount it

[Michail Pappas]

In the process of testing an upgrade to 9.2 and the first step is to try and get a console-type USB backup to an external disk.

My 8.2-based server runs as a VM under vmware 5.1. I have added a new USB controller to it, before starting up SME. Afterwards I connected a small WD passport drive with 2 partitions to the VMWare host and configured it to "serve" the usb device to SME. On SME:

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SCSI device sdb: 312581808 512-byte hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2
usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 2
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
  Vendor: WD        Model: 1600BEV External  Rev: 1.04
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 04
SCSI device sdb: 312581808 512-byte hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 312581808 512-byte hdwr sectors (160042 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete

Again from within SME, the partitions are visible:

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# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         893     7168000    b  W95 FAT32
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2             893       19457   149119328+  83  Linux

The problem is that from the console (su - admin), when trying to backup this usb device with the "8. Perform backup to removable media" option, nothing happens. Specifically, selecting this option I am prompted if I wish to create backup on removable storage medium. Selecting yes displays a "insert removable storage medium, then hit the enter key". The external USB disk is already connected. Pressing next makes the screen go blank for 4-5" and then again "insert removable storage medium, then hit the enter key" is displayed.

I thought that the problem was that I had already connected the drive before starting the backup procedure. So I left the device disconnected and connected it only after I received the "insert removable storage medium, then hit the enter key" prompt. Same result.

Any idea what might be going wrong?

[brianr]

you might want to look at:

https://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9126

[TerryF]

See commnet 42 and comment 59 of above bug if you would like to do some testing, will require manually moving files etc, not recommended for a live active system

I have tested extensively and found the changes to be solid, just waiting on a build and update to be put up for verification..

[Michail Pappas]

Thank you both for your comments. I did make the console backup work by connecting a single-partitioned disk (ext3 format), instead of the first one.

FYI, the first one did have an ext3, large-enough partition: /dev/sdb2. But /dev/sdb1 was fat32 formatted and with rather little available space.

Bug 9126 is rather large to read, but I'll try to read it through, in case I can help a bit with testing (even though mine is a live system).