eSATA external drive requires password to mount

[Sam Freilich]

Binary package hint: devicekit-disks

When I plug in an eSATA external hard drive, it would appear in the Places menu but not automount (which is also a bit of a problem, but see bug #452256). When I clicked on it in the Places menu, it would then mount and I could access my files. Since upgrading to Karmic, it asks me for a password before mounting. This is a bit of an annoyance. Presumably, non-administrator users (at least, those with the "Access external storage devices automatically" permission) should be able to mount external hard drives without an administrator password. At the very least, I don't see why the security policy for USB hard drives and eSATA hard drives should be different.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
CustomUdevRuleFiles: 45-libgphoto2.rules~
Date: Sat Nov 7 15:27:18 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
MachineType: System76, Inc. Pangolin Performance
NonfreeKernelModules: openafs nvidia
Package: devicekit-disks 007-2ubuntu3 [modified: usr/bin/devkit-disks usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-daemon usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-mkfs usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-delete-partition usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-create-partition usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-modify-partition usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-create-partition-table usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-change-filesystem-label usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-linux-md-remove-component usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-fstab-mounter usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-ata-smart-collect usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-ata-smart-selftest usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-drive-detach usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-drive-poll usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-helper-linux-md-check lib/udev/devkit-disks-part-id lib/udev/devkit-disks-dm-export lib/udev/devkit-disks-probe-ata-smart sbin/umount.devkit]
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=e7728359-15b1-4eb6-a7c9-db1b40e7c807 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: devicekit-disks
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 04/06/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies LTD
dmi.bios.version: 1.02.22
dmi.board.asset.tag: Tag 12345
dmi.board.name: Pangolin Performance
dmi.board.vendor: System76, Inc.
dmi.board.version: panp5
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: No Enclosure
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLTD:bvr1.02.22:bd04/06/2009:svnSystem76,Inc.:pnPangolinPerformance:pvrpanp5:rvnSystem76,Inc.:rnPangolinPerformance:rvrpanp5:cvnNoEnclosure:ct1:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: Pangolin Performance
dmi.product.version: panp5
dmi.sys.vendor: System76, Inc.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

devkit-disks seems to detect it as non-internal just fine:

Showing information for /org/freedesktop/DeviceKit/Disks/devices/sdb1
  system internal: 0

Can you please expand the "details" section of that authentication dialog and either copy&paste the text from there or make a screenshot? Does it really ask for the org.freedesktop.devicekit.disks.filesystem-mount-system-internal privilege?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

(Also, why do you have so many modified files in your devicekit-disks package??)

[Sam Freilich (l33tminion)]

I have no idea why all those files are modified, that's really odd... I have a system-76 laptop, so maybe their customizations are responsible? I'll ask.

The permission it asks for is indeed:
org.freedesktop.devicekit.disks.filesystem-mount-system-internal

Runing devicekit-disks --dump yields:
device-file: /dev/sdb
[...]
  system internal: 1
  removable: 0
[...]
device-file: /dev/sdb1
[...]
  system internal: 1
  removable: 0

Same whether or not the drive is mounted.

Ah, I see why, I had my USB drive mounted at the time, not my eSATA drive. I should have had that mounted when I filed the bug. Full output attached, with /dev/sdb1 mounted at /media/1T.

[Sam Freilich (l33tminion)]

System-76 says they don't modify devicekit-disks, so I have no idea how those files got modified. Was something missed during the upgrade process? Is there a way to reset those?

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

A related bug report (though started back in HAL days): https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/153768 -- same issue of eSATA not being detected as external.

[Ignacy Gawędzki (iazz)]

As suggested in bug report #153768, there really should be some way to configure by hand which SATA port is to be considered as eSATA. I personally have a simple SATA-to-eSATA bracket that "exports" two of my internal SATA ports. Hotplugging works like a charm up to the point at which the external disk is considered internal and the partitions are not automounted in gnome (and require password to mount from selection in "Places").

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Ah, thanks. I'm going to mark this as a dupe of bug 153768 and add a devkit-disks task there, to keep the discussion at one place.

Also, this is fortunately a pretty moot point now, with bug 465054 being fixed now (at least in lucid).