kde's "safely remove" needs full rw on device to succeed

iamben · Apprentice Joined: 10 May 2004 Posts: 278

im using kde/hal to handle mounts/unmounts of my usb storage devices, so i put my user in the plugdev group. the device shows up in system:/media just great, and when i click to browse to it, it automounts perfectly and i can read/write/delete anything i like.

however, when i right click the device and choose "safely remove", it pops up an error dialog stating "device was unmounted but could not be ejected". just to be clear, it DOES successfully unmount, so i can safely unplug it just fine, but it complains about the "eject" portion not working. its still functional but the error box EVERY time is annoying.

i looked around and finally figured out that you must have full read/write on the device node for the device (ie /dev/sde1 for my usb drive) for the 'eject' to succeed (and hence NOT give an error). i could put my users in the disk group and it works, but thats WAY more than i want to give normal users.

is this something that should be remedied? i'll probably fix mine by coming up with some udev rules to make sure my usb storage devices get root:plugdev ownership rather than root:disk, but what does everyone else think? should this be fixed in kde, hal, or udev? or am i crazy, and this shouldnt be fixed at all?

ttuegel · Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject:

When I first encountered this problem, I encountered two solutions, one on the Debian bugzilla and one on Ubuntu's (I think...). Long story short, I can't find them now, but your two options are to make a udev rule that creates usb drive devices in group "plugdev" or editing the konqueror context menu to make the eject command fail silently.

My $0.02: It should be fixed in udev, not just in Konqueror, as other programs in other environments may need to use 'eject'. Also, CDs are removable devices, and that's how they are handled.

I'm relieved to know I'm not the only one with this issue, but at the same time, an error this... glaring?... probably shouldn't have crept in in the first place...

anz · Apprentice Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 279 Location: Vienna

Dear ttuegel & iamben,
after upgrading to kde-3.5.7 I have the same "problem": choosing "safely remove" unmounts the usb device but enters an error warning "The device was successfully unmounted, but could not be ejected" (Error - kio_media_mounthelper).
dmesg shows no error.
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ttuegel · Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:42 pm Post subject:

Alright, finally got around to writing a correct udev rule for this. Basically, this assigns any removable disk to group "plugdev" instead of "disk". Here is my /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules file before and after:

blubbi · Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:03 pm Post subject:

Had the same problem here.

But I would recommend to create your own rules file, so you dont have to hasle around with updates later.

ElSenorPantelone · n00b Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 72

Thanks blubbi, good solution.

wyv3rn · Apprentice Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 154 Location: USA

There is a bug report for this: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186028

dopey · Apprentice Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 235

apparently my firewire disks don't appear as removable. So the udev solution doesn't work with firewire either.

uncleringo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 Jul 2004 Posts: 146

I can't unmount my kde-mounted usb keys without su'ing to root. I used to be able to, but it started to not work a few months ago. This is the first time I've properly checked the forums for this problem since it's not too much hassle to su to root and type umount. My regular user is in the plugdev group, and I've modified my udev config to make my usb key mount as root:plugdev, but i'm still unable to umount as a regular user.

Any ideas?

My usb device looks like:

paulj · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 518 Location: Wales, UK

blubbi · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:10 pm Post subject:

udev should be notified via inotify that there were files changed and reread the new rules.

But you could run

paulj · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 518 Location: Wales, UK

Nikoli · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

http://linuxforum.ru/index.php?showtopic=59318&view=findpost&p=581102

Changed in /usr/kde/3.5/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus/media_safelyremove.desktop
from

blubbi · Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject:

Options:
-u Unmount given URL
-m Mount given URL (default)
-e Eject given URL via kdeeject
-s Unmount and Eject given URL (necessary for some USB devices)

mmmh, what happens with CD/DVDs? Did out test it, are the ejected?

Ejecting a USB drive is not that wrong IMHO. If I remember, ejecting a micro disk spins it down.

regards
blubbi
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Nikoli · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 35

For ejecting CD/DVD there is another file /usr/kde/3.5/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus/media_eject.desktop

I have no problems with CD/DVD and with usb flash.

Ejecting USB is really formal, I think it is for prevention errors with some incorrect devices.

leosgb · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:56 am Post subject:

Thanks for the tip guys! But I think that one wants to receive any error message... to disable it means to not know there is something wrong!

RoundsToZero · Guru Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 478 Location: New York, NY

What I did was make my /usr/bin/eject setuid root but group plugdev and not executable by other (non-plugdev) users.

beatryder · Veteran Joined: 08 Apr 2005 Posts: 1138

do any of you guys have pmount installed?

jstead1 · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:20 pm Post subject:

This stopped working recently, because the group permissions for removable devices changed to read only. I added a MODE="660" to change the group permissions to read write again, so the lines in 51-local rules would be something like

carpman · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:09 am Post subject:

useful thread will try some suggestions
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SeaTiger · Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:34 am Post subject:

I am using gnome and don't seems to have this problem, I also have my normal account (non-root) in the following group: