Torrent Suite SoftwareAdministration Guide

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Administration Guide TOC

Mount a USB Drive

This describes the procedure for manually mounting and unmounting an external USB drive. To follow these steps, you should feel comfortable using the Linux command line and have a basic understanding of disk drives and partitions.

By default, Ubuntu Desktop automatically mounts an external USB drive when the drive is attached to the machine, similar to Mac or Windows operating systems.

The Ubuntu Server, however, does not mount external hard drives automatically, so the ion-usbmount utility is included with the Torrent Server Software, which automatically mounts attached USB drives in the /media directory. If a particular USB drive is not being automatically mounted by ion-usbmount , you may need to mount the drive manually.

Mount a USB Drive

1. To see a list of the drives in the system, type the following command before connecting the USB drive:

                  sudo fdisk \-l
                 

   Make a note of the drives that are present, so you can be sure which drives are in the server. The local hard drive usually has a name such as /dev/sda , as in the following example:

                  ionadmin@itw-test01:~$ sudo fdisk -l
   
   Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x0004366b
   
   Device Boot  Start    End     Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sda1   *    1     37     291840   83  Linux
   Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
   /dev/sda2       37  60802  488092673    5  Extended
   /dev/sda5       37  60802  488092672   8e  Linux LVM
                 

2. To see a list of drives, including the new drive:
   
   
   1. Connect the USB drive.

   2. Wait about ten seconds and re-type: sudo fdisk -l . You should see a new drive.
      
      
      
      You need to know the device name of your USB drive, which is usually called /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc , depending on the number of drives installed. The partition is a number appended to the name of the physical drive. For example, the first partition on drive /dev/sdc would be called /dev/sdc1 .
      
      
      
      In the following example, there is a 2GB partition (1953512001 blocks) attached to the system and named /dev/sdb1 . It is configured with a Linux partition. (If the drive was formatted on Windows, it is either a FAT or NTFS partition.)

                       ionadmin@itw-test01:/$ sudo fdisk -l
      
      Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
      255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
      Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
      Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      Disk identifier: 0x0004366b
      
      Device Boot  Start      End      Blocks   Id  System
      /dev/sda1   *    1       37      291840   83  Linux
      Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
      /dev/sda2       37    60802   488092673    5  Extended
      /dev/sda5       37    60802   488092672   8e  Linux LVM
      
      Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
      255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
      Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
      Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      Disk identifier: 0x5786fcfb
      
      Device Boot  Start      End      Blocks   Id  System
      /dev/sdb1        1   243201  1953512001   83  Linux
                      

3. If the drive is a Windows FAT or NTFS partition, reformat the drive as an ext3 partition to preserve the Linux file information.

   Icon

   Be careful that you are formatting the correct hard-drive!

   To reformat the drive as ext3 partition, type sudo mkfs.ext3 <your_device> . For example:

                  sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sde5
                 

4. Label the partition on external USB drive. To label the partition, type

                sudo e2label <your_device_place> <partition_label>.
               

   For example, external drive connected in/dev/sdblwill be labeled as'TS_Backup1':

                  sudo e2label /dev/sdb1 TS_Backup1
                 

   It is important to provide a different label name to each partition to avoid error when multiple external USB drives are connected to TS at the same time.

   Test to see if external USB drive mounts automatically. Disconnect the external USB drive and connect it back. Wait ~10 seconds. The external USB drive should now appear under the Services tab in Torrent Browser.

Unmount a USB Drive

Before disconnecting a drive, it is recommended that you unmount it first, to ensure that all data has been completely written to disk. If you pull out the USB cable, there is a real risk of data loss.

The command to unmount the drive is almost identical to the command to mount the drive:

             sudo umount /dev/sdb1 /media/external