Usb drive mount question

Installing and Using OpenWrt
#1

I wished to use a usb flash drive retaining the original fat 32 format and after reading the advice on the forum concocted the following.

#SSH into the router.

# Copy/paste each line below, then press Return

opkg update && opkg install block-mount e2fsprogs kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb3 kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-storage kmod-fs-vfat kmod-nls-cp437 kmod-nls-iso8859-1

#Attach usb drive now

block detect > /etc/config/fstab
 
uci set fstab.@mount[0].enabled='1' && uci set fstab.@global[0].check_fs='1' && uci commit 

/sbin/block mount && service fstab enable

I ran this and it completed albeit with an error (?) resulting from the last command

root@OpenWrt:~# /sbin/block mount && service fstab enable
block: /dev/ubiblock0_1 is already mounted on /rom
block: /dev/ubi0_2 is already mounted on /overlay
block: check_filesystem: /usr/sbin/dosfsck not found

However having logged into the router using LuCi the drive was mounted on /dev/sda and having installed samba it was available on the network and functioned normally.
Should I be concerned that it did not mount an /dev/sda1 for example and if so what would be the best way to rectify this?
I am new to OpenWRT and somewhat technically challenged so please take that into account when replying!
Thanks
Keith

#2

Hi there, you did the steps as it was written but the problem is those steps are not for everyone, meaning everyone's use-case would be different.
Now first you need to make sure how many partitions are on the USB drive? USB will be identified as /dev/sda and the partitions will be listed as /dev/sda1,/dev/sda2` etc.

I believe you have 1 partition on the USB so this is how you do it:

  1. Install any required packages according to your needs -- block-mount kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb-storage kmod-fs-* (* here tells you whatever filesystem you want, so for you that would be vfat, you may only need kmod-usb2 if you have USB 2.0 and kmod-usb3 if you have USB 3.0).
  2. Once installed, connect the USB and issue block detect > /etc/config/fstab, this will create the fstab config and then you will need to edit the /etc/config/fstab to enable the auto mount of USB on boot. Use vi editor for editing the file. (Google for any tutorials)
  3. Then create a folder for your USB drive to access the files, lets say, data, issue mkdir /data to create the folder and then issue mount /dev/sda1 /data. This will mount the USB drive to data directory and now you can access your device in the /data folder.

There should not be any problems. But it is strongly recommended to use ext4 as filesystem. Because FAT32 has obvious problems.

#3

The drive was not "mounted" on "/dev/sda", that is the device identifier; execute "mount" to see where it was really mounted (and what was mounted, because it is probably "/dev/sda1" instead).

#4

Hi thanks for both replies!
If I understand correctly running the command "mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1", which I did when creating an ext4 formatted drive, therefore creates the file system to be mounted as sda1.
I did run the mount command with the following results:

root@OpenWrt:~# mount
/dev/root on /rom type squashfs (ro,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/ubi0_2 on /overlay type ubifs (rw,noatime)
overlayfs:/overlay on / type overlay (rw,noatime,lowerdir=/,upperdir=/overlay/upper,workdir=/overlay/work)
tmpfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=512k,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,noatime)
/dev/sda on /mnt/sda type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

So that seems to confirm that the device itself is mounted.
many thanks
Keith

#5

First please use the code blocks (</> icon) to put commands and their output here.

Secondly, as far as I know, there seems to be a problem with your USB. For any USB drive, it should be mounted as /dev/sda* (* = 1,2,3...) but in your case it is being mounted on /dev/sda. It means that probably drive does not have a partition in it, although I could be wrong. Doing ls /dev/ might show you possible connected devices.
If you can use a computer to format the drive the way you want, ext4 or fat32 and make sure it has a partition where you can keep data. Then connect to router again. Once connected, issue mount /dev/sda1 /data to mount the drive on /data directory.

#6

There is something really wrong with that setup of yours: you claim to have created an ext4 filesystem on the first partition, yet you have mounted the whole drive as a vfat partition...

#8

Hi to all,
Sorry I am new to OpenWRT, linux etc.
I do have WRT3200ACM with this nice firmware.

PROBLEM I face is write/delete files and folders from mounted 64GB USB key via WindowsExplorer. I alway get fatal errors, permission denied because of disk is write-protected..
However I do see files preloaded from Windows. I can execute them and read.

MY SETTINGS:
First I went to menu System/MountPoints and mounted drive to /mnt/sda1. Checkbox Enabled.
Second went to menu Services/NetworkShares->SharedDirectories
Name: VIDEO
Path: mnt/sda1
Browseable: yes
Read only: no
ForceRoot: yes (otherwise I can't acces drive at all)
Allowed users: [empty]
Allow guests: yes
Guests only: yes (no difference Yes or No selected)
Inherit owner: yes (no difference Yes or No selected)
Create mask: 0666
Directory mask: 0777
Vfs objects: [empty]
Apple time...: [empty]
Time machine...: [empty]

I assume problem related to permissions, but 0666 and 0777 seems OK as far I have googled.
Any help?