System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

Comparison of Automatic and Manual Mounting

The following table compares the steps involved in manual mounting (without volume management) and automatic mounting (with volume management) of removable media.

Table 17–1 Comparison of Manual and Automatic Mounting

Steps 

Manual Mounting 

Automatic Mounting 

Insert media. 

Insert media. 

Become superuser. 

For diskettes, use the volcheck command.

Determine the location of the media device. 

Volume manager (vold) automatically performs many of the tasks previously required to manually mount and work with removable media.

Create a mount point. 

 

Make sure you are not in the mount point directory. 

 

Mount the device using the proper mount options.

 

Exit the superuser account. 

 

Work with files on media. 

Work with files on media. 

Become superuser. 

 

10 

Unmount the media device. 

 

11 

Eject media. 

Eject media. 

12 

Exit the superuser account.