Managing Removable Media (Overview)

The following information is described in this section:

Removable Media Features and Benefits
Comparison of Manual and Automatic Mounting
Overview of Accessing Removable Media

Removable Media Features and Benefits

The Oracle Solaris release gives users and software developers a standard interface for dealing with removable media. Removable media services provide the following benefits:

Automatically mounts removable media. For a comparison of manual and automatic mounting, see the following section.
Enables you to access removable media without having to become an administrator.
Allows you to give other systems on the network automatic access to any removable media on your local system. For more information, see Accessing Removable Media on a Remote System.

Comparison of Manual and Automatic Mounting

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

Table 1-1 Comparison of Manual and Automatic Mounting of Removable Media

Steps	Manual Mounting	Automatic Mounting
1	Insert media.	Insert media.
2	Become an administrator.	For USB diskettes, use the `volcheck` command.
3	Determine the location of the media device.	Removable media services automatically perform many of the tasks that are required to manually mount and work with removable media.
4	Create a mount point.
5	Make sure you are not in the mount point directory.
6	Mount the device and use the proper `mount` options.
7	Exit the administrator account.
8	Work with files on media.	Work with files on media.
9	Become an administrator.
10	Unmount the media device.
11	Eject media.	Eject media.
12	Exit the administrator account.

Overview of Accessing Removable Media

Essentially, removable media services enable you to access removable media just as manual mounting does, but more easily and without the need for administrative access.

If the media contains a file system and a label, the media label name is used to name the /media/pathname mount point. If a label is not present, the disk model name is used to name the media, such as /media/cdrom. A generic nickname is used only for legacy symbolic links. For example, /rmdisk/rmdisk0.

If your system has more than one type of removable device, see the following table for their access points.

Table 1-2 How to Access Data on Removable Media

Access	Insert	Unlabeled Media Pathnames	Labeled Media Pathname Examples
Files on a removable hard disk	The removable hard disk and type `volcheck` on the command line	`/media/usb-disk` or the legacy path `/rmdisk/rmdisk0`	`/media/00JB-00CRA0`
Files on a DVD	The DVD and wait for a few seconds	`/media/cdrom`	`/media/Oracle_Solaris-11_1-Live-X86`

You can use the rmmount -l command to identify mounted media on your system. For example:

# rmmount -l
/dev/dsk/c5t0d0p0       rmdisk6,/media/FD-05PUB
/dev/dsk/c4t0d3p0       rmdisk5,/media/223UHS-SD-MMC
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0s2       cdrom1,cd1,sr1,Oracle_Solaris-11_1-AI-SPARC,/media/Oracle_Solaris-11_1-AI-SPARC
/dev/dsk/c3t0d0p0       rmdisk2,/media/00JB-00CRA0

In the above output, the mounted devices are as follows:

/dev/dsk/c5t0d0p0: USB diskette
/dev/dsk/c4t0d3p0: CF card in a USB card reader
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0s2: DVD-ROM
/dev/dsk/c3t0d0p0: Removable USB disk

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