Provided by: pmount_0.9.11-1_i386 bug

NAME
       pmount - mount arbitrary hotpluggable devices as normal user


SYNOPSIS
       pmount [ options ] device

       pmount [ options ] device label

       pmount --lock [ options ] device pid

       pmount --unlock [ options ] device pid


DESCRIPTION
       pmount  ("policy mount") is a wrapper around the standard mount program
       which permits  normal  users  to  mount  removable  devices  without  a
       matching /etc/fstab entry.

       pmount also supports encrypted devices which use dm-crypt and have LUKS
       metadata. If a LUKS-capable cryptsetup is installed, pmount will use it
       to  decrypt  the  device  first and mount the mapped unencrypted device
       instead.

       pmount is invoked like this:

       pmount device [ label ]

       This will mount device to a directory below /media  if  policy  is  met
       (see  below).  If label is given, the mount point will be /media/label,
       otherwise it will be /media/device.

       The   device   will   be   mounted   with    the    following    flags:
       async,atime,nodev,noexec,noauto,nosuid,user,rw

       Some applications like CD burners modify a raw device which must not be
       mounted while the burning process is in progress. To prevent  automatic
       mounting,  pmount  offers a locking mechanism: pmount --lock device pid
       will prevent the pmounting of device until it is unlocked  again  using
       pmount  --unlock  device  pid. The process id pid assigns the lock to a
       particular process; this allows to lock a device by several  processes.

       During  mount,  the  list  of  locks  is cleaned, i. e. all locks whose
       associated process does not exist any more are removed.  This  prevents
       forgotten indefinite locks from crashed programs.

       Important  note  for  Debian:  The  permission  to  execute  pmount  is
       restricted to members of the  system  group  plugdev.  Please  add  all
       desktop  users  who  shall  be  able  to  use  pmount  to this group by
       executing

              adduser user plugdev

       (as root).


POLICY
       The mount will succeed if all of the following conditions are met:

       · device is a block device in /dev/

       · device is not in /etc/fstab (if it is, pmount executes  mount  device
         as the calling user to handle this transparently)

       · device is not already mounted according to /etc/mtab and /proc/mounts

       · if the mount point already exists, there is no device already mounted
         at it and the directory is empty

       · device   is   removable   (USB,   FireWire,   or   MMC   device,   or
         /sys/block/drive/removable is 1) or whitelisted in /etc/pmount.allow.

       · device is not locked


OPTIONS
       -r, --read-only
              Force  the  device to be mounted read only. If neither -r nor -w
              is specified, the kernel will choose an appropriate default.

       -w, --read-write
              Force the device to be mounted read/write. If neither -r nor  -w
              is specified, the kernel will choose an appropriate default.

       -s, --sync
              Mount  the  device  with  the  sync  option, i. e. without write
              caching. Default is async (write-back). With this option,  write
              operations  are  much  slower and due to the massive increase of
              updates  of  inode/FAT  structures,  flash  devices  may  suffer
              heavily  if  you  write  large files. This option is intended to
              make  it  safe  to  just  rip  out  USB  drives  without  proper
              unmounting.

       -A, --noatime
              Mount the device with the noatime option. Default is atime.

       -e, --exec
              Mount the device with the exec option. Default is noexec.

       -t filesystem, --type filesystem
              Mount  as  specified  file  system type. The file system type is
              automatically determined if this option is not given.

       -c charset, --charset charset
              Use given I/O character set (default: utf8 if called in an UTF-8
              locale,  otherwise  mount  default).  This  corresponds with the
              mount option iocharset. This option is ignored for file  systems
              that do not support setting the character set (see mount (8) for
              details).

       -u umask, --umask umask
              Use specified umask instead of the default  one.  For  UDF,  the
              default  is  ’007’, for VFAT and NTFS the default is ’077’. This
              value is ignored for file systems which do not  support  setting
              an umask.

       --passphrase file
              If  the  device is encrypted (dm-crypt with LUKS metadata), read
              the passphrase from specified file instead of prompting  at  the
              terminal.

       -h, --help
              Print a help message and exit successfully.

       -d, --debug
              Enable verbose debug messages.

       --version
              Print the current version number and exit successfully.


FILES
       /etc/pmount.allow
              List  of  devices  (one  device per line) which are additionally
              permitted for pmounting.


SEE ALSO
       pumount(1), mount(8)


AUTHOR
       pmount is developed by Martin Pitt <martin.pitt@canonical.com>.