Chapter 17 Managing Removable Media (Overview)
This chapter provides general guidelines for managing removable
media in the Solaris environment.
This is a list of the overview information in this chapter.
What's New in Managing Removable Media?
Volume management features have been improved to fully support removable
media. This improvement means that DVD-ROMs, Iomega and Universal Serial Bus
(USB) Zip drives and Jaz drives, CD-ROMs, and diskettes are mounted and available
for reading when they are inserted.
You can use both the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) volume management
and the Solaris command line to fully manage removable media.
With the volume management improvements, you can:
-
Format, label, and set read or write software protection on
removable media with the new rmformat command. This command
replaces the fdformat command for formatting removable
media.
-
Create and verify a PCFS file system on removable media with
the mkfs_pcfs and fsck_pcfs commands.
-
Create an fdisk partition and a PCFS file
system on removable media on a SPARC system to facilitate data transfers to x86
systems.
Guidelines for using removable media are:
-
Use UDFS and PCFS to transfer data between DVD media.
-
Use the tar or cpio
commands to transfer files between rewritable media such as a PCMCIA memory
card or diskette with a UFS file system. A UFS file system that is created
on a SPARC system is not identical to a UFS file system on PCMCIA or to a
diskette that is created on an x86 system.
-
Set write protection to protect important files on Jaz or
Zip drives or diskettes. Apply a password to Iomega media.
Where to Find Managing Removable Media Tasks
Use these references to find step-by-step instructions for managing
removable media.
For information on using removable media with File Manager in the Common
Desktop Environment, see Solaris Common
Desktop Environment: User's Guide.
Removable Media Features and Benefits
The Solaris environment gives users and software developers a standard
interface for dealing with removable media. Referred to as volume management,
this interface provides three major benefits:
-
By automatically mounting removable media, it simplifies their
use. (For a comparison between manual and automatic mounting, see the following
section.)
-
It enables you to access removable media without having to
become superuser.
-
It allows you to give other systems on the network automatic
access to any removable media on your local system. For more information,
see Chapter 18, Accessing Removable Media (Tasks).
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
|
|
1
|
Insert media.
|
Insert media.
|
|
2
|
Become superuser.
|
For diskettes, use the volcheck command.
|
|
3
|
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.
|
|
4
|
Create a mount point.
|
|
|
5
|
Make sure you are not in the mount point directory.
|
|
|
6
|
Mount the device using the proper mount
options.
|
|
|
7
|
Exit the superuser account.
|
|
|
8
|
Work with files on media.
|
Work with files on media.
|
|
9
|
Become superuser.
|
|
|
10
|
Unmount the media device.
|
|
|
11
|
Eject media.
|
Eject media.
|
|
12
|
Exit the superuser account.
| |
What You Can Do With Volume Management
Essentially, volume management enables you to access removable media
just as manual mounting does, but more easily and without the need for superuser
access. To make removable media easier to work with, you can mount removable
media in easy-to-remember locations.
Table 17–2 How to Access Data on Removable Media Managed by Volume Manager
|
Access
|
Insert
|
Find the Files Here
|
|
Files on the first diskette
|
The diskette and enter volcheck
|
/floppy
|
|
Files on the first removable hard
disk
|
The removable hard
disk and enter volcheck
|
/rmdisk/jaz0 or /rmdisk/zip0
|
|
Files on the first CD
|
The CD and wait for a few seconds
|
/cdrom/volume-name
|
|
Files on the first DVD
|
The DVD and wait for a few seconds
|
/dvd/volume-name
|
|
Files on the first PCMCIA
|
The PCMCIA and wait for a few seconds
|
/pcmem/pcmem0
|
If your system has more than one type of removable device, see the following
table for their access points.
Table 17–3 Where to Access Removable Media
|
Media Device
|
Access File Systems With This Path
|
Access Raw Data With
This Path
|
|
First diskette drive
|
/floppy/floppy0
|
/vol/dev/aliases/floppy0
|
|
Second diskette drive
|
/floppy/floppy1
|
/vol/dev/aliases/floppy1
|
|
First CD-ROM drive
|
/cdrom/cdrom0
|
/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0
|
|
Second CD-ROM drive
|
/cdrom/cdrom1
|
/vol/dev/aliases/cdrom1
|
|
First removable hard disk
|
/rmdisk/jaz0
/rmdisk/zip0
|
/vol/dev/aliases/jaz0
/vol/dev/aliases/zip0
|
|
First PCMCIA drive
|
/pcmem/pcmem0
|
/vol/dev/aliases/pcmem0
|
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