How to let various devices like usb and cds to automount themself in linux and unix

Quick guide[]

Automounting devices like USB drives and CDs.

If you want to have automount fast, the best should be to install submount, as it works well and you don't require to patch your kernel like with supermount.

If you are more like a hacker, you could install ivman, which is more powerful, and allows you to configure various tasks to be done when events happens in your computer.

Older solutions like automount and magicdev can also be used, but they all have some limitations.

Software[]

Supermount[]

Requires a patch to the Linux kernel. It is a good solution, but only if you want to patch your kernel.

supermount-ng - supermount new generation
HOWTO_Supermount - Gentoo wiki
(fr)supermount help

Submount[]

Submount is a kernel module, so you can install it with virtually any 2.6 kernel (even 2.4). It is similar to supermount, it will mount your devices and unmount automatically.

submount
HOWTO_Submount - Gentoo wiki

Ivman[]

More advanced, it can be set to run a command when a particular event hapends in the system. Usually used to auto-mount devices, it can now be used to run any command when the laptop shuts down, when you insert a particular cd, etc...

ivman
HOWTO_ivman - Gentoo wiki

Automount[]

Automount don't mount your folders unless they are used, so ls wil not work unless you do first a cd. You cannot use paterns for this files like ls /home/e*. pwd return a random path. After 10 minutes, the directories are unmounted, so you might have problems fo write/read files.