Using usbmount with ntfs and exfat filesystems

Adding ntfs to usbmount

1. Install usbmount with sudo apt-get install usbmount.
2. Install NTFS driver package ntfs-3g with sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g.
3. Configure usbmount to mount specified filesystems by opening the usbmount file with sudo nano /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf.

In here there is a line called FILESYSTEMS="". Only filesystems specified in this line are mounted via usbmount, so we change it to : FILESYSTEMS="vfat ntfs fuseblk ext2 ext3 ext4 hfsplus"

If you want usbmount to mount NTFS Filesystems, be sure to add ntfs and fuseblk to the line. NTFS devices are sometimes listed as fusblk by the ntfs-3g package, so those two are the same. I don’t really know why though.

Also, if you don’t add fuseblk in the configuration, unplugged NTFS Devices will not automatically unmount. They will stay mounted and keep the folder they are mounted to until the device is manually unmounted with unmount /dev/sda1 –> where sda1 could be another variable.

The next important line is FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="". Here you specify which filesystems should be mounted and how they should be mounted.

We change it to: FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="-fstype=ntfs-3g,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 -fstype=fuseblk,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 -fstype=vfat,gid=1000,uid=1000,umask=007"

With this the filesystems vfat (fat32) ntfs-3g (NTFS), and fuseblk (NTFS again) are mounted. I think most parameters can stay the same. Again here just add ntfs-3g (add ntfs-3g not ntfs) and fuseblk to be able to mount all NTFS Files. For more filesystems add more lines starting with -fstype=.

Keep NTFS mounted untill device is unplugged

Here is a solution for the problem, when the mounted NTFS drive is only accessible for a few seconds. This fix comes from Christian Weinberger.

1. Create the file usbmount.rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/ with sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/usbmount.rules.

This is the content:

KERNEL=="sd*", DRIVERS=="sbp2",         ACTION=="add",  PROGRAM="/bin/systemd-escape -p --template=usbmount@.service $env{DEVNAME}", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}+="%c"
KERNEL=="sd*", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",       ACTION=="add",  PROGRAM="/bin/systemd-escape -p --template=usbmount@.service $env{DEVNAME}", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}+="%c"
KERNEL=="ub*", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",       ACTION=="add",  PROGRAM="/bin/systemd-escape -p --template=usbmount@.service $env{DEVNAME}", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}+="%c"
KERNEL=="sd*",                          ACTION=="remove",       RUN+="/usr/share/usbmount/usbmount remove"
KERNEL=="ub*",                          ACTION=="remove",       RUN+="/usr/share/usbmount/usbmount remove"

1. Create the file usbmount@.service in /etc/systemd/system/ with sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/usbmount@.service.

This is the content:

[Unit]
BindTo=%i.device
After=%i.device

[Service]
Type=oneshot
TimeoutStartSec=0
Environment=DEVNAME=%I
ExecStart=/usr/share/usbmount/usbmount add
RemainAfterExit=yes

Now reboot and check with cat /etc/mtab to which folder the usb devices are mounted to. By Default they are mountet to /media/usbstick0.