Mount USB stick in a PC with more than 4 HDDs

tpe · May 4, 2013, 9:10am

I have a strange problem with my openSUSE installations. This all started at an SMB headless server.
On the headless system, I cannot mount any USB stick. The devices are correctly recognized from kernel (see the /var/log/messages).
But as you can see, there is no device assiged to them. Is it possible that UDEV assigns devices to only some letters (like from sdb until sdd)?
In my older 11.3 installation, or the newer ones, I have no problem to mount the drives.

But the server (with 3 HDDs and 2 DVD-roms) is not assigns the USB to a /dev and without reason! Please help me.


May  4 09:14:28 localhost kernel: [3007512.688045] usb 2-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
May  4 09:14:28 localhost kernel: [3007512.822014] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=1234
May  4 09:14:28 localhost kernel: [3007512.822023] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
May  4 09:14:28 localhost kernel: [3007512.822029] usb 2-4: Product: Mass Storage Device
May  4 09:14:28 localhost kernel: [3007512.822033] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro

hcvv · May 4, 2013, 10:18am

You can forget the idea that making device special files fot mass storage will only go until sdd. Many have it going up until sdh and onwards. (A 4 x card reader allready uses 4 of them).

Please add more information like (with the device connected):

lsusb

ls -l /dev/sd*

Oh yes, and while you say you had 11.3 earlier, that does not tell us what you have now.

tpe · May 5, 2013, 4:46pm

Henk, I know that you have no restrictions on the number of sd? devices. And I said that I have 2 boxes, one with 11.3 and one with 11.4. I will post the output later.

nrickert · May 5, 2013, 4:55pm

On my current desktop, if I plug in a USB disk, it shows up as “/dev/sdf”.

The box has some flash memory card readers, which I rarely use. Those are “/dev/sdb” through “/dev/sde”.

hcvv · May 5, 2013, 8:02pm

Well, it was you that assumed a possible restriction:

Is it possible that UDEV assigns devices to only some letters (like from sdb until sdd)?

or did I misunderstand you?

And you said:

In my older 11.3 installation, or the newer ones, I have no problem to mount the drives.

We prefer to know where you have the problem above were you haven’t it.

tpe · May 6, 2013, 3:55pm

Just a misunderstanding. What I mean is that I want to know if it is possible to set such restriction or not.

Anyway. here is the complete outputs:


tail /var/log/messages
May  6 16:39:27 localhost kernel: [3207011.384029] usb 2-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
May  6 16:39:27 localhost kernel: [3207011.517969] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=1234
May  6 16:39:27 localhost kernel: [3207011.517979] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
May  6 16:39:27 localhost kernel: [3207011.517985] usb 2-4: Product: Mass Storage Device
May  6 16:39:27 localhost kernel: [3207011.517989] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro


lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 058f:1234 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive


ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8,  0 Mar 30 12:49 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8,  1 Mar 30 12:49 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8,  2 Mar 30 12:49 /dev/sda2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 Mar 30 12:49 /dev/sdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 32 Mar 30 12:49 /dev/sdc

So, it’s clear that the USB IS recognized, but it’s it has not been “correlated” to a /dev/ device…

arvidjaar · May 6, 2013, 4:02pm

You did not show any information that leads to this conclusion. You just demonstrated that you have three SCSI disks. You USB stick can be any of them.

tpe · May 6, 2013, 4:38pm

Well, if you have something else to say, I would be happy to hear that. Because your comment is not counter-productive.

hcvv · May 6, 2013, 4:39pm

I agree that it this shows tthat it is reccognised at UUSB connect as a mass storage device
Can you add

ls -l /dev/disk/*

to see what sda, asdb and sdc are?

knurpht · May 6, 2013, 4:41pm

No, you didn’t. For many of us it’s normal to have multiple installs on one and the same machine.

Since I have nothing here to check on, is 11.4 using udev, or HAL?

knurpht · May 6, 2013, 4:42pm

Oh, and please insert a USB stick, and immediately after that do

dmesg | tail -20

tpe · May 6, 2013, 5:06pm

My apologies for the 2 boxes confusion. I was sure that I had write it


chkconfig --list | grep -i hal
haldaemon                 0:off  1:off  2:on   3:on   4:off  5:on   6:off

ps -ef | grep -i udev
root       404     1  0 Mar30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       728   404  0 Mar30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root      1894   404  0 Mar30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon

dmesg | tail -20
[3208348.274791] usb 2-4: USB disconnect, address 8
[3211106.060089] usb 2-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
[3211106.194009] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=1234
[3211106.194018] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[3211106.194024] usb 2-4: Product: Mass Storage Device
[3211106.194028] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro

I stopped haldeamon and re-inserted the USB, just in case it had issues with UDEV and HAL. Nothing changed.
Then, I just hit me. I checked if everything was loaded:


lsmod | grep -i usb
usbcore               181694  3 uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd

So, it seems that the usb_storage module is not loaded.


modprobe usb_storage
FATAL: Module usb_storage not found.

Now, that is strange… The kernel is the “stock” kernel, updated to the latest patch level.

On a side note and in order to answer to all those that they look for “more” information, when a USB is recognized and a /dev/sd? device is assigned to it, the output at messages should be something like the following:


May  6 17:52:23 os113 kernel: usb 1-8: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
May  6 17:52:23 os113 kernel: usb 1-8: Product: Mass Storage Device
May  6 17:52:23 os113 kernel: usb 1-8: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro
May  6 17:52:23 os113 kernel: usb-storage: device found at 4
May  6 17:52:23 os113 kernel: usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
May  6 17:52:24 os113 kernel: scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  USB Flash Disk   7.76 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
May  6 17:52:24 os113 kernel: sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
May  6 17:52:24 os113 kernel: sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
May  6 17:52:24 os113 kernel: usb-storage: device scan complete

wolfi323 · May 6, 2013, 5:20pm

tpe:

So, it seems that the usb_storage module is not loaded.
modprobe usb_storage
FATAL: Module usb_storage not found.
Now, that is strange… The kernel is the “stock” kernel, updated to the latest patch level.

Well, two thoughts:

do you have the full kernel package installed (f.e. kernel-desktop)? kernel-xxx-base doesn’t contain many kernel modules (usb-storage is missing there)
did you reboot since the last kernel update? Otherwise the old kernel is still running but its modules are already deleted so it can’t load them anymore…

Anyway, you should check if the file usb-storage.ko exists. On my system (12.3) it’s in /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/

hcvv · May 6, 2013, 5:27pm

And please let us try to avoid confusions. Please post all and everything about oen of those systems. At best the one having the most recent version. And repeat please what that is. Please take into account that top you all may be very logical and soon. But we are far away from you and do nop know anything about your setup. You must thus explain everything to us. Even when you think it is obvious. Also many people here are doinf other things in between, often contributing to more threads with problems at a time. Thus they will not allways remember all details from more then two days ago.

I e.g. do not understand you talking about HAL. HAL is already deprecated for a long time IMHO.

tpe · May 6, 2013, 7:14pm

It seems that the kernel is not correctly updated! I will manually update it.

tpe · May 6, 2013, 7:17pm

I had that understanding too. But, the haldaemon is installed, as you saw. I will try to search and see if it is possible to remove it completely from 11.4.

As for the rest of the case, it seems that a broken kernel update is the issue!

hcvv · May 6, 2013, 7:37pm

Wait a moment. I still have an 11.4 running and it has the hald running:


root      1266  1261  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-runner 
root      1413  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/event3 /dev/input/event1 /dev/input/event0 
root      1467  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sdb (every 2 sec) 
root      1469  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sdc (every 2 sec) 
root      1473  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sdd (every 2 sec) 
root      1479  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sde (every 2 sec) 
102       1481  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket 
root      1496  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec) 
root      1497  1266  0 09:13 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr1 (every 2 sec)