udev rules to auto mount usb storage while already running

Question

I'm using the RPI2 with Raspbian Jessie.

I made a C++ program which records video file on a USB dongle (/dev/sda1 mounted to /media/usb1)

I would like to be able to replace the USB dongle while my program is running. (hot swap)

Therefore, I think that my USB dongle must always stays on /dev/sda1.

To do so, I'm trying to use udev rules but It does not work. Right now, if my program is running while I perform the USB dongle exchange, then I got devices in /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdb1.

I created two udev rules files:

First, udev rule to force the device to be always: /dev/sda

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules
KERNEL=="sd*", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="Cruzer Fit", 
SYMLINK+="sda%n"

Second, udev rule to unmount or mount depending of the usb event:

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/automount.rules
# automounting usb flash drives
# umask is used to allow every user to write on the stick
# we use --sync in order to enable physical removing of mounted memory 
sticks -- this is OK for fat-based sticks
ACTION=="add",KERNEL=="sda*", RUN+="/bin/mount --sync --umask 000 %k"
ACTION=="remove", KERNEL=="sda*", RUN+="bin/umount %k"

Is it possible that the umounting is not working because my program may still hold a handle to a file on the device ?

What is the best way to force a USB storage device to be always mounted to a specifc location? (Ex: /media/usb1)

Answer 1

You can edit your /etc/fstab file. In your case, you would need to add the following line to the file, replacing <UUID-of-usb> with the UUID of the partition of your USB flash drive:

UUID=<UUID-of-usb> /media/usb1 vfat defaults,user,dmask=027,fmask=137 0 0

See here for more details.

Answer 2

I found a udev rule on this webpage:

11-media-by-label-auto-mount.rules:

KERNEL!="sd[a-z][0-9]", GOTO="media_by_label_auto_mount_end"  
# Import FS infos  
IMPORT{program}="/sbin/blkid -o udev -p %N"  
# Get a label if present, otherwise specify one  
ENV{ID_FS_LABEL}!="", ENV{dir_name}="%E{ID_FS_LABEL}"  
ENV{ID_FS_LABEL}=="", ENV{dir_name}="usbhd-%k"  
# Global mount options  
ACTION=="add", ENV{mount_options}="relatime"  
# Filesystem-specific mount options  
ACTION=="add", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}=="vfat|ntfs", ENV{mount_options}="$env{mount_options},utf8,gid=100,umask=002"  
# Mount the device  
ACTION=="add", RUN+="/bin/mkdir -p /media/%E{dir_name}", RUN+="/bin/mount -o $env{mount_options} /dev/%k /media/%E{dir_name}"  
# Clean up after removal  
ACTION=="remove", ENV{dir_name}!="", RUN+="/bin/umount -l /media/%E{dir_name}", RUN+="/bin/rmdir /media/%E{dir_name}"  
# Exit  
LABEL="media_by_label_auto_mount_end"

It is working great for me.