I'm using some parts of XFCE on Debian Sid. Version of exo-mount is 0.3.2. Whenever I try to mount my different USB drives (flash drive, camera, etc.), I'm not able to do so from Thunar - with error message that I'm not privileged for mounting this. I tried to execute exo-mount in terminal window, with parameters -d /dev/sda1 - and same error message poped out. Strange is, that this error message pops out even if try it from root prompt. With pmount (which I used with thunar-volman before exo-mount appeared), it works. But I don't know, how to disable this exo-mount in thunar-volman... I'm member of plugdev group.
*** Bug 3348 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
exo-mount uses HAL to mount volumes, while pmount doesn't. I don't know about Debian's HAL setup, but you need to make sure that you can invoke the methods on the org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume interface. Say you are in group "users", then you could place a file named hal-local.conf into /etc/dbus-1/system.d/ with the following content: <!DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN" "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd"> <busconfig> <policy group="users"> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement"/> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel"/> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume"/> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto"/> </policy> </busconfig> Make sure to restart the system message bus afterwards. I'm pretty sure that there's a "Debian way" to do this, maybe ask on the debian xfce mailinglist.
Thank you very much for answer and your time. I think it is not needed to add the section you wrote to my config files for dbus, because I already have here this in <busconfig> section of my /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf file: <policy group="plugdev"> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume"/> <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto"/> </policy> If I understand it correctly, whoever is in plugdev group should be able to mount USB drives... Another interresting point - for CDs, mounting normally works. Even automounting with thunar-volman - but not for USB drives. Thanks also for directing me to Debian XFCE mailing list, I didn't even know that there is something like that. :-) I will try to ask there, where is the problem... And for the end - I found some solution on Arch Linux wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HAL). In troubleshooting, they are mentioning situation, where mounting for CDs works, but for USB drives don't. And for this, a solution should be adding this line: <merge key="volume.ignore" type="bool">false</merge> somewhere in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi. I did it and now it works. But frankly speaking, I don't know, why it's working now and what this exactly option mean. But again - don't take it as bug - but what about a wishlist item - some configuration option for thunar or exo-mount - to select which way I wan't to mount devices... If pmount works... Or it is because there is some trend in all desktops to use hal and other options will be abandoned?
Ha! I finally found the problem. From some reason (probably from package gparted), I had this in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/gparted-disable-automount.fdi: <deviceinfo version='0.2'><device><match key='@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable' bool='true'><merge key='volume.ignore' type='bool'>true</merge></match></device></deviceinfo> It was here probably as a workaround (and from my point of view, not very clever) to suppress automounting during gparted use. But probably author of this "ugly hack" didn't realized, that it can make impossible for thunar (and probably other apps) to event mount USB drives... I hope, that if someone else will have this problem, he will find this solution and he will not lose so much time as me... Probably Debian's bugzilla or similar will be the right place...