this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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What's the easiest way to make external USB drives automount, without adding them to fstab? It should just work even if someone else hands me their flash drive.
I'm running sway on Arch if that matters.

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[–] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If that's the case, then you should answer the OP with how it's set up. OP is specifically asking how to do it with random drives other people hands them, not trusted drives always connected.

What is the disaster that could happen you’re referring to?

Auto mounting random USB sticks has never been wise. No telling what random malware they contain.

[–] superkret@feddit.org 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What would be the difference if it doesn't automount it, and I instead need to mount it manually?
I mean, it's a USB stick which I just plugged into my laptop and want to access.
If I don't trust it, I'm not plugging it in.

[–] SaveMotherEarthEDF@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Oh sorry, guess I missed the random drives part. You're absolutely right in that regard. Also, I use fstab to setup automount, so can't help op with this.

[–] BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What malware spreads automatically from just mounting the drive?

[–] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

So it's either using auto run to execute malicious code (not an issue in Linux), or it acts as a keyboard and sends malicious command - which would work regardless of the USB partition being mounted or not.