What filesystem-media does?

It brings /media directory back to you!


Why you need filesystem-media?

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard defines /media as a directory for removable
media. After introduction of udisks, this directory was abandoned in
favor of separated user specific directories. It is more secure, but path
/run/media/{user} is uncomfortable for console use.

filesystem-media brings /media back as a polyinstantiated directory. It
means that its contents is a private and user specific bind mount to a
particular /run/media/{user}.

It uses pam_namespace PAM module to provide proper initialization.


How filesystem-media works?

Your /run/media/{user} directory is made accessible in your /media
directory as well. But it is not a standard symlink or bind mount. It is
a private bind mount! Your contents of /media directory is not visible by
other users. They see their own /media directory.

To get it working, you need to re-login after the installation.


Side effects of filesystem-media

1. With filesystem-media, medium is mounted twice. It causes problems
   with a (not recommended) way to unmount devices mounted by udisks:

   umount /run/media/{user}/{medium}

   udisks fails to delete no more used mountpoint. You need to unmount
   the volume from /media first. Use the recommended way, and no problem
   occurs:

   udisksctl unmount -b {device}

2. Directory permission required by udisks are incompatible with
   permissions required by pam_namespace. As the current pam_namespace
   does not support per-mount parent_mode or parent_create,
   filesystem-media needs to set ignore_instance_parent_mode globally.
   Somebody could considered it as a security risk.


To do

Integration of polyinstantiated /media directly to udisks would be better
than filesystem-media.


Author

filesystem-media was written by Stanislav Brabec <sbrabec@suse.cz>


License

filesystem-media a public domain software licensed under the Creative
Commons Zero v1.0 Universal.