[CentOS] USB key problems on enterprise systems

Mon Mar 6 16:20:43 UTC 2006
Lawrence Houston <centos at greenfield.dyndns.org>

Collins:

On Fri, 3 Mar 2006, Collins Richey wrote:

> Just came up with some interesting (read: frustrating) problems on
> RHEL3 and RHEL4 today at work, and I've confirmed one of the problems
> on my up-to-date CentOS4 system at home. I was forced into releasing
> some RHEL3 systems to replace our aging RH9 systems without time for
> adequate testing, and that leads to problems like these.
>
> On our legacy RH9 systems, mounting a USB key is no problem, but I
> can't get it to work on either RHEL3-U6 or RHEL4-U2 (= CentOS4). I'm
> curious if any CentOS3 or CentOS4 users have any suggestions.

Last week I noticed similar problems with USB Flash/External Drives 
failing to Automount under RHEL3-U6/CentOS3.6, so your Posting caught my 
attention.  Curiously within CentOS's Archives for some people USB Device 
Automounting works and for others it does NOT, so I decided to revisit 
CentOS4 (since it uses a different mechanism for its USB Hotplugging)...

> Here are the results from plugging in a USB Key and trying to mount it:
>
> 1. On RHEL3-U6, some systems get the following, and there is a workaround:
>
> Message: USB device not accepting new address
> Workaround: /sbin/modprobe -r ehci-hcd
>
> Message: READ CAPACITY failed
> ...
> Unable to read partition table
>
> Workareound: none that I am aware of. The above workaround has no effect.

With RHEL3-U6, CentOS 3.5 "clean" (then upgraded to 3.6) adding 
appropriate entries to /etc/updfstab.default atleast kudzu creates a mount 
point within /mnt and adds the correct entry to /etc/fstab, although still 
NO Automounting...  From there "mount /mnt/???????" or running "Disk 
Management" successfully mounts the USB Flash/External Drives.  Although 
it was noted that the kudzu generated entries do NOT always appear with 
"Disk Management"'s List, although the command-line mount still worked???

> 3. RHEL4-U2 and CentOS4 get the following:
>
> No possibility to mount. As soon as you plug  in the USB key, the
> system goes into a SCSI error loop until you unplug it.
>
> I've googled extensively for an answer, found a few hits for the RHEL3
> problem, but no useful solutions.
>
> The RHEL4 problem is apparrently a 2.6 kernel bug. Doe anyone know of
> a packaged kernel solution for this? I'm using the CentOS unsupported
> kernel at home, but same problem as in the stock RHEL4 kernel. Have RH
> possibly fixed this in the U3 beta?
>
> In case you're wondering about the key(s), the mount works flawlessly
> including KDE automounting the key on my Kubuntu Dapper development
> system with kernel 2.6.15-16-386 #1 PREEMPT.

Under CentOS4 my results were different...  With CentOS 4.1 "clean" 
Automounting of my Kingston USB Flash Drive actually worked, the Drive 
ICON appeared on the Desktop (GNOME) and its contents could be viewed once 
the Drive ICON was opened!!!  Additionally the Flash Drive could be 
Unmounted from within the ICON's Properties...

Unfortunately after a full upgrade to CentOS 4.2 the Automounting no 
longer worked and the System Logs now recorded some dbus Error Messages 
about being unable to report warnings (this had NOT been the case with the 
"clean" CentOS 4.1)!!!  Additionally with the "upgraded" CentOS 4.2 
"Removable Storage" fails to run: claiming "hald" (HAL Daemon) was not 
running, when it fact it was???  Under the "upgraded" CentOS 4.2 I also 
tried the CentOSPlus (per Johnny's suggestion) and found the same problems 
(whether the "clean" CentOS 4.1, the stock "upgraded" CentOS 4.2 or "Plus" 
CentOS 4.2 Kernels were used)...

> Collins Richey
>      The agnostic dyslexic insomniac lies awake wondering if there is a dog.
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Lawrence Houston  --  (centos at greenfield.dyndns.org)