Auto-Mount Memories on Proxmox (8) or any Debian (12) based system

This is a set of auto-mount script & rules tested on Proxmox 8. It will mount every partition (ext4/ntfs/fat) found on dynamically/usb attached memories (sticks, external HDDs, sd-cards...) to /mnt/auto/....

Why?

• Let's assume, you just want to transfer some files offline to/from a usb attached memory, you would need to execute the same (rather simple) commands every time you attach the disk again. This is annoying!
• As long as you use the same partition label, you can statically create a directory storage in the pve GUI, and use it as backup location f.i.. As soon the memory containing the partition is attached, it can be used by PVE for backups.
• I found no final solution for this task (especially for pve 8 on debian 12). Other found solutions are not mantained anymore. I did not even tried them because they were made for pve7
• That's why I wrote my own solution after some try and fails.

Install

• Clone/Download this repo to your machine. Go inside the folder.
• run ./installAutoMount.sh This will copy the needed files to the right folders and reload systemd.
• !! make sure you also install the 'ntfs-3g' package, if you will mount ntfs drives. Otherwise your drive will be mounted read-only without any warning!
• Test: Plug in a usb memory and check the /mnt/auto folder for further subdirectories. /mnt/auto will be automatically, created as soon some partition can be mounted there.

Important notes

• systemd-udev-settle is deprecated and it breaks the whole booting process. Even Networking is stopped at boot after just a simple harmless udev rule is added.
• This script will override two pve default services (if found), which are unnecessarily using systemd-udev-settle: zfs-import-cache and zfs-import-scan. The small change will take out the dependency for systemd-udev-settle. But there is a catch:
• !! If this default unit files will change in future updates, these overrides will not be aware of that. I saw no other option to take out the broken dependency. If anyone knows a better option, feel free to suggest! But there is good news also:
• The install script will only apply the overrides, if a dependency to systemd-udev-settle will be found. If they fix this in the future, the override will not be applied anymore (at install!).
• !! This automation was only tested on Proxmox 8 with LVM storage (no ZFS). If you are using zfs, use it at your own risk! Any feedback is appreciated. Otherwise, I plan to test this myself in the future.
• The mount folder name will be the label of the partition, by default. If no label can be determined, the name of the device (e.g sdc2) will be used. If a directory with the same name exists already, then the folder will get the device name as suffix.
• If you are using ntfs drives, make sure to install the 'ntfs-3g' package, otherwise your it will be mounted in read-only mode without any warning!

Example: Partition /dev/sdb1 Partition Label: myUsbData ==> Mount will be found at /mnt/auto/myUsbData

• This automation will NOT create a new storage in PVE. For this you have to go in the pve gui:
  • Datacenter->Storage->Add->Directory
  • Specify any ID you want (I usually specify the partition label here but it doesn't matter)
  • Directory: the automatically created mountpoint, e.g. /mnt/auto/myUsbData[/optionalSubfolder] I suggest you create a special folder on your storage (f.i. "pve") for proxmox related data
  • Content: choose also VZDump if you want to save pve backups on it.
• The main mount script (mount_usb_memory.sh) was inspired from this article

To Do

• At instalation, offer option to install the ntfs-3g package, if not found.
• At instalation, offer the option to auto-add and enable the storage in pve (thus removing the need to manually create the storage in pve)

Contribution

• If you have encountered any issues or have suggestions, open an issue.
• Feel free to create pull requests with improvements, features or acomplishing of any ToDos mentioned here.