How to Automatically Mount Partitions at Startup on Kubuntu

By | August 5, 2020

Auto-mount partitions

On Linux systems like Ubuntu or Kubuntu all partitions other than the root partitions are usually not mounted at startup.

Clicking on the partition inside a file manager mounts them and open the content for viewing.

However sometimes it is desirable that the partition mounts automatically at startup, so that some application can access it right away.

In this article, we show you how to mount partitions automatically at startup on a Kubuntu, without using the fstab command.

1. Get the device path and UUID

The first step is to find out the device path and the uuid that you wish to mount. Use the lsblk command to check the details as shown below.

$ lsblk -o PATH,SIZE,RO,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,UUID,MODEL
PATH         SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT                   UUID                                 MODEL
/dev/loop0  96.5M  1 loop /snap/core/9436                                                   
/dev/loop1 229.6M  1 loop /snap/atom/257                                                    
/dev/loop2    55M  1 loop /snap/core18/1880                                                 
/dev/loop3  54.8M  1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1502                                      
/dev/loop4 156.2M  1 loop /snap/chromium/1213                                               
/dev/loop5    55M  1 loop /snap/core18/1754                                                 
/dev/loop6  62.1M  1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506                                      
/dev/loop7 230.6M  1 loop /snap/atom/258                                                    
/dev/loop8 158.4M  1 loop /snap/chromium/1229                                               
/dev/loop9    97M  1 loop /snap/core/9665                                                   
/dev/sda   465.8G  0 disk                                                                   Samsung_Portable_SSD_T5
/dev/sda1    420G  0 part                              757dcceb-3e17-4ca8-9ba1-b0cf68fb0134 
/dev/sdb   111.8G  0 disk                                                                   Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_120GB
/dev/sdb1   95.4G  0 part /                            19d84ceb-8046-4f8d-a85a-cda49515d92c 
/dev/sdc   111.8G  0 disk                                                                   Samsung_SSD_850_EVO_120GB
/dev/sdc1   95.8G  0 part                              f41b21a7-e8be-48ac-b10d-cad641bf709b 
enlightened@desktop:~$

2. Mount it with udisksctl

Note down the device path from the output shown by lsblk command.
For example /dev/sdc1. Now run the udisksctl command to mount it.

$ udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdc1
Mounted /dev/sdc1 at /media/enlightened/f41b21a7-e8be-48ac-b10d-cad641bf709b.

The above command will mount the device at the path which contains both username and uuid:

/media/<USERNAME>/<UUID>/

The path is automatically decided by the command udisksctl so that we don't have to specify it. This is the same location where the device is mounted when clicked inside file manager Dolphin. So mounting it with this command will also show it mounted inside Dolphin the same way.

Mount with UUID

If you have multiple storage devices connected to your system then the device paths like /dev/sdb1 might change for each storage device every time.

Hence its a better idea to use UUID to mount devices as they do not change. Udisksctl command does not have an option to mount drive by uuid, but there is a work around. Use the command as follows:

$ udisksctl mount -b /dev/disk/by-uuid/f41b21a7-e8be-48ac-b10d-cad641bf709b

The last part of the path is the uuid of the storage device that you can check from lsblk output.

3. Configure KDE System Settings - to run at startup

Finally you have to configure Kubuntu to run that command at startup so that the disk is mounted.
Go to System Settings > Workspace > Startup & Shutdown > Autostart.

The Autostart configuration dialog can also be launched from terminal with the following command:

$ kcmshell5 autostart

Here you can specify programs or scripts that you wish to start at system startup. Click "Add Program" and just copy paste the udisksctl command as shown above with the device path.

udisksctl mount -b /dev/disk/by-uuid/f41b21a7-e8be-48ac-b10d-cad641bf709b

Make sure to use the UUID based mount command since uuid remains constant and the command would mount the correct drive everytime on system startup.

This will save the command for running at system startup.

Conclusion

Usually partitions are mounted by adding an entry to /etc/fstab file.

Check out the previous tutorial here:
Ubuntu - automatically mount partition at startup with fstab

Resources

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/62676/mounting-from-dolphin-vs-commandline
About Silver Moon

A Tech Enthusiast, Blogger, Linux Fan and a Software Developer. Writes about Computer hardware, Linux and Open Source software and coding in Python, Php and Javascript. He can be reached at [email protected].

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