Mount a USB drive persistently for all users

Table of Contents

I need to persistently permit all users read/write access to a USB drive

Create a mount point

mkdir /mnt/usb500

List devices

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,LABEL

NAME        FSTYPE LABEL
sda
└─sda1      ext4   usb500gb
mmcblk0
├─mmcblk0p1 vfat   boot
└─mmcblk0p2 ext4   rootfs

Backup & print current fstab

cp /etc/fstab ~/fstab.bak
cat /etc/fstab

proc            /proc           proc    defaults          0       0
PARTUUID=45eaad39-01  /boot           vfat    defaults          0       2
PARTUUID=45eaad39-02  /               ext4    defaults,noatime  0       1

Add the device to fstab

Hint: nofail do not report errors for this device if it does not exist. You may boot without the drive.

echo "\n/dev/sda1    /mnt/usb500  ext4   user,rw,nofail" >> /etc/fstab

Change device’s permission

mount -a
sudo chmod 777 /mnt/usb500/

Test

Reboot

sudo reboot

Write into a temporary file

cd /mnt/usb500/
echo 'foo' > bar.txt
cat bar.txt
rm bar.txt

foo

Cleanup

After you thoroughly tested everything remove leftovers

rm ~/fstab.bak

Troubleshooting

You attached the drive after booting

sudo mount -a