pmount

Mount removable devices as regular user

TLDR

Mount device to /media/

$ pmount [/dev/sdb1]

Mount with specific filesystem and label

$ pmount -t [ext4] [/dev/sdb1] [mylabel]

Mount CD-ROM read-only

$ pmount -t iso9660 -r [/dev/cdrom]

Mount NTFS with read-write

$ pmount -t ntfs -w [/dev/sdX]

Display mounted removable devices

$ pmount

SYNOPSIS

pmount [-t type] [-r|-w] device [label]

pmount allows regular users to mount removable devices without root privileges. It mounts to /media/ with the device name or specified label as mount point. Default mount flags are: async,atime,nodev,noexec,noauto,nosuid,user,rw.The tool enforces security restrictions: only devices in /media can be mounted, and dangerous options like suid are disabled. It's designed for desktop environments lacking automatic mounting.

PARAMETERS

-t, --type _fstype_

Filesystem type

-r, --read-only

Mount read-only

-w, --read-write

Force read-write mount

-s, --sync

Mount with sync option (no write caching)

-A, --noatime

Mount with noatime option

-u, --umask _mask_

Set umask for mount

-e, --exec

Allow execution of binaries (default: noexec)

-c, --charset _charset_

Set I/O character set (default: utf8 in UTF-8 locale)

-d, --debug

Enable verbose debug messages

label

Mount point name under /media/

INSTALL

sudo apt install pmount

sudo dnf install pmount

nix profile install nixpkgs#pmount

CAVEATS

Only works with removable devices. Mount point created automatically under /media/. Use pumount to unmount. Requires pmount package and appropriate permissions.

HISTORY

pmount was created to provide secure user mounting before udisks and modern desktop automounters. It remains useful for minimal systems or when automatic mounting is undesired.