udisks - Man Page

udisks provides an interface to enumerate storage devices and perform operations on them​. Any application can access the org​.freedesktop​.UDisks service on the system message bus​. Some operations (such as formatting disks etc​.) is restricted using polkit​.

On Linux, udisks relies on recent versions of udev(7) and the kernel​. Influential device properties in the udev database include:

UDISKS_PRESENTATION_HIDE

If set to 1 this is a hint to presentation level software that the device should not be shown to the user​.

UDISKS_PRESENTATION_NOPOLICY

If set to 1 this is a hint to presentation level software that the device should not be automounted or autoassembled (for e​.g​. components of a multi-disk device)​.

UDISKS_DISABLE_POLLING

If set to 1 this will disable the polling of drives for media changes, for devices which do not send out media notifications by themselves (this mostly affects CD drives)​. Some CD drives cause bad effects such as very high CPU usage when being polled​.

UDISKS_PRESENTATION_NAME

The name to user for the device when presenting it to the user​.

UDISKS_PRESENTATION_ICON_NAME

The icon to use when presenting the device to the user​. If set, the name must follow the freedesktop​.org icon theme specification​.

UDISKS_AUTOMOUNT_HINT

A variable to influence whether a device should be automounted​. Possible values include "always" (to hint that a device should always be automounted) and "never" (to hint that a device should never be automounted)​. Note that this is only a hint - the auto-mounter might not honor it​.

UDISKS_SYSTEM_INTERNAL

If set, this will override the usual bus type based detection of whether a device is considered "system internal"​. "0" means "removable" (i​. e​. eligible for automounting, and normal users can mount), any other value means "system internal" (i​. e​. no automounting, and only administrators can mount)​.

The ID_DRIVE_* properties are used to describe what kind of physical media can be used in a device​. These are typically set on the main block device (e​.g​. /dev/sdb) and more than one these properties can be set if the device supports multiple kinds of media​.

ID_DRIVE_EJECTABLE

Whether the media in the drive is physically ejectable​. Only set this to 1 (or 0) if the drive truly uses (or doesn't) ejectable media​. In particular, it is not necessary to set this for e​.g​. iPod or Kindle devices where it is necessary to send a command via eject(1) since the desktop user session will offer this option for removable devices regardless of whether they are ejectable​. If this property is not set, a heuristic will be used to determine if the media is ejectable (drives using optical, Zip or Jaz media are considered ejectable)​.

ID_DRIVE_DETACHABLE

Whether the device is detachable​. It is only meaningful to set this to 0 (to avoid marking a device as detachable) since the code for detaching the device is part of udisks itself​. If this property is not set, a heuristic will be used to determine if the drive is detachable (currently only devices connected through USB are detachable)​.

ID_DRIVE_CAN_SPINDOWN

Whether the device can spin down​. It is only meaningful to set this to 0 (to avoid marking a device as being capable of spinning down) since the code for spinning down the device is part of udisks itself​. If this property is not set, a heuristic will be used to determine if the drive can spin down (currently only ATA devices, including those USB devices with a SAT layer) can be spun down)​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH

The device is compatible with flash​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_CF

The device is compatible with Compact Flash​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_MS

The device is compatible with Memory Stick​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_SM

The device is compatible with SmartMedia​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_SD

The device is compatible with SecureDigital​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_SDHC

The device is compatible with High-Capicity SecureDigital​.

ID_DRIVE_FLASH_MMC

The device is compatible with MultiMediaCard​.

ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY

The device is compatible with floppy disk​.

ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY_ZIP

The device is compatible with Zip​.

ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY_JAZ

The device is compatible with Jaz​.

The ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_* properties describe the current media in a device​. As with the ID_DRIVE_* properties, these properties are typically set on the main block device (e​.g​. /dev/sdb)​. Typically only one of these properties are set​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH

The physical media currently inserted into the device is flash​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_CF

The physical media currently inserted into the device is Compact Flash​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_MS

The physical media currently inserted into the device is Memory Stick​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_SM

The physical media currently inserted into the device is SmartMedia​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_SD

The physical media currently inserted into the device is SecureDigital​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_SDHC

The physical media currently inserted into the device is High-Capicity SecureDigital​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLASH_MMC

The physical media currently inserted into the device is MultiMediaCard​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLOPPY

The physical media currently inserted into the device is floppy disk​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLOPPY_ZIP

The physical media currently inserted into the device is Zip​.

ID_DRIVE_MEDIA_FLOPPY_JAZ

The physical media currently inserted into the device is Jaz​.

TODO: write me​.

Written by David Zeuthen <david@fubar​.dk> with a lot of help from many others​.

Please send bug reports to either the distribution bug tracker or the upstream bug tracker at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=udisks​.

udev(7), polkit(8), udisks-daemon(8), udisks-tcp-bridge(1), udisks(1)

udisks(1), udisks-daemon(8), udisks-tcp-bridge(1).