How to detect that a USB disk has been plugged?

My server is in a remote site and I have ssh access only. I had a
colleague plug an USB disk into the server and would like to mount it.

I was hoping that the insertion of the disk would generate some log
message but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only looked in /var/
log/messages, btw.

My second approach was to reboot the server and take a look at the
boot log in order to identify the device and mount the disk.

Is it possible to identify the device without rebooting? Maybe I
should look under the /proc filesystem?

TIA,

-Ramon

On 2008-04-08, Ramon F Herrera <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>
> My server is in a remote site and I have ssh access only. I had a
> colleague plug an USB disk into the server and would like to mount it.
>
> I was hoping that the insertion of the disk would generate some log
> message but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only looked in /var/
> log/messages, btw.
>
> My second approach was to reboot the server and take a look at the
> boot log in order to identify the device and mount the disk.
>
> Is it possible to identify the device without rebooting? Maybe I
> should look under the /proc filesystem?
>
Perhaps your server installation does not include udevd.

On Apr 8, 2:44 pm, Bill Marcum <marcumb...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On 2008-04-08, Ramon F Herrera <ra...@conexus.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > My server is in a remote site and I have ssh access only. I had a
> > colleague plug an USB disk into the server and would like to mount it.
>
> > I was hoping that the insertion of the disk would generate some log
> > message but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only looked in /var/
> > log/messages, btw.
>
> > My second approach was to reboot the server and take a look at the
> > boot log in order to identify the device and mount the disk.
>
> > Is it possible to identify the device without rebooting? Maybe I
> > should look under the /proc filesystem?
>

> Perhaps your server installation does not include udevd.

Good point. I have been able to mount that disk on that server many
times, but I can't remember the details. At this point all I need is
the device to use with 'mount'. I have looked in 'dmesg' and under /
proc, and can't find anything.

-Ramon

ps: udev is up & running on my system - thanks for bringing it to my
attention.

Ramon F Herrera wrote:
> On Apr 8, 2:44 pm, Bill Marcum <marcumb...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> On 2008-04-08, Ramon F Herrera <ra...@conexus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> My server is in a remote site and I have ssh access only. I had a
>>> colleague plug an USB disk into the server and would like to mount it.
>>> I was hoping that the insertion of the disk would generate some log
>>> message but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only looked in /var/
>>> log/messages, btw.
>>> My second approach was to reboot the server and take a look at the
>>> boot log in order to identify the device and mount the disk.
>>> Is it possible to identify the device without rebooting? Maybe I
>>> should look under the /proc filesystem?
>
>> Perhaps your server installation does not include udevd.
>
> Good point. I have been able to mount that disk on that server many
> times, but I can't remember the details. At this point all I need is
> the device to use with 'mount'. I have looked in 'dmesg' and under /
> proc, and can't find anything.
>
> -Ramon
>
> ps: udev is up & running on my system - thanks for bringing it to my
> attention.
>
restart it

On Apr 8, 1:10 pm, Ramon F Herrera <ra...@conexus.net> wrote:
> My server is in a remote site and I have ssh access only. I had a
> colleague plug an USB disk into the server and would like to mount it.
>
> I was hoping that the insertion of the disk would generate some log
> message but that doesn't seem to be the case. I only looked in /var/
> log/messages, btw.
>
> My second approach was to reboot the server and take a look at the
> boot log in order to identify the device and mount the disk.
>
> Is it possible to identify the device without rebooting? Maybe I
> should look under the /proc filesystem?
>
> TIA,
>
> -Ramon


FWIW, I fixed my problem and found out how to determine that a USB
disk has been plugged. The lines below are logged in /var/log/
messages.

This is what I did:

1) Plugged the USB disk: nothing happened
2) Plugged a pen drive: it was recognized
3) Removed pen drive
4) Re-plugged the USB disk: it was recognized

Thanks! Bill and Kevin.

-Ramon

------------
kernel: ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.2: wakeup
kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 2
kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
kernel: Vendor: Kingston Model: DataTraveler II+ Rev: PMAP
kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI
revision: 02
kernel: SCSI device sdb: 4029440 512-byte hdwr sectors (2063 MB)
kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel: SCSI device sdb: 4029440 512-byte hdwr sectors (2063 MB)
kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
kernel: sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
kernel: sdb: sdb1
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0,
lun 0
kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.