10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login

I was running into a problem where non-IDE drives would not mount at startup until a user logged in at the GUI. In an all-SCSI system, this meant that I couldn't ssh into the machine and access my volumes (outside of /), and startup scripts that required a separate volume (like moving swap to a different partition/disk) wouldn't run. A solution is to create a file at /Library -> Preferences -> SystemConfiguration -> autodiskmount.plist, with contents:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" 
   "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/>
</dict>
</plist>

NOTE: The !DOCTYPE entry is shown on two lines; enter it as one with a space between the sets of quotes.

This tells autodiskmount to mount all local volumes at startup regardless of whether they are potentially removable (or whether the user has logged in yet). This was the issue, by the way. Apple decided to mount (potentially) removable volumes only while a user was logged in at the GUI. Users were assuming that removable volumes got unmounted when they logged out, and were causing file system corruption by disconnecting them while they were still live mounted file systems.

This works in Panther. I'm pretty sure that it also works for Jaguar, if this was even an issue. I don't remember anymore since I've been running Panther on my SCSI machine since the developer preview.

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10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: Hes Nikke on Tue, Nov 11 2003 at 11:47AM PST

that is awesome!

i have to ask though.... how did you figure this out?

---
vacuums do not suck. they merely provide an absence that allows other objects to take the place of what becomes absent.

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: wgscott on Wed, Nov 12 2003 at 10:34AM PST

You also just cured a major headache I have had for over a year, introduced in 10.2, that caused my NFS mounted disks to disappear when I was not logged into the GUI. The only way I could fix this was to turn off automount and to put a

mount /filesystem

in a startup script.

This I think will be much much better.

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: jimothy on Wed, Nov 12 2003 at 4:08PM PST

Incidentally, there should be no harm in having the doctype on a separate line, since its just XML, and it's valid XML to split a tag on multiple lines.

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: efc on Wed, Nov 12 2003 at 5:30PM PST

Thanks for this hint. It worked on a G5 running Panther attached to an XServe RAID. The RAID drives were unmounting whenever the GUI users logged out. But with this hint everything stays properly mounted. Bravo!

This is awesome!
Authored by: maczac on Wed, Nov 12 2003 at 9:08PM PST

Thank you very much!

This solved a slightly different problem I was having. Upon reboot my external FW HDs were available across the network, but as soon as that local machine was logged out, those external HDs were lost and remained so until a subsequent reboot.

Zac.

---
Chris

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: sblasl on Wed, Nov 12 2003 at 11:14PM PST

How do I go about doing this? Can someone just send me the file?

Thanks,

sblasl@cox-internet.com

Easier:
Authored by: daniel_steffen on Thu, Nov 13 2003 at 4:39PM PST

just use the following from Terminal, it will create the file automatically if it's not present:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin true

Slight difference in syntax
Authored by: magill on Tue, Dec 2 2003 at 10:21AM PST

Note that using the Write Defaults technique generates the following:

<dict>
<key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key>
<string>true</string>
</dict>

<string>true</string> instead of <true/>

---
--
William H. Magill
Senior Systems Administrator

Slight difference in syntax
Authored by: daniel_steffen on Thu, Dec 4 2003 at 9:42PM PST

use

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true

in that case

Slight difference in syntax -defaults and autodiskmount
Authored by: oakley808 on Sat, Dec 18 2004 at 5:06PM PST

Interestingly enough (to me at least) when I type in that command:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool true

...the setting changes to TRUE in:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist
while I STILL have a FALSE setting in:
/var/db/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.xml

Running 10.3 by the way. Perhaps 10.3.x changes this?
It's problems like this, I believe, that really make havoc out of the OS when you start tweaking things. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and each software update changes the rules or over-writes your fix. Grrr.

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: magill on Tue, Dec 2 2003 at 10:30AM PST

This fix does not work in Jaguar as the directory does not exist.
(/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration)

Also, the problem does not exist -- all drives are mounted at boot time in Jaguar.

---
--
William H. Magill
Senior Systems Administrator

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: jerry_sonus on Mon, Dec 13 2004 at 3:27PM PST

How do you mount scsi drives in Jaguar after startup and loging?

Thanks

Jerry

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: robg on Mon, Jun 6 2005 at 12:15AM PDT

According to an email I received, this trick no longer works in Tiger...

-rob.

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: gadams on Tue, Jun 28 2005 at 2:30AM PDT

This worked just fine for me in Tiger (10.4.1), exactly as you originally described it, using 10.4.1 with SCSI drives in a B&W G3.

This was just the solution I was looking for! Thanks a lot for the help. (I have a separate 36 GB /Users disk, and it was being mounted just after it was needed during the GUI login process. Ugliness ensued. This setting fixes that problem.)

- Geoff

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: crop on Tue, Jun 6 2006 at 1:12PM PDT

It still works for me however, under 10.4.6...
Note that the xml plist syntax has changed to :


  <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key>
    <integer>1</integer>

Instead of :


  <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true />

-crop

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: gnarf1969 on Fri, Sep 8 2006 at 3:40AM PDT

I guess the correct way for changing the value in autodiskmount.plist is:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool TRUE

At least if your system is 10.4...

10.3: A fix for local drives not mounting until user login
Authored by: dlinsley on Mon, Jul 3 2006 at 7:37PM PDT

I tried the modification for Tiger, (I'm on 10.4.7 PPC) and it still wont auto mount for me. I currently have the machine set to login to a locked down guest account instead :(

Thanks for any help,
David.

It works for Leopard, too
Authored by: shamino on Mon, May 19 2008 at 2:53PM PDT

This worked for me on Leopard (10.5.2). It helps me enormously, because my Time Machine volume no longer umounts when I log out, and the hourly snapshots are produced 24/7, as I want them.

I created the plist using the Property List Editor application from the developer tools, and set the property as a boolean value. I didn't have to change it to an integer, as some people reported for Mac OS X 10.4.

It works for Leopard, too
Authored by: Whizzbizz on Wed, Jun 10 2009 at 11:18AM PDT

Seems like it works for me (Leopard 10.5.7), too. My torrent client used to ask for the disk at startup and would change every single torrents' download folder to another location because of the delay.

Thanks for the hint and to "stephenr" at Transmission's blog for communicating it.

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