[ILUG] a first pass at a virtual cd jukebox...

[kevin lyda]

ok, i have a series of cd images that i'd like to be able to access.
however mounting them by hand is a pain in the arse.  so i configured
automount to do it for me.  the steps i took are as follows:

first, i installed autofs.  on ubuntu this can be done via

    apt-get autofs

i added this line to /etc/auto.master:

    /.jukebox /etc/auto.jukebox --timeout=60

this goes into /etc/auto.jukebox:

    #!/bin/sh

    key=$1
    opts="-fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev,loop"
    juke=/jukebox
    duke=/.jukebox
    cdroms=/var/cdroms

    if [ x"$key" = x-link ]; then
        if [ ! -d $juke ]; then
            mkdir $juke
            ln -s $duke/-link $juke/-link
        fi
        find $cdroms -type f -name '*.iso' -maxdepth 1 | \
            sed "s-$cdroms"'/--;s/.iso$//' | \
            xargs -i \
                sh -c "rm -f $juke/{}; ln -s $duke/{} $juke/{}" \
            > /dev/null
        exit 1
    else
        if [ -f $cdroms/$1.iso ]; then
            echo "$opts :$cdroms/$key.iso"
            exit 0
        else
            echo "auto.jukebox: $cdroms/$key.iso does not exist" >&2
            exit 2
        fi
    fi

note that an ls /.jukebox/-link will refresh the links in /jukebox.
done once an ls /jukebox/-link will also work.

the downside i see are that there are only 8 loop devices in the basic
install of ubuntu so an ls in /jukebox will generate a load of bad links.
so either autofs needs to cull links quicker or i need to boost the
number of loop devices (er, how?).  but it works for tabbing out, so i'm
happy with it.

on #linux there were some other suggestions.  the --ghost option and the
use of hotplug.  perhaps more detail on those ideas might be handy to
others?

kevin

-- 
Kevin Lyda        -=-=-=-=-=-         Who do you have to blow to get a
kevin at ie.suberic.net     -=-=-=-      president impeached around here?!