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I want my USB filesystems to automount when I connect the device.

How do I setup automount with systemd via /etc/fstab?

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Connect your device and find out the UUID of the filesystem by running either blkid or lsblk -f.

Add a line to /etc/fstab such as:

UUID=05C5-A73A  /mnt/32GBkey  vfat  noauto,nofail,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.idle-timeout=2,x-systemd.device-timeout=2

Then execute:

systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl restart local-fs.target

Explanation:

  • noauto - don't mount with mount -a
  • nofail - boot will continue even if this mount point is not mounted successfully
  • x-systemd.automount tell systemd to automount this etnry
  • x-systemd.idle-timeout=2 - wait 2 seconds before unmounting the device after last usage
  • x-systemd.device-timeout=2 - wait only 2 seconds before giving No such device if the device is not connected

Note:

  1. There are no quotes around the UUID number.
  2. The mount point directory doesn't need to exist - it will be created

For more information about the options available, see systemd.mount(5)

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    Is there any advantage to this over a udev rule? This seems very specific for a single device (given the UUID-dependency of fstab), where a udev rule could cover e.g. any USB flash drive. Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 9:52
  • /etc/fstab doesn't have the dependency you assert, accepting LABEL=..., PARTLABEL=... and good old /dev/usbkey. You could always setup a udev rule to make /dev/usbkey, but I don't know how to mount using udev alone. Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 10:28
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    Update 2019: I tested this solution successfully on Debian 9.9 and found that it works fine. Note that since this is an automount, df might not show the filesystem as mounted. Commented Jul 3, 2019 at 9:07
  • while this may work, why go through the trouble? if you do just as you have shown above in fstab but for options you specify (perhaps in addition to other useful ones) nofail (noting that you do not use noauto) then the USB will be mounted at boot if it is plugged in. And, in fact, will be mounted any some point in the future if the USB device were to be plugged in at some later time. No need to involve systemd as directly as shown. Commented Jul 12, 2022 at 17:47
  • With this config, how to prepare device for ejecting? Commented Feb 7, 2023 at 22:38

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