How to Automatically Mount an exFAT External Drive in Ubuntu Headless Systems

Managing external drives on a headless Ubuntu system—one without a graphical user interface—can be a bit more challenging than on a desktop setup. However, automating the process of mounting an exFAT external drive can save a great deal of time and effort. The exFAT filesystem is widely used for external storage devices, such as USB flash drives and external hard drives, because of its compatibility across multiple operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux. While Ubuntu doesn’t natively support exFAT, this guide will show you how to easily configure your system to automatically mount the drive at boot, ensuring that it is always ready for use without manual intervention.

The steps covered in this article are tailored for Ubuntu systems in a headless environment, making them ideal for remote servers or workstations where you need to manage external storage efficiently. By the end of this guide, you’ll have set up your system to automatically mount the exFAT external drive with the appropriate permissions and without the need for physical interaction each time you plug it in. Follow along to ensure that your Ubuntu machine is always prepared to handle external drives effortlessly.

Table of Contents

Step-by-Step Guide to Automatically Mount an exFAT External Drive:

1. Install the Necessary Packages:

Ubuntu no longer supports exfat-utils, which was once the go-to package for handling exFAT drives. The replacement, exfatprogs, provides the necessary utilities to interact with exFAT-formatted drives. To install it, run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install exfatprogs

These tools will enable Ubuntu to read and write to exFAT drives.

2. Identify Your exFAT External Drive:

To set up automatic mounting, you need to identify the device name of your exFAT external drive. Use the lsblk command to list all connected devices:

lsblk

Look for the device corresponding to your exFAT drive (e.g., /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1). The lsblk command provides essential information about the devices, such as their mount points and partitions. Take note of the device name for the next steps.

3. Create a Mount Point:

Now, create a directory where the external drive will be mounted. This directory will be used to access the contents of the drive. You can create it under /mnt:

sudo mkdir /mnt/exfat_drive

This is where your drive will be accessible once it is automatically mounted.

4. Find the UUID of the Drive:

To ensure that the drive is mounted consistently on every reboot, it’s better to use the UUID (Universal Unique Identifier) instead of the device name. To find the UUID of your exFAT drive, run the following command:

sudo blkid /dev/sdb1

This will output something like:

/dev/sdb1: UUID="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX" TYPE="exfat"

Copy the UUID value to use in the /etc/fstab entry.

5. Edit /etc/fstab for Automatic Mounting:

The /etc/fstab file is responsible for defining how filesystems are mounted on boot. To set up automatic mounting, open this file for editing:

bashCopy code

sudo nano /etc/fstabsudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line at the end of the file, using the UUID from the previous step:

UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX  /mnt/exfat_drive  exfat  defaults,rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0002  0  0

• UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX: Replace with your actual UUID.
• /mnt/exfat_drive: The directory you created to mount the drive.
• exfat: Specifies the filesystem type.
• defaults,rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0002: These options ensure the drive is mounted with read-write permissions for your user.

This ensures that the drive will be automatically mounted each time your machine starts.

6. Test the Mounting Process:

To test that everything is configured correctly, you can run the following command to mount all entries from /etc/fstab:

sudo mount -a

This will mount your exFAT drive at /mnt/exfat_drive. If no errors appear, you can confirm that the drive is mounted by running:

mount | grep exfat

7. Reboot and Verify:

Finally, reboot your system to ensure that the drive mounts automatically during boot:

bashCopy codesudo reboot

Once the system has rebooted, verify that the drive is correctly mounted by listing the files:

ls /mnt/exfat_drive

You should now be able to access your exFAT external drive seamlessly after every reboot.

Conclusion:

By following these steps, you can easily set up your Ubuntu headless system to automatically mount an exFAT external drive every time it is plugged in, ensuring consistent and effortless access to your files. The switch from exfat-utils to exfatprogs may require a slight adjustment, but it offers an improved and actively maintained solution for handling exFAT-formatted drives. This setup is ideal for remote systems or servers, as it removes the need for manual intervention and ensures your external storage is always ready for use. With this automatic mounting in place, managing external drives on your Ubuntu machine has never been easier.