Find all storage devices attached to a Linux machine

Question

I have a need to find all of the writable storage devices attached to a given machine  whether or not they are mounted   The dopey way to do this would be to try every entry in  dev that corresponds to a writable devices  hd  and sd          Is there a better solution  or should I stick with this one

User · Answer

libsysfs does look potentially useful  but not directly from a shell script  There s a program that comes with it called systool which will do what you want  though it may be easier to just look in  sys directly rather than using another program to do it for you

User · Answer

Modern linux systems will normally only have entries in  dev for devices that exist  so going through hda  and sda  as you suggest would work fairly well   Otherwise  there may be something in  proc you can use  From a quick look in there  I d have said  proc partitions looks like it could do what you need

User · Answer

proc partitions will list all the block devices and partitions that the system recognizes   You can then try using file -s  lt device gt  to determine what kind of filesystem is present on the partition  if any

User · Answer

proc partitions will list all the block devices and partitions that the system recognizes   You can then try using file -s  lt device gt  to determine what kind of filesystem is present on the partition  if any

User · Answer

ls  sys block

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ls  sys block

User · Answer

Using HAL  kernel 2 6 17 and up         bin bash hal-find-by-property --key volume fsusage --string filesystem   while read udi   do       ignore optical discs     if       hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume is disc       false      then         dev   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key block device             fs   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume fstype           echo  dev     fs     fi  done

User · Answer

Using HAL  kernel 2 6 17 and up         bin bash hal-find-by-property --key volume fsusage --string filesystem   while read udi   do       ignore optical discs     if       hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume is disc       false      then         dev   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key block device             fs   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume fstype           echo  dev     fs     fi  done

User · Answer

Modern linux systems will normally only have entries in  dev for devices that exist  so going through hda  and sda  as you suggest would work fairly well   Otherwise  there may be something in  proc you can use  From a quick look in there  I d have said  proc partitions looks like it could do what you need

User · Answer

Modern linux systems will normally only have entries in  dev for devices that exist  so going through hda  and sda  as you suggest would work fairly well   Otherwise  there may be something in  proc you can use  From a quick look in there  I d have said  proc partitions looks like it could do what you need

User · Answer

libsysfs does look potentially useful  but not directly from a shell script  There s a program that comes with it called systool which will do what you want  though it may be easier to just look in  sys directly rather than using another program to do it for you

User · Answer

you can also try lsblk     is in util-linux     but i have a question too  fdisk -l  dev sdl   no result  grep sdl  proc partitions          8      176   15632384 sdl    8      177   15628288 sdl1  lsblk   grep sdl sdl       8 176  1  14 9G  0 disk    -sdl1    8 177  1  14 9G  0 part     fdisk is good but not that good     seems like it cannot  see  everything  in my particular example i have a stick that have also a card reader build in it and i can see only the stick using fdisk   fdisk -l  dev sdk  Disk  dev sdk  15 9 GB  15931539456 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  1936 cylinders  total 31116288 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0xbe24be24     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System  dev sdk1            8192    31116287    15554048    c  W95 FAT32  LBA    but not the card  card being  dev sdl   also  file -s is inefficient       file -s  dev sdl1  dev sdl1  sticky x86 boot sector  code offset 0x52  OEM-ID  NTFS       sectors cluster 8  reserved sectors 0  Media descriptor 0xf8  heads 255  hidden sectors 8192  dos  lt  4 0 BootSector  0x0    that s nice     BUT  fdisk -l  dev sdb  dev sdb1            2048   156301487    78149720   fd  Linux raid autodetect  dev sdb2       156301488   160086527     1892520   82  Linux swap   Solaris  file -s  dev sdb1  dev sdb1  sticky  0   to see information about a disk that cannot be accesed by fdisk  you can use parted   parted  dev sdl print  Model  Mass Storage Device  scsi  Disk  dev sdl  16 0GB Sector size  logical physical   512B 512B Partition Table  msdos  Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags  1      4194kB  16 0GB  16 0GB  primary  ntfs     arted  dev sdb print  Model  ATA Maxtor 6Y080P0  scsi  Disk  dev sdb  82 0GB Sector size  logical physical   512B 512B Partition Table  msdos  Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags  1      1049kB  80 0GB  80 0GB  primary                  raid  2      80 0GB  82 0GB  1938MB  primary  linux-swap v1

User · Answer

Modern linux systems will normally only have entries in  dev for devices that exist  so going through hda  and sda  as you suggest would work fairly well   Otherwise  there may be something in  proc you can use  From a quick look in there  I d have said  proc partitions looks like it could do what you need

User · Answer

Using HAL  kernel 2 6 17 and up         bin bash hal-find-by-property --key volume fsusage --string filesystem   while read udi   do       ignore optical discs     if       hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume is disc       false      then         dev   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key block device             fs   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume fstype           echo  dev     fs     fi  done

User · Answer

proc partitions will list all the block devices and partitions that the system recognizes   You can then try using file -s  lt device gt  to determine what kind of filesystem is present on the partition  if any

User · Answer

you can also try lsblk     is in util-linux     but i have a question too  fdisk -l  dev sdl   no result  grep sdl  proc partitions          8      176   15632384 sdl    8      177   15628288 sdl1  lsblk   grep sdl sdl       8 176  1  14 9G  0 disk    -sdl1    8 177  1  14 9G  0 part     fdisk is good but not that good     seems like it cannot  see  everything  in my particular example i have a stick that have also a card reader build in it and i can see only the stick using fdisk   fdisk -l  dev sdk  Disk  dev sdk  15 9 GB  15931539456 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  1936 cylinders  total 31116288 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0xbe24be24     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System  dev sdk1            8192    31116287    15554048    c  W95 FAT32  LBA    but not the card  card being  dev sdl   also  file -s is inefficient       file -s  dev sdl1  dev sdl1  sticky x86 boot sector  code offset 0x52  OEM-ID  NTFS       sectors cluster 8  reserved sectors 0  Media descriptor 0xf8  heads 255  hidden sectors 8192  dos  lt  4 0 BootSector  0x0    that s nice     BUT  fdisk -l  dev sdb  dev sdb1            2048   156301487    78149720   fd  Linux raid autodetect  dev sdb2       156301488   160086527     1892520   82  Linux swap   Solaris  file -s  dev sdb1  dev sdb1  sticky  0   to see information about a disk that cannot be accesed by fdisk  you can use parted   parted  dev sdl print  Model  Mass Storage Device  scsi  Disk  dev sdl  16 0GB Sector size  logical physical   512B 512B Partition Table  msdos  Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags  1      4194kB  16 0GB  16 0GB  primary  ntfs     arted  dev sdb print  Model  ATA Maxtor 6Y080P0  scsi  Disk  dev sdb  82 0GB Sector size  logical physical   512B 512B Partition Table  msdos  Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags  1      1049kB  80 0GB  80 0GB  primary                  raid  2      80 0GB  82 0GB  1938MB  primary  linux-swap v1

User · Answer

libsysfs does look potentially useful  but not directly from a shell script  There s a program that comes with it called systool which will do what you want  though it may be easier to just look in  sys directly rather than using another program to do it for you

User · Answer

You can always do fdisk -l which seems to work pretty well  even on strange setups such as EC2 xvda devices   Here is a dump for a m1 large instance   root ip-10-126-247-82    fdisk -l  Disk  dev xvda1  10 7 GB  10737418240 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  1305 cylinders  total 20971520 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda1 doesn t contain a valid partition table  Disk  dev xvda2  365 0 GB  365041287168 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  44380 cylinders  total 712971264 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda2 doesn t contain a valid partition table  Disk  dev xvda3  939 MB  939524096 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  114 cylinders  total 1835008 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda3 doesn t contain a valid partition table   While mount says   root ip-10-126-247-82    mount  dev xvda1 on   type ext4  rw  proc on  proc type proc  rw noexec nosuid nodev  sysfs on  sys type sysfs  rw noexec nosuid nodev  fusectl on  sys fs fuse connections type fusectl  rw  none on  sys kernel debug type debugfs  rw  none on  sys kernel security type securityfs  rw  udev on  dev type devtmpfs  rw mode 0755  devpts on  dev pts type devpts  rw noexec nosuid gid 5 mode 0620  tmpfs on  run type tmpfs  rw noexec nosuid size 10  mode 0755  none on  run lock type tmpfs  rw noexec nosuid nodev size 5242880  none on  run shm type tmpfs  rw nosuid nodev   dev xvda2 on  mnt type ext3  rw    And  proc partitions says   root ip-10-126-247-82    cat  proc partitions major minor   blocks  name   202        1   10485760 xvda1  202        2  356485632 xvda2  202        3     917504 xvda3   Side Note  How fdisk -l works is something I would love to know myself

User · Answer

proc partitions will list all the block devices and partitions that the system recognizes   You can then try using file -s  lt device gt  to determine what kind of filesystem is present on the partition  if any

User · Answer

libsysfs does look potentially useful  but not directly from a shell script  There s a program that comes with it called systool which will do what you want  though it may be easier to just look in  sys directly rather than using another program to do it for you

User · Answer

You can always do fdisk -l which seems to work pretty well  even on strange setups such as EC2 xvda devices   Here is a dump for a m1 large instance   root ip-10-126-247-82    fdisk -l  Disk  dev xvda1  10 7 GB  10737418240 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  1305 cylinders  total 20971520 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda1 doesn t contain a valid partition table  Disk  dev xvda2  365 0 GB  365041287168 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  44380 cylinders  total 712971264 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda2 doesn t contain a valid partition table  Disk  dev xvda3  939 MB  939524096 bytes 255 heads  63 sectors track  114 cylinders  total 1835008 sectors Units   sectors of 1   512   512 bytes Sector size  logical physical   512 bytes   512 bytes I O size  minimum optimal   512 bytes   512 bytes Disk identifier  0x00000000  Disk  dev xvda3 doesn t contain a valid partition table   While mount says   root ip-10-126-247-82    mount  dev xvda1 on   type ext4  rw  proc on  proc type proc  rw noexec nosuid nodev  sysfs on  sys type sysfs  rw noexec nosuid nodev  fusectl on  sys fs fuse connections type fusectl  rw  none on  sys kernel debug type debugfs  rw  none on  sys kernel security type securityfs  rw  udev on  dev type devtmpfs  rw mode 0755  devpts on  dev pts type devpts  rw noexec nosuid gid 5 mode 0620  tmpfs on  run type tmpfs  rw noexec nosuid size 10  mode 0755  none on  run lock type tmpfs  rw noexec nosuid nodev size 5242880  none on  run shm type tmpfs  rw nosuid nodev   dev xvda2 on  mnt type ext3  rw    And  proc partitions says   root ip-10-126-247-82    cat  proc partitions major minor   blocks  name   202        1   10485760 xvda1  202        2  356485632 xvda2  202        3     917504 xvda3   Side Note  How fdisk -l works is something I would love to know myself

User · Answer

ls  sys block

User · Answer

Using HAL  kernel 2 6 17 and up         bin bash hal-find-by-property --key volume fsusage --string filesystem   while read udi   do       ignore optical discs     if       hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume is disc       false      then         dev   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key block device             fs   hal-get-property --udi  udi --key volume fstype           echo  dev     fs     fi  done

User · Answer

ls  sys block

[linux] Find all storage devices attached to a Linux machine

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