Sys-usb: How to cleanly eject a USB device?

User Support Hardware Issues
1

Hi everybody,

I wonder how to eject / detach cleanly a USB disk/key from sys-usb. It seems that one is supposed to simply unplug the device, which might damage the partition table. Happened to me just this morning.

I searched the forum and also reread the documentation at http://qubesosfasa4zl44o4tws22di6kepyzfeqv3tg4e3ztknltfxqrymdad.onion/doc/how-to-use-block-storage-devices/. But it doesn’t say anything about how to detach / eject a device from sys-usb.

Qubes-OS v4.1.1

Thanks in advance.

Regards.

2

sys-usb qube works with USB devices in the same way as a normal Linux distro does. To detach the USB stick, you need to press the corresponding symbol in Nautilus in the side list on the left.

3

Thanks for the quick response.
So I’ve to open Nautilus in sys-usb and then eject (Safely remove…) the device, correct?

4

Yep that works. Isn’t documented though.

5

Yes. If you attached the device to some other qube, you should safely remove it in that qube and then detach it from the qube using Qubes Devices widget.

6

Only things specific to Qubes OS are explained in the docs. One should keep in mind that the qubes run their own operating systems which behave in their own way and have their own documentations.

7

Yep, but then it’s attached to sys-usb and the widget doesn’t offers any eject option, hence one has to open Nautilus (Files) in sys-usb and then detach it. I just tried that and that works.

8

If you did not use the USB stick in sys-usb (using sys-usb only for attaching the device to other qubes with Qubes Devices), then the stick AFAIK is not mounted in sys-usb. In this case, unmounting it there should not be necessary (and I don’t do it).

9

I was using a USB disk. But since I had today that (not so nice) experience I’ll detach a USB stick/disk via Nautilus. It seems saver especially if it holds ones backup.

Thanks. Regards.