User mounting of removable devices on FreeBSD 5.3

FreeBSD is a UNIX oriented operating system which is also the default desktop Operating System (OS) for many at the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures (CAIA). While documentation for FreeBSD, its usage and configuration is plentiful and generally complete, it is often scattered and difficult to apply to generic desktop situations. This lack of straight forward HOW-TO documentation, either within the official documentation or associated web-sites located through the use of Google is often frustrating. The topic of this article, allowing general users (non-root) to mount and unmount removable filesystems (such as the Floppy Drive, CDROM or a USB Memory Stick) is one such issue. While all the information contained within this article is available online, it is often spread around numerous web-pages, and written in a way that makes it difficult to implement. In the same vein as our recent article on installing Microsoft Office 2000 on a FreeBSD system, I present this short report with a step-by-step procedure in allowing regular users to be able to mount removable filesystems. Note that the procedures within this report may lessen the security of your system by allowing greater capability for malice by a regular user, in an environment of a desktop PC typically used by a single (or trusted) persons, this risk is minimal. However, you should consider your security requirements carefully before opening up mounting of filesystems to non-root users. I would not recommend allowing this functionality on server or general public access computers. The task that we wish to allow is this: General non-root users to be allowed to mount and unmount removable filesystems, Integration with the KDE Desktop Environment to allow this to occur through graphical tools.