Removable Media in Solaris
Howard Alt · USENIX Winter · 1993
Since the dawn of time (or at least Jan 1, 1970) it has been difficult for the common user to take advantage of removable media under UNIX. The traditional UNIX approach to dealing with removable media has been to let programs name the device containing the media, and to leave it to the operator (or user) to ensure that the right media is in the device named. We have implemented the opposite approach: having the program specify the media and letting the OS take care of the device. Media is referenced by a name in the file system and recognized when it is inserted into a device. Administrators may specify actions to be taken when media is named, recognized, and removed.