View source for Udev: Assign unique names to your devices

[udev] was born for this job.  This is fun stuff!  (I'm a sick geek.)

<ol>
	<li>Make sure you've emerged [sys-fs/udev] and [sys-apps/baselayout].</li>
	<li>Put [/etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules] under version control, you're going to put your rules there.</li>
	<li>Make sure the kernel has the following enabled:
<pre>File systems --->
  Pseudo filesystems --->
    [*] /proc file system support
    [*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)</pre></li>
	<li>Run [lsusb], plug your device in, run it again and compare.  This will show you the bus+device+deviceid.
For USB devices, you can use the Device ID as a unique identifier.</li>
	<li>If needed, run [lsusb -D /proc/bus/usb/#bus#/#device#] to find out everything about your device.</li>
	<li>If you still want more help, plug in your device while watching /var/log/messages to get the dev path, then use this to get more udev identifiers:
<pre>udevinfo -a -p `udevinfo -q path -n /dev/sda`</pre></li>
	<li>Write a rule using the selected identifier.  Add it to [/etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules].  Here's one using a device with ID [090c:6000]:
<pre>BUS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="090c", SYSFS{idProduct}=="6000", NAME="sdhc_via_usb"</pre></li>
	<li>Tell udev to reload rules, and wait for it to finish:
<pre>udevadm control --reload_rules
udevadm trigger
udevadm settle</pre></li>
	<li>Remove and re-plugin your device.  It should now show up at [/dev/your_name]!</li>
	<li>If it's a drive, add a mount rule to [/etc/fstab] like this:
<pre>/dev/sdhc_via_usb /mnt/8gb_sdhc vfat</pre></li>
	<li>Now you can mount your device reliably, using the mount path, no matter where you plug in your device, or what order you plug it in.
<pre>mount /mnt/8gb_sdhc</pre>Pretty cool, eh?</li>
</ol>

Next, we'll work on [[Automatically mount and unmount your devices|automounting your device]] when it is inserted...