Linux will not mount remote USB devices - IBM eServer xSeries 225

Resolving The Problem

Source
RETAIN tip: H013723

Symptom
When attempting to mount an external USB device (USB Floppy diskette drive, USB CD-ROM drive) attached to the remote client through the Remote Supervisor Adapter II (RSA II), the linux operating system reports the device was not able to be mounted.

Affected configurations
The system may be any of the following IBM e(logo)servers:

• an IBM eServer xSeries 225, type 8649, any model.

The system is configured with the following option(s):

• an IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter II, option p/n 59P2984, FRU 02R1654.
• an IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter II-EXA, option p/n 13N0382, FRU 73P9246.

The following NOS(es) are affected:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 3.
• Red Hat Professional Workstation 9.
• SUSE LINUX Professional 8.1.
• SUSE LINUX Professional 8.1, 64-Bit version.
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8.
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8 for Intel Itanium.
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8.1 x86.
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for AMD Opteron.

NOTE: This does not imply that the network operating system will work under all combinations of hardware and software. Please see the compatibility page for more information: http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/

Solution
Follow these detailed steps to mount external devices.

Mounting Floppy Diskette Drive (FDD)
Mounting the FLOPPY and reading the files is two-fold:

1. Use the GUI tool on remote system to mount the FLOPPY.
2. Manually mount the floppy from command line with 'mount /dev/sdX <mount point>'
   
   NOTES:
   SLES8: Replace X with the correct letter in /etc/fstab.
   SuSE 8.1 Professional: Replace X with the correct letter corresponding to the next SCSI device on your system.
    
   One way to determine this would be to do a 'fdisk -l' to see what device is associated with the FLOPPY disk.
   Replace <mount point> with the path to an empty directory on the server.

Mounting CD-ROM drive
Mounting the CD-ROM and reading the files is two-fold:

1. Use the GUI tool on remote system to mount the CDROM.
2. Manually mount the CD-ROM from command line with 'mount /dev/srX <mount point>'
   
   NOTES:
   SLES8: Replace X with the correct number in /etc/fstab.
   SuSE 8.1 Professional: Replace X with the correct number corresponding to the next SCSI CD-ROM on your system.
   Replace <mount point> with the path to an empty directory on the server.