Is it possible to mount a disk from a non-root account?

I'm developing a Java application which executes commands in the shell using the java.lang.Runtime.exec api, which runs fine for commands ls, df, etc., but for commands mount and umount, i have problems as I need to be root to eecute these. But my application must run as a standard out of the box.

Any ideas on getting mount/umount running from my non-root user account?

No way to workaround that - such commands are explicitely obligation of root account with a reason. You can use "sudo" for example to call :

import java.io.*;

public class RunCommand {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        String s = null;

        try {
            
	    // run the Unix "ps -ef" command
            
            Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps -ef");
            
            BufferedReader stdInput = new BufferedReader(new 
                 InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));

            BufferedReader stdError = new BufferedReader(new 
                 InputStreamReader(p.getErrorStream()));

            // read the output from the command
            
            System.out.println("Here is the standard output of the command:\n");
            while ((s = stdInput.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(s);

If you can define earlier which resources you want to mount/unmount using your application it can be added to /etc/fstab with user option (allow a user to mount).

You can configure sudo for it as well.

Dirty method - add suid bits to mount/umount command and try to manage access using groups.

Regards,
-Artur.

I've edited the /etc/fstab and added user option

/dev/loop1              /storage/part1          auto    noauto,user,noexec 0 0

[brendan@rubidium /]$ mount -V
mount: mount-2.12a

[brendan@rubidium ~]$ mount /dev/loop1 /storage/part1 -o user
mount: only root can do that

[mount problem]

It's strange - I'm using:
mount: mount-2.12p

I can't test it now, but can you check permissions to file which you want to mount?

[sudo]

I'm sure you can configure sudo without asking for a password. As far as I remember I did it long time ago.

[suid]

I don't recommend it.

Regards,
-Artur.

If I edit /etc/sudoers and add:

brendan ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

sudo mount /dev/loop1 /storage/part1

Have you check permissions to file which you want to mount on loopback? I havn't seen any comment about it.

Regarding sudo configuration - it's not the best idea to provide access for ALL commands, you can choose a list which is required by you.

Regards,
-Artur.