Can't mount USB flash or external disk

Question

For the last couple of weeks, the only way I can get anything to mount is by putting it in the fstab.  It used to work when the OS would detect the media.
Of course, I'm running hal and dbus.
I would consider it a favour if someone would point me in the direction of a howto, thread, documentation, or whatever on how to set this up so I can insert a USB key and have the OS detect and mount it.
I'm running KDE 4.3.4 and it discovers the device and asks if I wish to open it with dolphin (digicam, or no action).  If I select dolphin, I get an error.
An error occurred while accessing 'USB-KEY', the system responded: org.freedesktop,DBus.Error.AccessDenied: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.267" (uid=1000 pid=16082 comm="dolphin) interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" member="Mount" error name="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=8014 comm="/usr/sbin/hald))
Again, I would appreciate it if someone would steer me in the right direction.  This must be documented somewhere.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to find anything relevant in this forum or the wiki.

Answer 1

This worked for me thanks! Although, I am wondering why is this? I understand that it is giving the right user permissions to mount and access the drive but is this a work around for something I may have forgotten?  I don't want to "jimmy rig" it.
arch1_user wrote:
Try editing /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf to match similar to this & substitute your username.
Automount in Dolphin without FSTAB entry:
Look for following, and ad entry for USERNAME:
<!-- This configuration file specifies the required security policies
       for the HAL to work. -->
  <!-- Only root or user hal arch1 can own the HAL service -->
  <policy user="hal">
    <allow own="org.freedesktop.Hal"/>
  </policy>
  <policy user=USERNAME">
    <allow own="org.freedesktop.Hal"/>
  </policy>
  <policy user="root">
    <allow own="org.freedesktop.Hal"/>
  </policy>
Add the following after root entry:
</policy>
  <!-- well,...and USERNAME too -->
  <policy user="arch1">
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.CPUFreq"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.DockStation"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.KillSwitch"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.KeyboardBacklight"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Leds"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LightSensor"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Storage"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Storage.Removable"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto"/>
    <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.Hal"
           send_interface="org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.WakeOnLan"/>
  </policy>
</busconfig>