chown problem

Ayesha · 04-16-2002, 10:26 PM

Am trying to change the ownership and group permissions for some files. however, chmod does not have any effect on the files, while when I try a chown, I get an operation not permitted message...this even though I'm logged in as root!

DMR · 04-16-2002, 10:49 PM

What files exactly?
Did you log in as root, or su to root? If su, try "su -" instead.
What distro?

Ayesha · 04-17-2002, 09:04 AM

Thanks,
THe files I'm trying to change ownership for, are come c source filesI I copied from my other machine.
I've tried su, su -, as well as logging in as root, but all cases still give me the same operation not permitted error.
I'm using Suse LInux 2.4.10.AM not sure if that was what you meant by the distributions.

Mik · 04-17-2002, 09:36 AM

What kind of filesystem are the files on? If they are on a fat32 filesystem then you won't be able to change the owner and permissions like you can do with files on a ext2 filesystem.

Ayesha · 04-17-2002, 09:38 PM

That's right, the partition the files were on was a fat32 partition, and I learnt later, that whoever mounted the partition. has ownership of those files...
Any ideas why this is the case? Intially, the drive was mounted by root, but even though I logged in as root, I could not change the permissions for hte files. HOwever, I logged out, logged in as a user, (with super access), unmounted the drive, mounted it again, and now this account owns the files!