Hi All,

Playing around with LinuxMint now, and trying to figure out how to change ownership on folders/partitions.

I have tried chown, and tried to edit /etc/fstab, but I am obviously still doing something wrong.

chown gets me nothing.

Here is my fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sdb6
UUID=5bf78acd-b39e-4388-814a-7ca65f50b177 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=07D4-0203 /media/sda1 vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda2
UUID=40E8E421E8E41746 /media/sda2 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=7AA48CF7A48CB763 /media/sda5 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda6
UUID=8E40396B40395B63 /media/sda6 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda7
UUID=861CB7F01CB7D97F /media/sda7 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sdb2
UUID=890ae9a2-9ce7-477f-8038-cdcc8d31b59f /media/sdb2 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sdb5
UUID=9b663705-8a60-43f1-bd72-dd0345b00bce /media/sdb5 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sdb1
UUID=725d89cc-15e0-4a98-ba92-56832bd13e85 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/scd1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

I have been working on one drive only, so picked /media/sda5, and changed umask from 007, to 0, and saved the edit.

I have spent about an hour and a half searching google/linux, and forums, but still can not get it right.

The only folders I own are the ones I created during install.

Thanks for any help.

umask doesn't affect ownership. It affects rwx permissions.

What you need to look into are the "user", "users", and (I think) "uid" options. You can read up on them with the mount man page.

To change the ownership of a fat32 (vfat) partition, use the "uid=" and "gid=" mount options. You can use either a name or the corresponding UID number. You can't use chown or chgrp for a vfat partition. Also, the permissions of all files will be the same. The permissions of all of the directories will be the same as well.

I recently added an entry to my /etc/fstab file to mount a pen drive this way:
The "user" option lets me mount the drive as a normal user. The "noauto" prevents it from being mounted when booting. You want to use this for external drives. Use the "auto" option instead for an internal drive. The umask and dmask options effect the rwx permissions. See the man page for the mount command for more information.

And the reason for this is simple:
VFAT is a filesystem that simply can't store user credentials on file/directory level.
Hence, your chown will fail, as the filesystem can't modify a value that isn't stored.

Your only way of modifying access to VFAT drives is through the mount options (ie in /etc/fstab), which basically apply
to the entire mounted filesystem, so to all files.

Thanks for the replies.

All these partitions, except the ext3, are ntfs.

So I need to find out how to mount these directories using /etc/fstab then? And make those changes permanent.

As I say, I have had very bad luck finding instructions that work for that.

I will go back to the Ubuntu WIKI and see if I can get anymore clues there. I know I am missing a piece of the puzzle still.

Thanks for the help.

I did a google/linux for etc/fstab, and found useful info, but after editing /etc/fstab, I still get the message "you are not the owner, so you can not change the permissions".

This is what my fstab looks like:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sdb6
UUID=5bf78acd-b39e-4388-814a-7ca65f50b177 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=07D4-0203 /media/sda1 vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda2
UUID=40E8E421E8E41746 /media/sda2 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda5
/media/sda5 /mnt/ntfs ntfs default 0 0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=8E40396B40395B63 /media/sda6 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda7
UUID=861CB7F01CB7D97F /media/sda7 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sdb2
UUID=890ae9a2-9ce7-477f-8038-cdcc8d31b59f /media/sdb2 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sdb5
UUID=9b663705-8a60-43f1-bd72-dd0345b00bce /media/sdb5 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sdb1
UUID=725d89cc-15e0-4a98-ba92-56832bd13e85 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/scd1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0



I have been working on my /dev/sda5.

I changed it from this:
UUID=7AA48CF7A48CB763 /media/sda5 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0,gid=46 0 1

to what you see above:
/media/sda5 /mnt/ntfs ntfs default 0 0

I used the mkdir command to create the directory /mnt/ntfs.
/media/sda5 is what the path reads when I browse to that partition.

I thought I was getting close. Can you tell me where I am going wrong?

Thanks for any help.

Well I changed something!

I can see /media/sda5, and get the message that I am not the owner, but when I open the directory, it is now empty.

Thanks

Support in Linux for writing to NTFS partitions has been doubtful for quite some time. So you should check
out relevant web sites on NTFS support in Linux for clues. I'm guessing you'll need a kernel module or something like that.

Sorry for wasting your time.

Somehow my ntfs config got messed up. Once I started it up, and configured again, I was fine.

I am still not the owner, which I don't get, but I can read and write to all my ntfs directories, which is all I need for now.

Thanks for the help.

You're not wasting our time. Your questions are reasonable and we voluntarily spend time to help you.