problems with chown and chgrp

apax · 11-03-2003, 03:11 PM

hi...

I've changed dist from slack 8.1 to 9.1 and wanted to bring along some of my files in /home/apax so i copied them to another hd...

now when the installation is complete i thought i wanted to put back some of the files. But no. Even as root I could'n change either group or owner for any of the files. And that goes for the entire hd... I'm getting a little frustrated, because I think "since I am the Super User, I should be able to change permissions of the file...."

mcleodnine · 11-03-2003, 03:16 PM

What's the error reprted when you try to chgrp/chown?

david_ross · 11-03-2003, 03:16 PM

What command did you issue?

Did you get any errors back?

What filesystem are you using?

apax · 11-03-2003, 03:21 PM

this is an example...

root@vallby:/mnt/hd/apax# chgrp users Advanced\ Perl\ Programming.pdf
chgrp: changing group of `Advanced Perl Programming.pdf': Operation not permitted

I'm using a FAT32 partition, (i need it to be viewed from a win-partition)

david_ross · 11-03-2003, 03:25 PM

That explains it - you can't chmod files on fat32 since it doesn't support permissions.

apax · 11-03-2003, 03:29 PM

hmm.... okay... but what whould i do to make the usual mortal users be able to view, edit and write/delete files on my hd? (the one with FAT32)

david_ross · 11-03-2003, 03:44 PM

You can set options during the mount or in fstab to give users access as you see fit.