In Sarge, with 2.4.26-1 kernel:

I want to have a windows vfat partition available read-only to ordinary users.

I've tried mounting it automatically at boot by an entry in fstab:
/dev/hda9 /mnt/win vfat ro 0 0

and I've tried mounting it explicitly in a terminal:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda9 /mnt/win

Both ways, the permissions for the /win directory and each of the sub-directories and files are listed as:
rwxr--r--

Yet, both ways, it is accessible only to root. Root gets in there just fine, but for ordinary users it's: Permission denied

Why isn't the read permission working?

PS: I tried changing the fstab options entry to defaults instead of ro but it made no difference. The permissions still come up rwxr--r-- and still only root can get open the /mnt/win directory.

there are countless posts on this topic... you are looking to change the options by using 'auto' 'umask' or setting a group id...

try searching first

Mount it as a user using the uid= and gid= Set it to something like the uid of nobdy. Still mount it ro but now ordinary users should be able to browse it.

Seeya,
Finn.

Put this in /etc/fstab

/dev/hda9 /mnt/win vfat defaults,users,umask=0022 0 0

Thanks for your answers.

I see, either the ownership has to be set to someone other than root, or the permissions have to be set explicitly, to give access to users.

Mounting it with umask=222 does the trick; that sets permissions to r-xr-xr-x which prevents anybody from writing to that directory.

Also, mounting it as ro, umask=0 works, although it looks wrong since it sets permissions to rwxrwxrwx, but even though it looks like everybody has write access, the ro parameter takes precedence and no writing to the files is permitted.

It was confusing because r--r--r-- permission looked like it should allow reading; I see now that at least r-xr-xr-x (i.e. read & execute permission) is needed to be able to get into a directory.

(darthtux: your umask allows root to write to that directory.)

Yes, I know. You said in the first post " I want to have a windows vfat partition available read-only to ordinary users." Most of the time people want write access for root.