Write access on FAT partition by ordinary user
 

hey guys, i have a permission problem re FAT partition, ordinary user cant write to it. i did the following command using root.

#chown john.john/files
and there i got this "error chown: changing ownership of `files/': Operation not permitted"

and i have a line like this in /etc/fstab
/dev/hdb2 /files vfat defaults 0 0

hope somebody could help me on this..again :-)


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*opss how could a delete this thread?..

my apology to everybody!

Normally, mounts are writable only by the user who mounted them (use the "users" option to allow mounting by any user).

To set a different permissions mask on the drive, use the "umask" option. Any permissions not in the mask will be set for the files on that mount. Since FAT doesn't have native permissions, the permissions of all the files on the FAT partition will be the opposite of what you set on in the mask.

For example, I use the options "umask=000,quiet,users" for floppy drives. What this means is:

"umask=000": let everybody do everything (equivilent to "chmod a=rwx" or "chmod 777", remember that dirs need to be executable)

"quiet": don't print out those annoying warnings about permissions, since FAT won't allow you to set them. (This is also why your chown command failed, BTW)

"users": allow anybody to mount the partition.

Whatever options you set go in place of the "defaults" in your fstab line.

thanks solnul!:) actually, found the solution from a similar thread here, but your detailed explanation about this really helps.

Is it safe to use this solution on NTFS partition? well, little bit hesitant to experiment on this because dont want my xp files turn to mess.

The NTFS solution is the same.

Keep in mind that the Linux native NTFS driver is read-only. There is a driver for read/write, but it relies on wrapping the Windows dll.

ok thanks so much for this, i decided not to, at least i can read now my linux partition using exflore2fs, its really a cute utility. :D

again, THANKS you're great!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Linner
[B]thanks solnul!:) actually, found the solution from a similar thread here, but your detailed explanation about this really helps.

COuld you point me to the thread that solved your problem? Thanks

ok. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=180849

read tohembas post.