can't change permission of partitions as root !
 

i can't change the permission of any partitions mounted in /mnt through fstab !! the command gives no error. but when i ls -l then it remains as it was !! i am working as root!
this is my fstab:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
server:~ # cat /etc/fstab
/dev/sda2 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/sda5 /mnt/sda5-data vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/sda7 /mnt/sda7 vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/md0 /mnt/md0-crit vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3-xp ntfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/hda6-song vfat defaults 0 0
---------------------------------------------------------------------
is it bcoz that i'm using fat fs and fat doesn't support unix permission? then why as normal user i can't write to them?

thanx in advance .:)

1. partitions do not have permissions... files do.
2. you change the use permissions of fat32 in fstab by using the umask option (man mount ... scroll down to fat32/vfat options)
3. yep, fat32 doesn't support file permissions. you cannot write to them as a normal user because the linux asserts permissions anyway, based on the mount options (defaults)... which makes the owner and group == root.

You can also change the ownership and group ownership of the mounted partitions using the "uid" and "gid" options. You can enter either your UID & GID numbers or your user and group names.

I would recommend using "fmask" and "dmask" instead. Try adding the options "uid=yourusername,gid=yourdefaultgroup,fmask=117,dmask=007" in your /etc/fstab file for the vfat partitions.

That will give you rw- file access and rwx directory access for you and all members of your group.

thanks a lot , guys .:)

u both helped a lot.
needs a lot of study, right ?
:)