I have a WinXP server and a RH9 PC that mounts several shares on the
server via fstab. The settings for each folder on the server are the same
(complete control given to the Everyone account), and the mount commands
in fstab are the same for every folder.

The problem is that one folder always gets mounted as read-only.

e.g.

[rparkes@akira abraxas]$ ls -l
total 42
drwxr-xr-x 1 rparkes rparkes 4096 Jun 6 2003 midi
drwxr-xr-x 1 rparkes rparkes 4096 Jun 6 2003 movies
dr-xr-xr-x 1 rparkes rparkes 4096 Dec 20 17:30 music
drwxr-xr-x 1 rparkes rparkes 4096 Jun 7 2003 soundfonts

The fstab code is:

//Abraxas/Music /vibes/abraxas/music smbfs
uid=500,gid=500,username=Me,password=mypw 0 0

This might not be complete (and I can't understand why the group
permissions are read only), but I couldn't find any complete reference
material, and had to piece it together from various sources.

As I understand it, the folders that Samba mounts to have their
permissions set by Samba, so it doesn't matter how they are set using
chmod, etc.

Can anyone tell me why one folder out of ten is getting mounted with
different permissions to all the others?

Encrypted NTFS Partitions such as Windows Xp cannot be written to in linux yet. You must have your Music folder shared in XP. It inbeds Encryption into the File structure recardless if you have a password or not. the permissions are still there to share making in inacessable by linux. I have had the same problem before. Take of sharing of that particular folder.

I didn't know that NTFS-4(?) was natively encrypted. If that was so, then you wouldn't be able to read it.

NTFS for XP and Win2000 sp3-4 have a newer version of NTFS. The reason writing is "experimental" is that every time the filesystem is reverse-engineered--Microsoft changes it. I am not sure if the journaling and speed of the newest version is any real improvement-or-whether it is to make sure only "Microsoft Partners" can manipulate, resize, and write to it.

Frankly, I feel that the people who maintain the filesystem module for NTFS should receive much praise and approbation for even being able to read it.

You can still back it up as an image, or as FAT32. If you choose to use NTFS as the filesystem, then use the Microsoft "converter" utility to convert it to NTFS after your restore operation. I believe you can use Acronis True Image to make an image of a NTFS shared partition and restore it as FAT-32 in one operation; if you don't have the shared files on their own partition, then you would have to create the partition in XP--then move the files to the partition--then (if you want seamless operation) mount the partition to a directory. There are instructions on how to do each of these things on Microsoft technet.

/This is a link to the main page of MS HowTos for XP--if you don't find what you need here, you'll have to wander around a bit: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...o/winxphow.asp

This is a link to tell you detailed information about mounting volumes--it is for Win2000 but applies to XP (You can mount any supported filesystem to an empty NTFS folder--then export/share it over the network, to make accessable for writing by Linux or earlier versions of Windows--like 98se): http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...f_fls_ogex.asp

Maybe after the release of the "Microsoft File System" (or what ever they call it) for the next O.S. they will stop making changes to NTFS and we will have "ready for prime-time" writing to it. Until then, leave it as a read only situation--AFAIK.

BTW: Mounting a volume (partition) onto an empty directory has been possible since at least Windows for Workgroups. But there is no tool to do it that I know of; it is done with a combination of an entry in win.ini and a registry edit. (Well, that is how I always did it. There may be another way--I just don't know it. I vaguely remember being able to do it on OS/2 and maybe DOS as well.)

And then there will be the new windows which people will upgrade to and then linux will not be able to network to a new windows box and a lot of people will start to feel that they need to change their linux servers to windows servers to get their new "security features"....
linux needs to do something fast to stay alive...because without support for the new windows, probably even the reading of files, it will no longer be feasable for most people to have linux computers...especially if there are no games...

Sorry - I should have mentioned something - although the server is XP Pro, the shares are on FAT32 partitions, so that they would be readable from any machine.

In any case, all the shars are on the same partition - that 's the thing I don't understand - all of them are the same, but one always gets mounted as read-only.

As far as the networking, file sharing, and other services in the "newest, improved-est, secure--and we really mean it this time, robust and easy-to-administrate" windows O.S.: It has to able to communicate with all of those apache servers now doesn't it? Novell isn't dead yet either.

**********Properties of your file shares have to be set as writeable manually. I would start there first. You may also have forgotten to set up a workgroup or private domain and join your Linux box to it. Some of the permission structures have changed with security patches in 2000-2000pro, XP-XPpro because people blamed MS because they didn't set up some sort of authentication and permission structure.

Check your membership to a private domain and to a workgroup on your Linux box as well. Search for and read the Documentation on this aspect if you aren't familiar with it.

XP-professional Howtos (If you don't find what you want there you will have to search a bit. Most applies to XP-home, although you may have to download executables for a few of them--but those would be more advanced issues.): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...o/winxphow.asp

Also, I never tried to read or mount without samba running and configured, you may want to check to make sure samba is up, running, and configured properly as well. (I'm not going to give you any of those as there are many on this site if you search it.) ************************************