[SOLVED] [SOLVED?] No USB permission

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 02:36 PM

Installed Mint 19 Cinnamon 64 bit. I am "trying" to back up my drive to an external USB drive. The backup tool won't let me. It says I am not the owner and don't have permission. Who is the owner? How do I fix this?

(I would wipe the USB drive but I have some things there I want to keep)

Please H E L P
Thanks

p.s. I am beginning to wonder if backup tool requires the root password to operate but does not do its job as 'root''
also
please interpret:
~$ namei -o /dev/sdc1 (my USB?)
f: /dev/sdc1
d root root /
d root root dev
b root disk sdc1

ferrari · 11-07-2018, 04:40 PM

What utility are you using for backup here? System-wide backup? User backup?

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 05:14 PM

Mint backup tool

jsbjsb001 · 11-07-2018, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by see3ducks

Installed Mint 19 Cinnamon 64 bit. I am "trying" to back up my drive to an external USB drive. The backup tool won't let me. It says I am not the owner and don't have permission. Who is the owner? How do I fix this?

(I would wipe the USB drive but I have some things there I want to keep)
...

The "ls -la " command can tell you who owns the files/folder(s) in question.

Quote:

p.s. I am beginning to wonder if backup tool requires the root password to operate but does not do its job as 'root''
also
please interpret:
~$ namei -o /dev/sdc1 (my USB?)
f: /dev/sdc1
d root root /
d root root dev
b root disk sdc1

The problem seems to be the ownership of the external USB drive's mount point and/or filesystem. Your output is telling you that the root filesystem and the /dev folder is owned by the "root user", which it would be.

Please run the following command and post the output using CODE tags;

Code:

lsblk -f

(make sure your external USB drive is actually plugged in when you do)

ferrari · 11-07-2018, 06:52 PM

Quote:

p.s. I am beginning to wonder if backup tool requires the root password to operate but does not do its job as 'root''

I assume that you are launching it as root (and entering the appropriate administrator credentials)?

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by see3ducks

Mint backup tool

====================================

Code:

 lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                      
└─sda1 ext4         7e783993-bd26-4aba-bfee-19ac8507a133 /
sdb                                                      
├─sdb1 ntfs         01D2ABB499F7E9F0                     
├─sdb2                                                   
├─sdb5 ext4         c388026c-bf41-49c8-93c0-fcf27057b1b4 
└─sdb6 swap         5ce6dd02-4ad9-46a7-b101-31d5180f1352 
sdc                                                      
└─sdc1 ext4         9d6794b1-6e91-4619-9d6c-8edf3b1403d7 /media/steve/9d6794b1-6
sr0

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 07:32 PM

Code:

 lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                      
└─sda1 ext4         7e783993-bd26-4aba-bfee-19ac8507a133 /
sdb                                                      
├─sdb1 ntfs         01D2ABB499F7E9F0                     
├─sdb2                                                   
├─sdb5 ext4         c388026c-bf41-49c8-93c0-fcf27057b1b4 
└─sdb6 swap         5ce6dd02-4ad9-46a7-b101-31d5180f1352 
sdc                                                      
└─sdc1 ext4         9d6794b1-6e91-4619-9d6c-8edf3b1403d7 /media/steve/9d6794b1-6
sr0

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 07:34 PM

Code:

 lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                      
└─sda1 ext4         7e783993-bd26-4aba-bfee-19ac8507a133 /
sdb                                                      
├─sdb1 ntfs         01D2ABB499F7E9F0                     
├─sdb2                                                   
├─sdb5 ext4         c388026c-bf41-49c8-93c0-fcf27057b1b4 
└─sdb6 swap         5ce6dd02-4ad9-46a7-b101-31d5180f1352 
sdc                                                      
└─sdc1 ext4         9d6794b1-6e91-4619-9d6c-8edf3b1403d7 /media/steve/9d6794b1-6
sr0

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ferrari

I assume that you are launching it as root (and entering the appropriate administrator credentials)?

Just running it from the desktop and THEN it asks for the password.

jsbjsb001 · 11-07-2018, 08:42 PM

Code:

sdc                                                      
└─sdc1 ext4         9d6794b1-6e91-4619-9d6c-8edf3b1403d7 /media/steve/9d6794b1-6

If I'm right in thinking the above is your external USB drive, then it appears to be formatted with the ext4 filesystem, and it has one partition that I assume(?) takes up 100% of drive space.

Try running the following command to give everyone read/write (rw) permissions to your external USB drive;

Code:

sudo chmod 777 /media/steve/9d6794b1-6/

You shouldn't use the "777" with the chmod command on anything other than removable media.

see3ducks · 11-07-2018, 09:41 PM

I tried that - no change. It appears that the chmod didn't do a thing and 'root' is the only one with access. Two things.... that chmod should have had some effect and even entering the password for the backup too should also work. Hhhhhmmmm off to bed. I think better in the morning.
Thanks...

jsbjsb001 · 11-07-2018, 11:06 PM

Have you tried mounting your external USB drive as a normal user and not under the "root user" account ? Which I assume you have mounted it under.

If I'm right in my assumption, unmount it and re-mount it under your normal user account instead.

Then try your backup again.

zeebra · 11-08-2018, 06:48 AM

Have a look under /var/run/media/user and do ls -la to see what owner, group and file permissions are assigned to the disk.

I don't like /var/run/media and the behaviour, and I have found often a time that I have no access to whatever is created in there "automatically" with various desktop functions, are actually mounting the disk with ownership and group as root and 750 or 755 or similar file permissions.

The same applies to how /media works with desktops as well. Even if you mount the disk through the desktop with user tools, it might be assigned root as group and owner anyway.

see3ducks · 11-08-2018, 09:59 AM

no such directory as /var/run/media found :-(

see3ducks · 11-08-2018, 10:11 AM

the USB drive is auto-mounted when I plug it in. I unmounted it and re-plugged it in. Didn't work. I am going to try to mount it as a normal user and see what happens.

What gets me is when a USB is auto-mounted even if it is as root I would think when Mint requests the password the backup tool would have access as root. Me Thinkx I am over my head now :-) It's almost like Mint's backup tool requests the password but fails to run as root. I was thinking about uninstalling and reinstalling the backup tool, but it let me remove it. Incidentally, this USB drive runs fine as backup on other versions of Mint.
Thanks...
==================================================================================================== ==========

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001

Have you tried mounting your external USB drive as a normal user and not under the "root user" account ? Which I assume you have mounted it under.

If I'm right in my assumption, unmount it and re-mount it under your normal user account instead.

Then try your backup again.