[SOLVED] Enabling all Linux users to write to a partition

Menno RB · 12-07-2006, 04:56 PM

Hi there,

I created a seperate partition (FAT32) to exchange files between Windows XP and Linux (Mandriva 2007 Free) but I can't write any files to it when I'm on Mandriva. So I checked the permissions and 'Group' and 'Other' are set to 'Can View Content'. I want to change this to 'Can View & Modify content' but when I select that option it says 'Access denied to /mnt/wind_d'. So I figured I had to be logged in as root to change it but I don't know how to start a session as 'root' (when I try logging in it says 'root logins are disabled' and I read on these forums that it's because of safety concerns). Then I tried opening a terminal and browsing to 'hda8' (the partition) to use the command 'chmod' but the only one I managed to find was in /dev/ and that's not the actual partition I think. How could I solve this problem? Thanks in advance,

Menno

acid_kewpie · 12-07-2006, 05:34 PM

if you're already successfully mounting on boot to /mnt/win_d or similar then just edit /etc/fstab and on the line there that's already doing the mounting, add "umask=000" to the options section. that will force *everything* within that partition to be world readable and writable. note that as this is crappy old fat32, you have to lie and coerce file permissions, and can't change them at an individual file leve, as there is no where for that information to actually go or to be understood by the fat32 format.

Menno RB · 12-07-2006, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acid_kewpie

if you're already successfully mounting on boot to /mnt/win_d or similar then just edit /etc/fstab and on the line there that's already doing the mounting, add "umask=000" to the options section. that will force *everything* within that partition to be world readable and writable. note that as this is crappy old fat32, you have to lie and coerce file permissions, and can't change them at an individual file leve, as there is no where for that information to actually go or to be understood by the fat32 format.

Thanks for the help, but I'm still having problems. Here's the line in my fstab:

/dev/hda8 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0000,iocharset=utf8 0 0

I tried creating a new textfile on hda8 but it still won't let me, do I have to run something first in order to let the changes be recognized? (Keep in mind I'm a real newb to Linux)

Menno RB · 12-07-2006, 06:07 PM

Awesome, I should have tried what I thought before asking, I rebooted and it works now. Thanks a bunch

pixellany · 12-07-2006, 06:10 PM

The code looks right--did you run "mount" after changing the fstab?
If you do ls -l, what permissions are shown after mounting with your new fstab?

Menno RB · 12-07-2006, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

The code looks right--did you run "mount" after changing the fstab?
If you do ls -l, what permissions are shown after mounting with your new fstab?

I did not run 'mount' but I rebooted and it works now, running mount would have done the same thing? So 'mount' basically re-does the 'commands' in fstab?

pixellany · 12-07-2006, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Menno RB

I did not run 'mount' but I rebooted and it works now, running mount would have done the same thing? So 'mount' basically re-does the 'commands' in fstab?

fstab is the code that tells the system what to mount and where (and when).
The default is mount automatically at boot time.
If there is "noauto" in the options, then you have to mount manually.
If it mounts at boot, you can always unmount (umount) and mount manually.