do NOT chmod 777 your filesystem. This is a very bad thing to do. Instead, use my little suggestion above, and instead of ext3 or vfat or whatever, just put auto. Then, when you figure out what filesystem it is, fix the fstab. ok? do not chmod 777 the directory or the device. This ain't windows, kids.

/edit

How did you make the filesystem?

mke2fs /dev/hdb1 <------ will make ext2 filesystem.
mke2fs -j /dev/hdb1 <---------will make ext3 filesystem.

after your feedback, i am darn near convinced that this is your problem.

If you want, you can give me shell access when i get home, and i'll fix it for you.... lol!

/edit

well...you better read the Q again.../opt2 is not meant to contain system-files, it's a user-disk. so chmod 777 looks ok to me...

egag

edit : forgot the '2'....

yeah, but what if the USER of the USER file wants to restrict access so that other NORMAL USERS can't get to it?

I tried, what can i say.

don't know if that's the case, he wrote:

''I want users to have read write and execute. '' so i think he wants
just that.

to protect parts of /opt2 from others then ''owner'', guess
to use chmod again....

edit: any file made by a user in that dir. will have default permissions
of that user i.e write-protected for others ( unless the owner changes it ).
so that should be ok......

egag

regular users don't have access to chmod.

just so ya know.

I am ready to give up here......if you want to try i'll give you access to my shell account. Its a new system so there isn't much on it that i don't want people to see. my aim handle is didge84. If i am on that means i am by my computer and i'll give access to whoever want to take a try at it. I think i might try out Gentoo if this doesn't work.....

didge

well... never give up. i know

#chmod -R 777 /opt2

will give you wat you want. ( i just tried , every user who puts a file there, will be owner of
that file and so will be the only one with write-permission )

dunno what sketelsen means , there's no fs-prob, it's a permission prob.

egag

.

Who & what group owns the file??

ls -l will give you the info you need.

If root is the owner and root is the group then you need to chgrp & chown the directory that you are trying to access.

there's no need to change owner ( or group ), the owner is the one whe sets the permissions,
and if he sets it to '777' anyone can read,write and execute. ( it's that simple.....) :-)

egag

Sure, but that is not the proper practice.

The way of the admin read:

Thou shalt not have any world writeable files.

So it be written so shall it be done.

yip, guess you're right there, in fact the chmod 777 gives access to anyone , but that
was the exact Q. ( think chmod 770 is better, but then all users have to be member of that group and you gotto chgrp for that dir. indeed )

egag

True that

So digi691 is this all sinking in yet? j/k

chmod 777 worked......thanks guys it took a while but it works. I don't know why it would not mount with the other options in the fstab.

setting those permissions in fstab is only usefull for vfat , ntfs...etc. those perm's are for that whole partition.
when using ext3 fs, perm's are per dir. and per file, so you have to use 'chmod' to set them
and you can set them per file......
( learning learning every day... :-) )
nice it works.......

egag.