I've been using Mandrake Linux and OpenBSD for three years now and I'm still a newbie.

Currently using Mandrake 9.1 with my /home mounted on its own partition.

When I chmod the permissions of a base directory in /home i.e. /home/shared or /home/allusers to 770 or 777 it stays for a little bit and then, for no reason I can tell, it reverts back to 755?

I want to use one directory as a dumping place for downloaded files or files transferred from another PC (it is on my home computer so I'm not worried about another user executing a potentially dangerous program).

Anyone have any ideas on how to make the permissions changes permanent? Is there something I need to change in fstab to mount /home differently?

its probably a security feature in Mandrake to prevent people/hackers/viruses/worms/whatever from getting there system , um messed?, up

try to see when it happens, i doubt its random, i think it might be it switches back every time you reboot?, if not then its probably a security process running every X hours or minutes or so

The program resetting the permissions is called drakperm. From the Mandrake Control Center select Security and then DrakPerm.

There is a line for
/home/*
You can edit this line or add a new line for your particular home directory.
You may want to only change permissions for a downloads subdirectory or your Documents subdirectory.

Thanks! Didn't even know that drakperm existed??? Maybe in another 3 years using *nix/BSD I can be as helpful to others as you have for me.