Change ownership
 

Linux Mint 19.1 XFCE

I have a bunch of folders with files inside that reside in a VeraCrypt volume. I want to copy them all to a USB stick in order to paste them on another computer. A straight copy/paste does not work because permission is denied. I am the only user of the computer, and the user/owner has read/write permission.

I have tried but nothing happens. I also tried it with "chmod", nothing happens.

The only way I can do the copy procedure is if I open a file manager as root on the source computer and the same for pasting on the receiving computer. But the I can only use the file if I open the file manager as root, which is not the right way to go about this.

I am probably doing something wrong, so how can I achieve the permission change?

you are using the wrong command.
what you need is chmod

https://ss64.com/bash/chmod.html

I stated that I tried the "chmod" way too, but nothing happens.

you are in an encrypted volume
most likely, that the problem lies there.
when copying, did you use sudo or su ??

Please define "nothing happens". When chmod command runs successfully, it will not have any output.

And, if you don't want to change permissions, you can also use

What kind of file system is that USB stick?
Note that "Windows" type of fs'es (FAT, NTFS) do not have the concept of "ownership", the owner of the directory and files will be the mounting ID (unless specified different as an option). And there is an attribute for readonly/readwrite, but as there's no owner/group/world concept none for group/others and no X-bits either. All those are simulated at the mount.

So for FAT/NTFS: use i.e. -o uid=<your ID number>,fmask=0133 as mount options.

sudo

True, the cp command worked.

ext4

you need to make sure that your USB stick is mounted. Once you have done this, you should be able to run the command you are trying to run.

The USB stick gets mounted automatically when I plug it in. I can do the copy command, but not the permissions change.

In your original post, I see:

So, my question is, do you still need to change permissions since you were successful in copying files to USB?

If so, are you able to change permission of files that were copied to USB?

Assuming that the user number (UID) is the same on your source and target machines (which it will probably be for a single-user system, i.e. 1000), all you need to do is ensure that the USB stick's filesystem (ext4) is also fully owned by your user (using chown -R). You can then use it to transfer files from one machine to the other to your heart's content.

No, I don't need to change permissions anymore in this particular case, and yes, I am able to change permission of the copied files, which are now residing in a VeraCrypt container on the new laptop :)
Many thanks for your help.

As you can see from reply to dc.901, I am OK now. You may be right that the ownership of the USB stick might not have been right. What is important for me, for future reference, is that I am able to change ownership and permission, using the right syntax. Many thanks for your help.