Just installed 9.1. I wasn't planning on straying from my already perfect 9.0 system, but I bought a new 160gb hard drive today (Maxtor Diamond Plus 9- 8mb cache ) and decided to put to use my new Slack cd set to good use.

I got DSL setup same as always, but although I can connect I can't access anything from my user account. I logged in as root, and everything is fine. What's the deal here?

u cant access anything? u mean like webpages, mail, or what?

i dont know of anyway except a proxy server to not allow those by user rights.

I mean like anything. I don't use a proxy. I am sure it has something to do with the permissions, but I have no idea how. I have set up slackware like 20x now, dsl everytime. This is the first I've seen of this. Of course, I switched to 9.1...
I am happily surfing along as root, but still havent found a solution for my user account.

Anyone? I still haven't found a solution. I keep having to run MozillaFirebird as root to access the net.

Also, I can't seem to change file ownership on a particular mount point. I have an 80gb partition for mp3's, movies etc mounted at '/xdata' and I can only access it as root. I became root, and typed: chown -R scruff /xdata and it says cant change permissions. I also tried it in Nautilus logged in as root. chown -R is what I always use to change permissions for something I created as root and need to access as normal user.

Both of these issues are very odd...

check the permissions on firebird then ... ls -l /usr/local/bin/firebird

try using another program that goes to the net and see if u can do that with a user account like lynx or links. <- these r console wwwbrowsers

try going to a terminal and executing firebird ... u probably installed it as root executable only.

I can use Firebird as user, but it wont access the net. Same with every internet based app I have: Pan, LICQ, Mozilla, GnomeICU.... They will all execute, but can't access the net. Root=access, User=none. Same with my data partition (fat32) which I seem to be unable to change the permissions for. Root gets "unable to change permissions for /xdata." I know how to change permissions, I do it every day. It just won't let me.

This is INSANE!!!!!!!!! I set up Slack 9 so many times successfully, I can't even count them. I decided to install 9 again since I had it working fine. Guess what? SAME FRIGGIN THING!!! So, I started thinking, "what is different about this install than the others?" and I remembered one thing: I used seperate partitions this time for: / /home /var & /usr. I started thinking maybe using the net requred me to have certain permissions that these seperate partitions prevented me from having. Rather than fool around with that theory for the next 10 hours, I figured I'd re-install using the same configuration I always used: / & /home. I also thought I would go ahead and use 9.1 again so I would have newer libraries and better support for my hardware out of the box with 2.4.22.

IT STILL DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!! I can't even believe this. I am thoroughly surprised that no Slack/linux experts have just chimed in with the answer too. This has to have happened to someone else

The mozilla executable isn't the problem. It's installed as 'root', and should remain this way. (unless you want a normal user to alter the binary file, insert trojans, viruses, etc..) In you watch the file with "ls -lh `which mozilla`", the permissions should be "-rwxr-xr-x".

But I think a normal user doesn't have permissions to access the ppp0 device, or something like that. (ie. the dial-in program can't configure the device). It's permissions might be incorrect, or the dial-in program needs to be made "suid root". Try to find a tutorial on this, before you mess up all permissions of your system (or create a security leak because you've opened too much)

Well, this sounds a lot closer to what I was thinking. Of course, I haven't been just randomly changing permissions for executables I shouldn't have to. This has never happened on any other linux install I've ever done, and the fact that it is every internet app I have leads me to believe it is permissions elsewhere like as you said, the ppp0 device.

The problem is, I have tried a ton of keywords and got no valid results. This is the most difficult problem to find keywords for that I have encountered yet. Probably because I have no idea what it is, but if I did know it would be fixed already.

I have however, been trying profusely to get the permissions changed for my 70gb data partition (fat32) with no luck at all. I can't even view the folder as user. I have always had a fat32 data partition shared whether it was Mandrake or Slackware with no issues like this at all. It just won't let me do it. I tried: $ chown scruff /xdata, $ chmod 775 /xdata, etc. and all I get is permission denied. How the hell can permission be denied to the root user?!

I have just switched to Slack 9.1 from Debian based distros because their adsl did not work for me. I find that on 9.1 I have to su root to make adsl_start work.
When you log in as a user what default gateway is give by route? My debian problems were due to the ppoe failing to set the gw to the dynamic ip address.

Also, the instant I finish an install i open a terminal and do $ adsl-setup. I enter username, type 'server', type password, then do $adsl-start. That is the absolute first thing I do from X. Before I even startx, I $ adduser scruff.

That is it. Right after those first 2 tasks I encounter this problem with the net and the data partition. That should narrow it down a bit.

just put the following command in your /etc/rc.d/rc.local file :
adsl-start

then adsl will be loaded during boot and you can use it as normal user then you can right after booting use it but it takes a bit longer to boot...

Thanks for the rc.local tip That makes things a bit easier. Though I still have the problem as user. I always used adsl-start as root. For like 2 months now. But I could still access the net as normal user. Now I can't. I have to open the app from a terminal while logged in as root to gain access. I haven't changed anything about the way I set up Slack. Same thing for like 25x now. 22 were successful, and the last 3 have given me this issue.

Does anyone know if there is a way to change permissions for a device like eth0? Or somewhere I should check for firewall rules preventing user access?

i can't help with internet (because i use aol so can't use internet anyway on linux) but maybe i can aid with the fat32 partition

what command are u using to mount that partition? what is your /etc/fstab contents?
also, make sure you are mounting the correct partition, do fdisk -l so we can see what the partitions look like

Thanks! You indirectly solved one problem. After reading your post, I started to remember having to edit fstab like a month ago to allow user access to the data prtition, so I looked back through my notes and found the line I needed from sept 16th Don't know how I forgot about it. Must be this internet problem is clouding my brain

Here it is in case someone else stumbles on this post:

/dev/hda5 /mnt/data vfat users,gid=1000,umask=1000,rw,auto 0 0