How do I password protect a HD?

randell6564 · 10-29-2006, 06:45 PM

Hey folks!
I have Ubuntu 6.06 housed on hda1, and I use a seperate HD (hdb1) just for storage.
The permissions for hdb1 are as follows:

Quote:

File Owner: root
File Group: root
Owner: read,write,execute

In other words, I have it set so that only root can access the drive.
I like that, but I have to do a

Code:

gksudo nautilus

and enter my password every time that I want to access hdb1.

Is there a way that I can keep this configuration, but have it set up so that you can just be asked for a password when clicking on the folder instead of me having to 'gksudo nautilus' all the time? Thanks!

pljvaldez · 10-30-2006, 11:26 AM

You could probably create a launcher on the desktop that was something like gksudo nautilus /mnt/hdb1. Then when you click on the icon, it should prompt you for the password before opening nautilus.

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason you don't just change the group to some new group or admin group and add just your user to that group?

randell6564 · 10-30-2006, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pljvaldez

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason you don't just change the group to some new group or admin group and add just your user to that group?

Thats what I'm getting at! But I dont know how to do that.
That would be very agreeable, but I've never messed with 'Users and Groups' before!

Thanks!

pljvaldez · 10-31-2006, 01:03 PM

Does Ubuntu have a "User Management" system menu option? (I don't use gnome, so I'm not really familiar.) If so, just go into the graphical interface and create a new group called something like "storage" (or whatever you want to call it). Then go to your user and check the box that adds your user to that group.

Or from the command line,

Code:

groupadd storage
usermod -G storage yourusername

Then you should be able to navigate to the mountpoint and change the permissions chmod :storage /mnt/hdb1.