Fat Partitions Un-writable [solved]

[manuleka 0]

i added two FAT partitions onto my fstab to start up automatically... running Linux Mint 11... now the two partitions are running fine it's just that i don't have permission to write/alter anything on the two drives

i'm not quite familiar with Linux permissions

here's a ls -l output of the two partitions/drives

manu@manu-U-100 ~/Others $ ls -ldrwxr-xr-x 5 root root 32768 1970-01-01 12:00 Dat1drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 32768 1970-01-01 12:00 Dat2

[yordan 10]

also please tell us the "mount" options in /etc/fstab.or just type "mount" in a unix shell window.Probably your fat32 partition is mounted as read-only!

[manuleka 0]

thanks for the prompt response yordan

here's the mount output

/dev/sda7 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)/dev/sda5 on /home/manu/Others/Dat1 type vfat (rw)/dev/sda6 on /home/manu/Others/Dat2 type vfat (rw)binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/manu/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=manu)

[manuleka 0]

on fstab i added these two lines:

/dev/sda5 /home/manu/Others/Dat1 vfat defaults 0 0/dev/sda6 /home/manu/Others/Dat2 vfat defaults 0 0

so i left options on defaults

[yordan 10]

OK, next, try the following :

chmod -R ugo+rwx /home/manu/Others/

and tell us if it changes something.

[manuleka 0]

OK, next, try the following :

chmod -R ugo+rwx /home/manu/Others/

and tell us if it changes something.

nothing yordan, just a correction though... the drives are writable only by root

i'm clueless adding write permissions to user

thanks

[yordan 10]

the drives are writable only by rooti'm clueless adding write permissions to user

Precisely :
If you do exactly what I am saying, the drives will be writable by everybody :
Simply, as root, type the following :

chmod -R ugo+rwx /home/manu/Others/

This is just for testing purposes, do this and tell us if the disks become writeable by everybody.
If it works, we will do a more clever setting.
Regards
Yordan

[manuleka 0]

Precisely : If you do exactly what I am saying, the drives will be writable by everybody :
Simply, as root, type the following :

chmod -R ugo+rwx /home/manu/Others/

doesn't fix the user writable issue

maybe this will help, though i don't understand what is and how to umask,dmask etc.. :
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

...ntfs/vfat = permissions are set at the time of mounting the partition with umask, dmask, and fmask and can not be changed with commands such as chown or chmod. I advise dmask=027,fmask=137 (if you user umask=000 all your files will be executable). More permissive options would be dmask=000,fmask=111....

[yordan 10]

OK, To be honest, I forgot this feature, seems that my chmod trick does not work on Ubuntu on a mounted filesystem.
Now, let's proceed the following way.
Just make a backup of your fstab file, and then try what the link you mention suggests :

/dev/sdb1 /media/data2 vfat defaults,user,dmask=027,fmask=137 0 0

In your case it would be : /dev/sda5 /home/manu/Others/Dat1 vfat defaults,user,dmask=000,fmask=111 0 0
After modifying /etc/fsab, just type "umount /home/manu/Others/Dat1; mount /home/manu/Others/Dat1" in order to test the new set of permissions.
If this works correctly, go back to the less permissive set dmask=027,fmask=137

Regards
Yordan

[manuleka 0]

solved:

needed to add uid and gid

/dev/sda5 /home/manu/Others/Dat1 vfat auto,users,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0/dev/sda6 /home/manu/Others/Dat2 vfat auto,users,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

or

/dev/sda5 /home/manu/Others/Dat1 vfat rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0/dev/sda6 /home/manu/Others/Dat2 vfat rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

Edited July 29, 2011 by manuleka (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

great, congrats!uid and gid, we should have guessed it.Very nicely found.