[SOLVED]mounted vfat permissions

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:18 am

Hello!

[not necessary]
WinXP hits again!
After messing with my windows installation, it insists that it has to be activated.
The problem was the activation program didn't work.
The system stayed in a loop of login-logout and only a hard turn-off could kill it.
I'm no new to windows so I did my best to restore anything I could by no luck, I had to reinstall.
[/not necessary]

I decided to repartition my hard drive in a way that I'd have a 10G vfat partition to be easily seen both from Linux and from Windows.
The problem is Linux forbids users from writing to the partition and doesn't let even root to change the permissions.
Who told Linux to take the control of the partition from me?
I did not!
The ntfs partition works ok...

H!!!

Zenwalk addict · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:35 am

Simple, chown the mounted partition by giving enough perms. And i think u could edit /etc/fstab file to change the way it is mounted.

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:41 am

Code:

jonathan[mnt]$ sudo chown jonathan storage
Password:
chown: changing ownership of `storage': Operation not permitted

and I don't care who is the owner.
I want all the users to be able read/write to it.

Zenwalk addict · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:16 am

Yes me to faced same problem. gapan/guth suggested me to do that. I dont rem the exact commands now. But i am sure chown in used.

Borromini · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:30 pm

1. Convert your FAT32 to an NTFS partition.
2. install the NTFS-3G driver on Linux so you can read ànd write safely to the Windows partition.
3. Write permissions are set by adding a umask setting to the fstab entry for your NTFS partition (just like for your VFAT partition, pretty much).

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:01 pm

Sorry Borromini but I can't connect your answer to my question.

Borromini wrote:

1. Convert your FAT32 to an NTFS partition.

Why should I?
I formatted it to be FAT32. I want it to be like that. I've read somewhere that it's easier for Linux to deal with fat fs than with ntfs.

Borromini wrote:

2. install the NTFS-3G driver on Linux so you can read ànd write safely to the Windows partition.

I have NTFS-3G installed and as I wrote in my post, it works perfectly.

Borromini wrote:

3. Write permissions are set by adding a umask setting to the fstab entry for your NTFS partition (just like for your VFAT partition, pretty much).

The fstab is another story. I asked about normal mounting.

To make things clearer:
The installation partition of windows is NTFS and it works.
The storage partition is FAT32(vfat) and only root can write to it.
The problem is even root cannot change the permissions for storage.

Thanks for the will to help anyway.

guth · **Joined:** Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:13 pm **Posts:** 1182

ntfs:
http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php?title ... leged_user

vfat:
(in /etc/fstab, ... change partition/mountpoint to your needs):
/dev/sda5 /mnt/windows vfat rw,users,auto,exec,umask=0,uid=1000,gid=100 1 0

1000 and 100 being respectively your user uid and gid (see "id" command in a terminal)

Borromini · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:41 pm

SoleSoul wrote:

Sorry Borromini but I can't connect your answer to my question.

Borromini wrote:

1. Convert your FAT32 to an NTFS partition.

Why should I?
I formatted it to be FAT32. I want it to be like that. I've read somewhere that it's easier for Linux to deal with fat fs than with ntfs.

Borromini wrote:

2. install the NTFS-3G driver on Linux so you can read ànd write safely to the Windows partition.

I have NTFS-3G installed and as I wrote in my post, it works perfectly.

That's funny because you don't say that anywhere. You just talk about VFAT stuff. You provide fuzzy info ('a VFAT partition') so people draw the wrong conclusions (system partition instead of a separate data partition) and then you blame them for your omitting information?

Quote:

Borromini wrote:

3. Write permissions are set by adding a umask setting to the fstab entry for your NTFS partition (just like for your VFAT partition, pretty much).

The fstab is another story. I asked about normal mounting.

You think it is another story. You set up the partition in your fstab the right way and you'll be able to mount it just by running

Code:

$ mount /partition

Do you really want to do

Code:

# mount /partition /mountpoint $options

every single time? Be my guest...

Quote:

The problem is even root cannot change the permissions for storage.

The problem is you are not listening

. I laid it all out, and guth offers it on a silver plate.

If you like to think Linux can handle VFAT better than NTFS, that's your right. I'm not gonna tell you what you should think. I am telling you however things evolve and so does Linux NTFS support. So yes, write support has been around for a while. There isn't a single reason why you should pick VFAT over NTFS now for Windows partitions you want to mount on Linux. That's right - not a single one.

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:46 pm

Thank you very much guth!
It works.
I didn't know that it's not simple.
I didn't even notice that the simple FS is fat while vfat is something else. :-[

I guess it would be better to reformat it to NTFS as Borromini said if it's simpler and better than vfat.

EDIT: 1 minute borromini. I'm writing the reply to you.

Borromini · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:47 pm

http://wiki.zenwalk.org/index.php?title ... th_ntfs-3g

To make it complete...

guth · **Joined:** Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:13 pm **Posts:** 1182

Quote:

The problem is even root cannot change the permissions for storage.

Normal behaviour:
vfat doesn't handle permissions at all.
So permissions are set at mount time and can't change later

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:03 pm

Borromini wrote:

That's funny because you don't say that anywhere. You just talk about VFAT stuff. You provide fuzzy info ('a VFAT partition') so people draw the wrong conclusions (system partition instead of a separate data partition) and then you blame them for your omitting information?

To me it looked clear but seems that I'm wrong. I am sorry.

Borromini wrote:

You think it is another story. You set up the partition in your fstab the right way and you'll be able to mount it just by running...

You are right.
I just love to do things manually and only after that automate them.

Borromini wrote:

If you like to think Linux can handle VFAT better than NTFS, that's your right. I'm not gonna tell you what you should think. I am telling you however things evolve and so does Linux NTFS support. So yes, write support has been around for a while. There isn't a single reason why you should pick VFAT over NTFS now for Windows partitions you want to mount on Linux. That's right - not a single one.

As you can see I realized that. :-[

too late $:-\$
I confused between fat and vfat.

Don't be angry Borromini

no offense from my side.

And thanks guth for the explanation.

Borromini · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:04 pm

No worries

Just look into how umask works.

SoleSoul · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:08 pm

Code:

/dev/sda1        /mnt/windows     ntfs        defaults,locale=he_IL.utf8    1   0

This is how it looks in my fstab.
If we are already in the subject, the wiki page you linked to suggests to use ntfs-ng in the fstab and to me it works with this simple ntsf.
What's the difference?

Borromini · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:40 pm

The difference, my friend, is that ntfs-3g allows you to write to the partition. Allow me to quote myself:

Quote:

I am telling you however things evolve and so does Linux NTFS support. So yes, write support has been around for a while

[SOLVED]mounted vfat permissions

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