RE: Three Questions from a Linux Virgin

["Nix, Robert P." <Nix Robert mayo edu>]

	sreynolds internode on net wrote:

	>Yesterday I installed Fedora on a stand-alone machine at
	>home.
	>
	>Q1) When I mount my USB flash drive I can only write to the
	>drive as root. I logged in as root and tried to change
	>permissions for all users to RWE (777?), but I get a message
	>that says that I don't have permission to change permissions
	>on the flash drive. I thought root was god, so my wild guess
	>is that there is something wrong with my entry for sda1 in
	>fstab:
	>
	>/dev/sda1  /mnt/removable  auto  auto,user,rw  0 0
	>
	>Is there something wrong with this entry?
	>
	The entry looks fine, what are the permissions on the dir that it is 
	being mounted on, and who owns it?

Actually, I don't think the ownership or mode of the mount point has anything
to do with it; we routinely set up mount points and protect them 000, so that
it is very obvious when something is mounted there. The thing you are missing
is the setting of the ownership and mode in the fstab entry or on the mount
command. 

After the auto,user,rw, add uid=500 (or whatever the uid you wish
to own the files is). Also, if you'd like the drive accessible to everyone
on your system, add umask=000. umask is a "backward" switch to me:
It gives the mode bits you wish to not be set, so 000 ends up being a
mode of 777 for a Windows file system.

The reason these are needed is that the Windows file systems do not 
include the concept of ownership or protection. Why should they? A Windows
computer only has one user, right? So to map this crippled file system into
Linux, the mount must assign some pattern of ownership and protection. The
default is root, and probably 755, which would mean that you could read
the drive, but not write to it, other than from root.

Hope this helps. Sorry about the printer.

----
Robert P. Nix                            internet: nix robert mayo edu
Mayo Clinic                                  phone: 507-284-0844
RO-CE-8-857                                page: 507-270-1182
200 First St. SW 
Rochester, MN 55905      
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"In theory, theory and practice are the same,
 but in practice, theory and practice are different."