Root unable to modify permissions

**jhill** · 11-21-2003

I have just installed SuSE 9.0 and want to setup my machine as a test server for our website. We backup the website on a windows file server periodically. I have logged onto our file server with samba and pulled across the backup file. I have configured apache and am ready to roll. The only problem is that even when logged on as root I am unable to modify the permissions for the files. They are currently owner: root, group: users. Any clues? I am a bit of a Linux newbie but even so I thought root could do anything!

**Dillinger** · 11-21-2003

How were you trying to modify the permissions, were you using the chmod and chown commands? Are you sure you were attempting the commands as root?

**jhill** · 11-24-2003

I was definately logged in as Root on KDE using konqueror to modify the permissions.

**genlee** · 11-24-2003

Run it from console and see what error is.

**jhill** · 11-24-2003

I have managed to modify the permissions.

I have partitioned my dual boot machine (win2k/linux) with an additional "data" drive (formatted in Fat32). This drive is mounted in linux at "/windows/D". I am unable to modify the permissions when the file is held on this partition. When I copied the files to a linux partition there was no problem.

This is probably very obvious to some but I don't really understand the proble. I know that linux permissions do not transfer directly to windows but I didn't realise that I would not be able to change the permissions at all.

Does the mount point, "/windows", have a special significance? On another of my dual boot machines I have a similar setup with a Fat32 data drive mounted at "/data" writable too by both windows and linux. I do not have the same problems with this machine.

**Dillinger** · 11-24-2003

The mount point doesn't matter. What's the line in your /etc/fstab look like for that mount?

**genlee** · 11-25-2003

If the files are stored on fat32, you cannot change the permissions. You can use mount options like uid=<blah> and guid=<BLAH>,umask=<blah> to set initial permissions when it is mounted. The defualt permissions is current owner of the mount process.

**jhill** · 12-01-2003

I've changed things around a bit but the problem still remains the same. I have my FAT32 data drive mounted at /data which I can write to as root but I cannot change the permissions. A user can read /data.

My fstab looks like this

/dev/hda2 / reiserfs defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda6 /data vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap pri=42 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0

**genlee** · 12-01-2003

You should read my last post again.

**jhill** · 12-02-2003

Thanks Genlee

I was a bit confused about your post as I had believed that my previous configuration used a FAT32 data partition which I had been able to write to. After digging out the docs I see that it was in fact EXT2. Is there anyway to share a data drive that can have its permissions changed?

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