Non-Root User Writing to USB

[MB12345]

Okay I am a complete n00b here and have spent the past week trying to google a solution which I just can't seem to find so maybe if someone here can help me then that'll be great.

Basically I have a USB flash drive currently formatted under vfat. I can log in as root and the system automatically picks it up and automounts the drive successfully.

What needs to happen is that a non-root user needs to be able write to this device while root has mounted this device. Due to other program constraints, I can not mount the device using another user so I have to do it with root.

Any suggestions/help would be much appreciated

Thanks in advance

[Cabhan]

Is this being mounted via automount or via fstab?

If you're mounting via fstab, you basically just need to add some permissions options (because the drive is FAT, it's a bit more complicated to mount). Adding a "umask=0000" option will set the device to be world-readable and world-writable.

I don't know much about automount, but it's probably a similar option.

[MB12345]

Automount automatically mounts the drive. I do not know how to configure the fstab file. I tried playing with it but afterwards it doesn't even mount anymore so I replaced it with a copy before I played around with it

So should i be editing the fstab file? I can format the drive to ext2 or ext3. Would it help with the required permissions?

[jr0sco]

Logging in as root is not really recommended. If you need to run system commands that require root access you should use sudo <command>.

Anyways you would change the permissions on the folder mounted for your usb stick (e.g /mnt/usb)

chown -R user:group /mnt/usb

The -R option is recursive in case you have sub-folders under /mnt/usb

Although it may not work on a vfat file system.

Cheers

JC

[MB12345]

Logging in as root is not really recommended. If you need to run system commands that require root access you should use sudo <command>.

Anyways you would change the permissions on the folder mounted for you usb stick (e.g /mnt/usb)

chown -R user:group /mnt/usb

The -R option is recursive in case you have sub-folders under /mnt/usb

Although it may not work on a vfat file system.

Cheers

JC

Already tried that. It returns with "Operation not permitted". This was done with root login.

I could be completely wrong but I believe this is because the file structure is under vfat system and has no permissions to change to begin with.

[jr0sco]

I can format the drive to ext2 or ext3. Would it help with the required permissions?

ext2 and ext3 do not work under windows, if you use the usb stick under windows that is.

I could be completely wrong but I believe this is because the file structure is under vfat system and has no permissions to change to begin with.

Yeah that would make sense.

JC

[jr0sco]

Found this in man mount

mode=value
                   Set the mode of all files to value & 0777 disregarding the original permissions.  Add search permission  to  directories
              that have read permission.  The value is given in octal.

Maybe you could config automount to use this option

[MB12345]

Found this in man mount

mode=value
                   Set the mode of all files to value & 0777 disregarding the original permissions.  Add search permission  to  directories
              that have read permission.  The value is given in octal.

Maybe you could config automount to use this option

I am a complete n00b with this. So I don't know how :S

But having a quick read the way I understand it (I could be wrong as I don't have the knowledge of you guys), is that it sets all the permissions of the files on the USB to 777. My problem is writing to the USB...not necessarily trying to read from it.

But if you could maybe tell me what I need to type then I could try it in the terminal console and give it a go.

[jr0sco]

777 is full permissions with read, write and execute for user, user group and others

Have a read of is it will help you understand permissions in Linux

Linux permissions

Moving on

Post your /etc/auto.misc, /etc/auto.master and any other /etc/auto.* files here

JC

[Segfault]

One way is editing fstab, you could post relevant line here and we'll help.
Another way is add your user(s) to usb and plugdev groups. Normally, when a USB device is automounted it will have owner root:plugdev, may vary depending on distro.