Changing access right to file system

[francisleesc]

Hi,

I would appreciate someone could help me on changing access right of file system.

I log in as root but whenever I tried to edit a file in the /etc directory, I got error msg indicating that the file permission is read only. When I tried to the the file permission with command " chmod 777 filename", the same error appear. I also can't change the rights for the /etc directory. Which belongs to root. Current the permission for /etc directory is drwxr-xr-r.

Appreciate someone could provide some advice. Thank you in advance.

Francis

[tpl]

welcome to the forum

> I log in as root but whenever I tried to edit a file in
> the /etc directory, I got error msg indicating that the
> file permission is read only.

with a normal installation, this will not happen. SFIK, only Ubuntu
fails to create a root user: "sudo passwd root" is the fix.

[rong]

Are you in "Rescue" mode? If so, files are read only.

[francisleesc]

When I tried to change the password, I got "Cannot lock password file: already locked"

I am not in rescue mode.

[JHB]

Check if your filesystem is mounted read-write or read-only

[francisleesc]

I am new in Linux. please advise how can I check?

Thanks

[pavlo_7]

I am new in Linux. please advise how can I check?

Thanks

type:

mount

and look for line that refers to / .
It looks something like this:

/dev/hda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)

The "rw" means it is mounted with "read and write" permissions.
If it's "ro" then it's mounted with "read only" permissions

[francisleesc]

Yes it was mounted with read-only permission on those directories/files that I need to change.
So how can I change to read-write?
thank again

[MickZA]

I dont see any mention of your distro - is it a "Live CD"??

In other words are you booting into Linux from a CD.

[francisleesc]

thanks all, I managed get around by issue 'mount -o remount,rw /'