Lucid permissions problems for usb SOLVED!

[bernieszu]

Okay, so Waaaay back in May when I upgraded to Lucid I started having a problem with permissions for writing to usb sticks. Posted it as solved (sort of) when I got a workaround thanks to josefko and snowhog. Snowhog felt it was a Lucid issue that would probably be be solved in an update the near future. I left the country and haven't been using this machine for a few months.

Came back, updated, everything is working fine but the permissions issue is still there! I can write to my usb if, and only if, I go into it as root. But even as root I can't change the permissions for my usb files.

So, did this thing ever get sorted? If so, did I miss the update that sorted it? Is it an ongoing issue? Or is this problem just specific to my system and nobody else is experiencing it any more?

Not a biggie, I'm just curious about it.

[vinnywright]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

I dont think I was ever hit with that issue......I put in a USB stick ....click the open in dolphin in the device manager pop-up .... then drag and drop the files/DIR's I want on/off the stick.

no prob ...I do it all the time and have for quite some time sence 8.04 first was installed on this box .. now at 10.04.........I dont have a USB HD but I would assume it would work the same.

VINNY

[subvertit]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Can you link to the previous thread? It'd be nice to see what's been done to help solve the issue.

[Snowhog]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

But even as root I can't change the permissions for my usb files.

That is highly unlikely - in fact, impossible. Root is "God" on your system, and can do what ever he/she likes.

[kubicle]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

But even as root I can't change the permissions for my usb files.

That is highly unlikely - in fact, impossible. Root is "God" on your system, and can do what ever he/she likes.

There are a couple of cases where even root cannot change permissions on a mounted filesystem:

1. Non-POSIX filesystem (fat, ntfs)
On these filesystems, permissions cannot be changed while mounted. Of course, root can set ownerships/permissions at mount time using mount options (umask, fmask and dmask for permissions and uid, gid for ownerships)

2. The filesystem is mounted in read-only mode using the ro mount option.
(This is not the case here, if root can write to the device)

[bernieszu]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb and now it gets REALLY interesting!

Here's the link to the original problem in May.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...8653#msg228653

kubicle, you said:

[i][i][i]1. Non-POSIX filesystem (fat, ntfs)
On these filesystems, permissions cannot be changed while mounted. Of course, root can set ownerships/permissions at mount time using mount options (umask, fmask and dmask for permissions and uid, gid for ownerships)


Could you talk me through this?
My usb mounts automatically. How can I get into mount options? That sounds like a way I could change ownership!

Snowhog, Maybe my 'root' is a minor deity?

OKAY, one day later........

Now it has become really interesting, because tonight when I had to write something to my usb I did the kdesudo dolphin command (so I could go in as root) and konsole gave me about 24 pages worth of text before opening dolphin.
Among these were many like this:

kbuildsycoca4(1610) KBuildSycoca::createEntry: modified: "inode/vnd.kde.service.http.xml"

then many like this:
kbuildsycoca4(1610) VFolderMenu::mergeFile: VFolderMenu::mergeFile: "/etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/system-settings-merge.menu"

then this:
kbuildsycoca4(1610) foldNode: "Directory" and "kde-information.directory" requires combining!

and a lot like this:
kbuildsycoca4(1610) KBuildServiceFactory:opulateServiceTypes: "/usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop" specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype "x-directory/normal"

then like this:
QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QStr ing,QString,QString)
Object::connect: No such slot DolphinSearchBox::slotClearButtonClicked()
Object::connect: No such signal DolphinController::requestUrlChange(const KUrl&)
Connecting to deprecated signal

but the most worrying thing is that at the end, there is this:
myname@mycomputer:~$ bambibambibambi

What is bambibambibambi? and why would that command be put in konsole? and what would have happened if I had pressed enter?

Is this some kind of Linux virus?

Any ideas?

Later still.......

Ahhhh! Just looked for posts on kbuildsyscoca4 in the forums, and saw on this one
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3113283.0
that the problem might be my version of KDE repository - and yes, just discovered that mine is kde4.4.2 - so I'll upgrade to 4.4.5 and see what happens.

[bernieszu]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Well, that was interesting and no doubt worthwhile. I'm now using kde4.4.5

The bambibambibambi command has now gone, at least, but I'm still getting lots of kbuildsyscoca messages, though not as many.

I'm getting instructed to fix a couple of files but no idea how to do that.
EG:
kbuildsycoca4(1597) parseLayoutNode: The menu spec file contains a Layout or DefaultLayout tag without the mandatory Merge tag inside. Please fix your file.
kbuildsycoca4(1597) parseLayoutNode: The menu spec file contains a Layout or DefaultLayout tag without the mandatory Merge tag inside. Please fix your file.
kbuildsycoca4(1597) parseLayoutNode: The menu spec file contains a Layout or DefaultLayout tag without the mandatory Merge tag inside. Please fix your file.

Any ideas?

But the main problem - permissions settings for USB drives - is unchanged. I'm still being told that even as root I don't have sufficient access to change file permissions

What next?

[Snowhog]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Launching GUI apps from the CLI generates the messages you are seeing. As long as the application loads and is usable as expected, just ignore them.

With your USB stick/HD plugged in, open a console and lets see the output from fdisk, fstab, mtab, and blkid:

sudo fdisk -l
cat /etc/fstab
cat /etc/mtab
sudo blkid

Copy the output from each and paste into your reply.

[bernieszu]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

So glad to see you Snowhog!
Here's the output:
output for sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 19293 154970991 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 19294 19457 1317330 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 19294 19457 1317298+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1030 MB, 1030225920 bytes
4 heads, 3 sectors/track, 167680 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 12 * 512 = 6144 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 21 167680 1005958+ 6 FAT16

output for cat /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config --
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

output for cat /etc/mtab

/dev/sda1 / ext3 rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw 0 0
none /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
none /dev devtmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /var/run tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
none /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /lib/init/rw tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
none /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/usb0 vfat rw,noexec,nodev,sync,noatime,nodiratime 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

output for sudo blkid

/dev/sda1: UUID="948fb0d0-7875-4137-8365-aff054b7c890" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda5: UUID="21d2d5ee-52c7-4166-960c-6b4ef6b12aac" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="0800-F191" TYPE="vfat"


I'm assuming the usb is on dev/sdb2?

Thanks for your help and for the reassuring info about the strange messages. I must just have not noticed them before.

[Snowhog]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

output for cat /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config --
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

A completely empty /etc/fstab file?! Are you sure you copied all of it? If you did, I don't know how your system is even booting! This is a new one for me. Let's wait and see what some of our more learned members have to say about this.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Just a hunch: with no usb stick mounted, open a terminal and do ls -l /media
If you see more than

drwx------ 2 root root 48 06.05.2010 12:08 cdrom0/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 06.05.2010 12:10 cdrom -> cdrom0/

post your output.

[bernieszu]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Thanks oshunluvr,
output from ls -l /media

total 40
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2007-09-11 13:03 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-11 13:03 cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-30 00:07 tsaihong
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2007-09-26 22:16 usb -> usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb1
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb3
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb5
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb6
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb7

and thanks, Snowhog,
I definitely copied all of it - just did it again to make sure.

[Snowhog]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

and thanks, Snowhog,
I definitely copied all of it - just did it again to make sure.

I can't imagine how you are even booting then. No content in /etc/fstab! I really hope that claydoh, GreyGeek, Rog131, or any of the other more experienced members chime in on this.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

Thanks oshunluvr,
output from ls -l /media

total 40
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2007-09-11 13:03 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-11 13:03 cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-30 00:07 tsaihong
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2007-09-26 22:16 usb -> usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb1
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb3
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb5
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb6
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-26 22:16 usb7

and thanks, Snowhog,
I definitely copied all of it - just did it again to make sure.

You might want to wait for others to chime in, but this looks totally wrong to me. Mine when no usb thumb drives are plugged in look like:

drwx------ 2 root root 48 06.05.2010 12:08 cdrom0/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 06.05.2010 12:10 cdrom -> cdrom0

/

and with two plugged in looks like:

drwx------ 2 root  root  48 06.05.2010 12:08 cdrom0/
drwxr-xr-x 11 stuart root 4096 31.12.1969 16:00 disk/
drwxr-xr-x 2 stuart root 4096 31.12.1969 16:00 disk-1/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root  root  6 06.05.2010 12:10 cdrom -> cdrom0/

You might try deleting all those extra usb files in there and logging out and back in and trying again. If you're worried about deleting them, move them somewhere safe instead.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Lucid permissions problems for usb

From the ls -l /media listing it seems the OP has attempted to mount a USB stick several times, until all the usbN /dev nodes were taken, but none were unmounted. Not properly umount-ing ntfs and FAT formatted drives can cause them to be switched to a read only mode.

The OP used the ntfs-config gui to configure the ntfs-3g driver, which crashed the fstab file. The gui is at 1.0.1 and hasn't been supported since 2007. It is, by some accounts, confusing to use. Apparently it has problems with the recent Lucid and Maverick, but ntfs-3g does not. The ntfs-config & ntfs-3g website states

Why can’t I read or modify some files?

NTFS supports built-in, transparent compression and encryption of files and directories on the file system level. Reading and writing transparently compressed files are fully supported, but reading or writing encrypted files are not supported at the moment. Please note that compressed files, like .zip, .gz, .rar, etc, can be freely modified because they are compressed on the file, not on the file system level.

See: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mo...dowsPartitions
For fstab help consult: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab
Manual mounting command examples and fstab reconstruction are here: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindowsfstab

This quickie instruction was found on the web:

You can manually add the entry to your /etc/fstab file.

Note the UUIDs of the partitions you want mounted:
sudo blkid

Create the mount point(s):
sudo mkdir /media/yourmountpoint1 /media/yourmountpoint2 (for ntfs HD partitions, udev automouts take care of usb sticks)
Mount points in /media will show in Places. Mountpoints in /mnt will not.

Backup /etc/fstab and open as root for editing. The following entry mimics what ntfs-config would have created. Change the text in bold to match your system. I've added "uid=1000" to make you the owner of the mountpoint:
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak (not necessary, the OP fstab is trash)
sudo kate /etc/fstab


UUID=7A982427132BCF9C /media/yourmountpoint1 ntfs-3g defaults,uid=1000,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0


Save the file, then run
sudo mount -a
If things were done properly you will get no messages and the partitions will be mounted.

Here is what is in my /etc/fstab, yours will depend on your "sudo blkid" results.

proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=e069a71d-0e03-408e-9356-48c358172bd4 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=fd8a28e1-eff1-4de4-bf09-d9f92541e242 none swap sw 0 0

IF the Windows drive doesn't have a volume name it will be given a name relating to its size, like "132.5 GB disk", etc. BUT, that name won't work in fstab, so it appears that ntfs-config crashed when it hit the name and didn't complete the creation of the fstab file. The OP's machine probably boots because it is being directed by ntfs-3g to the backup fstab file that it creates. I don't remember its name but a "locate ntfs" should find it.

Use GParted to give a valid volume name to the ntfs formatted USB sticks.