Problem with permissions on data partition???

[okie2003]

I have been running Kubuntu 17.04 since it was released. I dual boot with Windows 10 and also run VirtualBox in Kubuntu. I have a separate data partition formatted to NTFS and that is where I keep my virtual machines. After a recent VirtualBox upgrade I noticed that I could not start VirtualBox and I assumed that it was related to the upgrade. Then I noticed that I could no longer write to the data partition due to insufficient permissions. My fstab entry for the data partition has remained unchanged:
/dev/sda9 /media/Data_NTFS ntfs defaults 0 0 0
I know the partition is mounted since I can see it and open files from it, but they are read only.
I have another similarly configured Kubuntu machine but the data partition is ext4. It has not experienced the same problems.

Vbox error:
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Win10-Neon.
The VM session was closed before any attempt to power it on.
Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
SessionMachine
Interface:
ISession {7844aa05-b02e-4cdd-a04f-ade4a762e6b7}

Error when saving from LibreOffice:
/home/rob/Documents/test2.odt does not exist
Any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

[jlittle]

Sorry this is a late reply, but I can't see any others.

Your problem may be caused by Win 10 not shutting down completely, leaving the NTFS partition in a read only state. Windows has something called "fast boot", which is kind of like suspend to disc. You may need to disable fast boot, or find a way to tell windows to unmount the drive before shutting down.

[okie2003]

Thanks for the response. Life intervened for me this week, so I have not worked on this. I will check out your suggestion, but I seem to recall disabling fast boot when I set things up for the very reason you mentioned. I will check further. Also, I saw something about not using "sudo dolphin" which I have done to work with configuration files. I was wondering if that could have caused problems.

[okie2003]

I found this on a Mint forum:
"You should generally always use gksudo (on Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce) or kdesudo (on KDE) for running graphical programs as root. Use sudo and su only for command line programs. Otherwise you may end up with the graphical programs changing ownership of files in your home directory to root, which can cause lots of issues."
and
"gksudo*and*kdesudo*set $HOME to the home directory of root, and set $XAUTHORITY to a new file outside your home directory (though with the same cookie for communicating with the X server), so the program you run doesn't change ownership of files in your home directory to root. Only a limited number of environment variables, and no functions or aliases, are preserved when changing user this way."

[jlittle]

I found this on a Mint forum:
"You should generally always use gksudo (on Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce) or kdesudo (on KDE) for running graphical programs as root...

If you hang about here at KFN for long you'll see this advice often. One of the admins had it in bold, large font, and bright colours in his or her signature for a while. I'm on my phone or I'd give you a find command to run in your home directory (after testing it) to check such out.

However, this issue wouldn't cause your NTFS problem, at least not directly, I think.

Regards, John Little

[vinnywright]

If you hang about here at KFN for long you'll see this advice often. One of the admins had it in bold, large font, and bright colours in his or her signature for a while. I'm on my phone or I'd give you a find command to run in your home directory (after testing it) to check such out.

it is very good advice.

to "find" files in your /home/you that have been taken over by "root" (their should be none except in rare occasions) run this ,,,,

find ~/ -user root

if their are none you will just get the prompt back with no output ,,,,,,,but if it's one of those rare occasions ,,,,,,,,you get output.

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~/Videos/Music$ find ~/ -user root 
/home/vinny/.local.old/share/klipper/history2.lst
/home/vinny/toram
/home/vinny/mbrsda.bak
/home/vinny/.rpmdb
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Installtid
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Group
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Sha1header
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Triggername
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/__db.002
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Basenames
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Dirnames
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Obsoletename
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Name
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/.dbenv.lock
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Conflictname
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/__db.001
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Providename
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Requirename
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Sigmd5
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/Packages
/home/vinny/.rpmdb/__db.003
/home/vinny/.wget-hsts

but I know why these are as they are ,,,,,so it's ok

if you have output , post it and maby we can help with that as well

However, this issue wouldn't cause your NTFS problem, at least not directly, I think.

Regards, John Little

ya I don't think so as well ,,,,,,more likely the windows fast boot thing locking the NTFS partitions down to read only ,,,,,,,,I think it cold be forced to mount "rw" ,, but would be best to see that windows is not expecting it to be untouched on it's next boot first .

I would boot back to windows and see if their is some reason for the drive/partition to be in "ro" ,,,,,,,if windows will let you change it to "rw" and then boot back to Kubuntu and see if it's still mounting "ro"

VINNY

[Qqmike]

I got quite a listing, Vinny:

~$ find ~/ -user root
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.cache
/home/mike/.cache/dconf
find: `/home/mike/.cache/dconf': Permission denied
/home/mike/.rnd
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/cupsext.soT
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/hpmudext.soT
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libhpmud.so.0.0.6T
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libsane-hpaio.so.1.0.0T
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libhpipp.so.0.0.1T
/home/mike/.dbus
find: `/home/mike/.dbus': Permission denied

A lot of this is used by Google to prevent malicious downloads.
http://www.cknow.com/cms/articles/wh...re-shavar.html
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...pi/X5BGXOmrabo
https://security.googleblog.com/2011...malicious.html

[vinnywright]

I got quite a listing, Vinny:

~$ find ~/ -user root
[COLOR=#0000ff]/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-phish-simple.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-badbinurl-shavar.pset
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/test-malware-simple.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.cache
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-malware-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.sbstore
/home/mike/.cache/mozilla/firefox/ky16yivp.default/safebrowsing-to_delete/goog-phish-shavar.cache[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#ff0000]/home/mike/.cache/dconf
find: `/home/mike/.cache/dconf': Permission denied
/home/mike/.rnd[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#a9a9a9]/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/cupsext.soT
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/hpmudext.soT
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libhpmud.so.0.0.6T
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libsane-hpaio.so.1.0.0T
/home/mike/Downloads/hplip-3.16.9/.libs/libhpipp.so.0.0.1T[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#0000ff]/home/mike/.dbus[/COLOR]
find: `/home/mike/.dbus': Permission denied

A lot of this is used by Google to prevent malicious downloads.
http://www.cknow.com/cms/articles/wh...re-shavar.html
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...pi/X5BGXOmrabo
https://security.googleblog.com/2011...malicious.html

Well ,,,, I have the ones in blue ,,,,,but their owned by me !

the ones in red , I do not have ,,,,,,

the ones in gray ,,,of course I would not have.

the one i left in black could be a problem for you at some point as you should have access to it .

ALL of these however I think should be owned by you ,,,not root...well I do not know about the ones in red .

VINNY

[Qqmike]

Thanks, Vinny. This is in 14.04. The OS seems to be working like a charm, at the moment.

[okie2003]

Sorry for he delay.
#1 I checked fast boot in BIOS (or whatever it is called now) and it is OFF. I remember that I had to do that because Kubuntu would not boot and gave an error message saying that NTFS partition was in an unstable state.
#2 I booted into Windows 10 an all files and folders were read only. I unchecked read only in properties and it appeared to work. However, they are still showing read only.
#3 I booted into Kubuntu and ran: rob@Asus-Kubuntu:/media/Data_NTFS$ find /media/Data_NTFS/ -user root and all files and folders, including VirtualBox are user root. I verified this in Linux: user:root. Without thinking I saved the output in a text file. It saved! WEIRD! It should not have saved as I am not root and it would not save before. I then tried VirtualBox and it opened.

REALLY WEIRD!!
I have done nothing to fix the problem??

[Snowhog]

I have done nothing to fix the problem??

Except for

#2 I booted into Windows 10 an all files and folders were read only. I unchecked read only in properties and it appeared to work. However, they are still showing read only.

[jlittle]

... It saved! WEIRD! It should not have saved as I am not root and it would not save before. I then tried VirtualBox and it opened.

REALLY WEIRD!!
I have done nothing to fix the problem??

(At least for me) Linux by default does not much respect NTFS ownership and permissions, and all files show as owned by root. (I imagine that to do this well would require serious reverse engineering of Windows.)

Regards, John Little

[okie2003]

Snowhog, I thought of that, but they still show "read only" and root in Linux. Maybe it did enough

jlittle, so what I am hearing is that there is no good way to share a data partition on a dual boot machine? Since 2004 I have not dual booted, just running Windows in a virtual machine. My data partitions were ext3 or ext4. This is my first go with NTFS and dual boot.

[jlittle]

jlittle, so what I am hearing is that there is no good way to share a data partition on a dual boot machine? Since 2004 I have not dual booted, just running Windows in a virtual machine. My data partitions were ext3 or ext4. This is my first go with NTFS and dual boot.

Surely, many people share files between windows and linux using NTFS.

I got that wrong, the files show as the user who mounted the NTFS file system. Maybe this is your permissions problem? How did you mount the NTFS filesystem^*?

• The simple way is to just click on it in dolphin, or the item in the device notifier. It gets automounted in a flash, and you can write away. Annoying if you have a script; you can get into arcane udev incantations, of which I know not, or use the udisksctl mount command.
• If you are using /etc/fstab, you can use the uid=value, gid=value and umask=value options. Run id in a konsole to find yours, though for the first user on an ubuntu install uid=1000 gid=1000. umask=0 gives wide permission; maybe this is all you need.
• If you really want to honour NTFS ownership and permissions, it can be done with a mapping file. I've never heard of anyone bothering, or for that matter, anyone on windows bothering with permissions at all, except on servers. See man ntfs-3g for the gory details.

Apologies again for giving you the wrong ideas.

regards, John Little

^*phew, spotted just in time, filesystems are mounted, not partitions, just about triggered an oshunluvr nit pick there ),

[oshunluvr]

^*phew, spotted just in time, filesystems are mounted, not partitions, just about triggered an oshunluvr nit pick there ),