[SOLVED] chown doesn't work?

[Snowhog]

I have an external USB HD and one PCMCIA HD, both formated vfat. These are the fstab entries:

# /dev/sde1 60G USB HD
UUID=100B-2074 /media/USB_60G vfat auto,users,rw,relatime 0 2
# /dev/sdb1 5G pcmci HD
UUID=1BD7-0D75 /media/PCMCIA_5G vfat auto,users,rw,relatime 0 2

I just changed the 60G and 5G drives from defaults, relatime 0 2 to auto,users,rw,relatime 0 2 (for a test) and this is the owner:group info for each (abbreviated):

paul@laptop:/media/USB_60G$ ls -l
total 1024
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2006-09-03 14:21 2006 Rally
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10166 2008-10-14 17:12 2008 Chrysler Sebring.ods
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2559 2008-10-17 11:43 After Kernel upgrade.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 471 2007-11-09 21:09 BIOS Check

paul@laptop:/media/PCMCIA_5G$ ls -all
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 1969-12-31 14:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 2008-11-23 17:04 ..

I'm not permitted to write to these two HDs. I can open the drives. I can navigate the contents and open files. I just don't have any permission to write to the drives or save any changes to edited files.

Believing it's an ownership thing, I tried to change the ownership:

sudo chown -R paul:paul /media/[designated drive]/

and I get this:

chown: changing ownership of `/media/USB_60G/My Music/The Moody Blues/Time Traveller Disc 2/15 Melancholy Man.mp3': Operation not permitted

I'm at a loss as to why I can't change the ownership? What am I missing?

[lmilano]

Re: chown doesn't work?

This is because vfat doesn't know of all these Unix attributes like ownership, groups, etc. But it looks like this can be set at mounting time:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...orking-680553/

Hope this helps, you certainly deserve a hand, given how much you give to the community

[Snowhog]

Re: chown doesn't work?

Thank you. I'm testing that now. Report back shortly.

[Snowhog]

Re: chown doesn't work?

Yeah!! Did the happy dance! Adjusted both fstab entries to reflect:

# /dev/sde1 60G USB HD
UUID=100B-2074 /media/USB_60G vfat defaults,users,umask=0,relatime 0 2
# /dev/sdb1 5G pcmci HD
UUID=1BD7-0D75 /media/PCMCIA_5G vfat defaults,users,umask=0,relatime 0 2

Rebooted and tested. I have true read/write access to both HDs. Happy, happy, happy, ....

[lmilano]

Re: chown doesn't work?

[Snowhog]

Re: chown doesn't work?

I'd offer you a beer, assuming you are old enough to par take, but since that isn't possible, I'll have one for you!

[lmilano]

Re: [SOLVED] chown doesn't work?

Old enough? I'm actually _too_old_ for too many things, LOL!