Ownership Problems

Hi,
I'm unable to modify files on a mounted FAT partition, because their 'owned' by root. So I logged in as root, and tried to change it - only to find out that I have 'insufficient acces' to each of the files to modify their ownership... Please help

That happens because FAT filesystems lack permission support.
You should mount it rw with correct fstab options and that should be it.

This has been covered on the forums before. From the mount manpages:

Mount options for fat
...
****** uid=value and gid=value
**************Set the owner and group of all files.**(Default: the uid and gid
**************of the current process.)
...

My guess is you'll want to set the uid to your regular user. Also make sure it's mounted rw as was mentioned.

Hey, thanks for quick response... :-)

I opened the partitioning tool from Yast to edit fstab options. Option value said...

users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true

Should I leave out 'users' or just add uid=username before gid?
Tried either way, but the files are still owned by root :/

I also find it weird, that I'm able to move files to (only) a few particular folders on FAT, some files can be deleted (it's impossible to restore them from the trash though) while others can't.

How do I "mount it rw"?

ad rw to options, like:

rw,users...

Oh, god... Now entry in fstab looks as follows...

rw,users,uid=joy,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

The 'rw' is not visible in Yast partitioning tool though :-|
Still 'no permission'. What the heck?

Oh, god... Now entry in fstab looks as follows...

rw,users,uid=joy,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

The 'rw' is not visible in Yast partitioning tool though :-|
Still 'no permission'. What the heck?
[/b]

This is my line from my fstab:

/dev/hda1****/windows/C****vfat****users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

Try using it, changing the obvious to fit your box (ie. partition name). I hope you've made a backup of your original /etc/fstab just in case in all the changes things get *too* screwed up you can go back.

Edit: I almost forgot. I'm using 10.0, I don't know if that makes a difference in the fstab or not. You didn't say what version you're running.

Oh, yes, and where are they mounted?
If it's on /windows/C, e.g., post:

ll /windows

Oh, god... Now entry in fstab looks as follows...

rw,users,uid=joy,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

The 'rw' is not visible in Yast partitioning tool though :-|
Still 'no permission'. What the heck?
[/b]

Test these options:

users,exec,gid=users,umask=000,iocharset=utf8 0 0

btw. vfat can't "utf8=true"

Thank you GermanGirl! It works!
Could you give me a little explanation on what changes are done by exec and umask=000? And why 'vfat can't "utf8=true"?'

@ Jop: I did not quite cach it