This is probably a stupid issue I should know but I have seen no other thread on this.
I formatted a external 160 GB HDD (Lacie) with EXT3 and encrypted. The formatting went perfect.
When I stick it into the USB slot, it is recognized and mounted by HAL. Hal asks me the password and then everything seems ok. But I have no write access. Only root has.
I would like to use it to store my user data, externally, but encrypted.
How can I set the write permission to make this possible?
Why does HAL attribute the write permissions to root, even if I have given the password as user?
Filesystem EXT3
Opensuse 11.1
KDE 3.5
Hm, another of those HAL problems.
Let us at least see what it did, thus we can probably see what it did wrong… Show us an
ls -l /media
(with the disk attached of course).
lol! Don’t be nasty, will ya?
Ok here is the output:
@linux-xu0v:~> ls -l /media
totale 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 10 gen 11:04 disk
linux-xu0v:~ # ls -l /media
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 60 Jan 10 11:06 .hal-mtab
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Jan 9 20:34 .hal-mtab-lock
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 10 11:04 disk
As you have seen, HAL has mounted for root and not for the user. Normaly HAL mounts for the user (in fact for one of the users that happened to be loged in in the GUI, so if there is one and only one user loged in this works correct).
In your case there is an extra action (the password asking). You say “Hal asks me the password …”. How do you know it is HAL? I ask because HALL can communicate with the DE.
I think that when HAL asks this himself (herself?), this is a root action (as HAL runs as root), and then it carrys on like that. And that in the ‘normal’ case, HAL communicates with the DE and, on instigation from the DE, then mounts for the user. But this are only ideas, as HAL is rather fuzzy (at least for me and some others here).
Just for your information. In 11.2 it is no longer HAL that mounts the ‘on the flight added disks’, but DeviceKit. I do not say that that makes everything more transparent :\
Apparently I solved. You need to log in as root, decrypt, and to go into the properties of the HDD mounted by HAL. There you allow changes and cancellations to “Other users”.
You save and unmount.
Logout of root, log in user. Then put in the HDD and “voilá!” now the thing is a) encrypted, b) mounted by HAL and c) writable.
I hope you do not mean you realy loged in as root and especialy not in a GUI!
It may be needed to do things as root to solve the problem, but then you do e.g.
su -
from a konsole.
Yeap, I logged into a GUI as root. No problem because: I did only this operation, I had no Internet, I have a separate home partition for users (so no permissions get messed up as I did not access it) and it was easier for me to do so. So for one time I preferred to do it like this, although I know you are not supposed to do it.
But still, at least I did resolve the problem.
To do it from su - then you need:
to know how to execute the change of permissions (if not you are loosing only time). Since time is a thing I do not have, and I do not have the knowledge to do it, I prefer to be pragmatic then to be dogmatic. A GUI does represent a problem with root if you access your user home. If you just access you /root/home I do not see any problem, sorry. (But you can still prove me wrong).
Besides, THIS very basic function to mount an encrypted ext3 disk via usb and HAL should have worked in the first place. If it doesn’t then this for me is a show-stopper. Another, because 11.1 is and was full of severe bugs - I think the impossibility to do full disk encryption (not LVM) was also due to a bug. (Maybe they say that Linux is just server, not desktop?)
That said, thank you for you trying me to help. A lot of threads (that are not redundant and are IMHO not at all without interest) remain without any answer and close unsolved. If you like somebody coming by and not repeating my bad practice, you may post a brief HOWTO on the procedure here below. This is beyond me current knowledge. I only fear you will be like me. You do not have the time to loose.
And I understand this.
I will make a few remarks. Youi must decide for yourself of course, but I adivse at least do not tell you log in in the GUI on these Forums (or on a lot of other places where Linux people dwell), because they will fall over you. The remarks are not in a particular order.
This is the link that tells you how to use root priviliges genraly: SDB:Login as root - openSUSE
You will find in that SDB that there is an item in Kmenu: File manager (in system manager mode). The precise words may differ, but it is clear enough. You can navigate then through the whole system and change permissions as root.
The CLI command is chmod, see:
man chmod
The fact that you think that a seperate */home *protects you from doing evil when loged in as root, shows me that you have some misunderstanding (to put it mildly). And that leads me to conclude that you are in no position to understand why you think you can log in as root, when people with 20 years of Unix/Linux experience do not dare to do so and tell you the same.
That fact that you disconnected your ethernet cable does indeed improve your security while doing this dangerous thing (I want to make one positive remark on your behaviour).
And when you have no time to learn to do these things correct, I wonder why I spend my spare time on helping you.
All the best,
First of all thank you for the explanation. Second: I wonder why you continue to interpret my thought. I am in no position to say that it is “good” to log into GUI as root (and if you read my threads it is what I have said rightly to somebody yesterday).
The fact that I do not have time “currently” (in this very moment) to learn to use console commands in Unix (while not being in IT, not having anybody to help me, none of the people I know use or are interested in Linux, and so on), does NOT denote in any case a lack of motivation or interest in doing so when I will have the time.
It is curious to see that you help, yes, but with an attitude that could go under the thread: why do newcomers give up on Linux. They do because the first thing you said was a “duh” statement that the disk I have a problem with has to be attached to the machine. Well, somebody, to put it mildly, that is using an encrypted USB disk for backing up data and telling he has, against expectation, no root rights when mounted by HAL, will probably know that it has to be attached before querying it, right? He may however not know HOW to query it.
But I told you: it is easier to write “do not do it” than to write the statement you did afterwards. The sentence about you not seeing why you should go on to help me “since I do not want to invest time”, is, in all honesty, your personal interpretation of my words, without knowledge of my current personal situation (either from IT or professional, or personal standpoint) and only you as a person can decide if you like to share your knowledge or not with others.
If you decide not to do it things will stay as they are. Since you gave me information I will come back on it, be assured. It is not that people just lay back having a good time and saying “Henk will fix it for free”. It is that people need to have things working right now, but appreciate to be informed that they could have done differently and follow up on the information given when they have the opportunity.
Actually, using the konqueror file browser in superuser mode to access the /media/disk properties did not come to my mind.You didn’t propose it either, did you? But the solution to this problem nevertheless did. So you could also consider that somebody reading this link will simply find it useful, can use the user account with superuser-filebrowser to fix the problem. So after all it is not so bad that I found out how it works, for the very few people that may have the same problem and still use 3.5.
Best regards.
Ps, I did not even have an Ethernet cable but I am mobile on an UMTS modem that goes under EDGE because UMTS is not available and I do not have the situation to have a DSL Internet account, neither financially nor from a contractual point of view. And in this precise moment I have very little time to read through manuals. I will do it when I will have the opportunity. Life is hard.
I do not want to spend time to comment on all of your story in detail. But a lot of it comes down to an old problem on forums like these. It is very difficult for both sides to assess the knowledge base on the other side in such a huge distance in space time and often culture. The fact that you think I am making you look childish by telling that the device must be connected is because, logical as it seems to be, I have puzzled on output posted back on my questions for it because such logical things where not to logical to the OP. But I admit that a smiley might have been added (but that takes time also).
Then, after your protest, when I think you know something about Linux, most simple system management things like File Manager (and probably also Konsole) in System Mnaneger mode seems to have escaped your study of the possibilities of Kmenu.
In short, it is not easy for me to know what the OP knows and what not after reading a 10 lines call for help.