But wanted a nice GUI tool and found Yast2 Partitioner has the function to create a partition and fstab options to mount it.
The tool seems to work; a shiny new Ext4 partition was created and mounted, but I as the user have no edit permissions to all me to copy content into it. I did attempt to assess all the fstab tickboxes, ensuring i did not leave anything like “mount as read only” ticked, but I think i must have done something wrong…
Couple of questions:
Was it my mistake, and the GUI Partitioner fstab sections can readily mount a disk with write permissions by default for the user?
If so, what should I have ticked/configured/specified in the fstab menu?
Okay, either way, it is created and mounted as read-only for the user, how do i go about ensure that the user has default write permissions?
Hmmm, seems i broke the system - removing the /me folder in /home:
Any speculation on whether i did this:
In Yast Partitioner when creating and mounting the partition, or,
In the console via the sudo chown -R me:me /home/Storage1-Med command?
assuming i’ve removed the user partition and need to reinstall with the original desire of a GUI method to:
a) install tumbelweed kde on an SSD
b) create a partition on a separate HDD
c) mount that partition with write permissions
Is there a documented method to do so using Yast Partitioner?
n.b. considering that b) is now done, so what I want to achieve is i suppose just a) and c) this time around.
This is a misunderstanding. Mounting has nothing to do with write permissions (or any other permissions). File ownership and permissions function everywhere in the system.
What you probably want is offering more data space for a particular user somewhere on a mass-storage device. For hat you
may want to create a partition on that device (mark that this is not a must, you can use the whole device);
create a file system (you choose for ext4) on that partition or device;
decide where you want to have the space for the user so he can use it most easily, that can be somewhere in her/his home directory (just an example, when the music should go there it could be /home/<username>/music) that then would become the mount point;
create an entry in /etc/fstab to get the file system mounted at boot;
and now your crucial point: when the mount point is a directory inside /home/<username>/ and it is cretaed already by (s)he will be the owner and the permissions will be correct. When it is created byroot, root will be owner and thus must change the owner to and his/her default group. The same is true when the mount point is outside the user’s home directory. At least the permissions of the mount point must be set so that that user (or all users) can work there. And the path leading to that mount point must allow this also (like e.g. the path to /home/<username/ allows users does.
Now the YaST partitioner does much more then just partitioning (#1 above), it also can cater for #2 file system creation, it also can create an /etc/fstab entry (#4), but it can not do #5. Maybe it could be implemented, asking which user should be made owner of the mount point and maybe more. But it isn’t there. And as you may have read here and elsewhere, YaST is going to be deprecated, thus this partitioning module will not be expanded with new functionality. And I doubt that other so call partitioners (which often also do much more then just partitioning) will have the feature, but I am not sure about that.
Your user is me. So, by removing the “/me folder” you have removed your user’s home. That’s quite a reliable way to bork your system for the affected user. All user data and settings are in that folder. Unless you have made a backup of that folder retrieving any data may be difficult. Maybe impossible, I’m not so sure. root or any other user (if any) wouldn’t have to worry about this issue.
Ah, now I see @hui already suggested something similar. Did you try any of the advice given? As root you may enter “mount” just to check if you mounted anything as folder “/he” . In that case a umount might help. Just a shot in the dark.
I accept the point. what I am trying to understand is what I did to remove the /me folder?
Which action among the two seemingly logical and benign operations achieved this error:
a) using Yast Partitioner FSTAB options to mount the partition to /home/Storage1-Med
b) giving permissions via the command sudo chown -R me:me /home/Storage1-Med
Is this where I am coming unstuck with my attempt to do this via GUI tools, because although the Yast Partitioner FSTAB options allow me to mount the drive to /home/me/Storage1-Med they do so from su (root) permissions, and thus the user “me” does not end up with write permissions?
Ths depends on who created that directory /home/me/Storage-1-Med. When user me did it already before YaST did his job, that should be fine. When YaST did it, then root did it and thus root would be the owner. Thus then root should do a chown me:me /home/me/Starge-1-MED.
It is not that difficult. Try try to really understand about file ownership and permissions by owner/user, group and world/others.
And about that mounting by incident in /home/me. That will make all that is at that moment in /home/me unreachable. But it is still there. As soon as you unmount, you will see everything again. It was only hidden by the file system you mounted over it.
It is hard to tell, where you took the wrong turn and which action led to a loss of your home partition. I get the feeling (as you did not tell us explicitely) that your goal was to move your home partition from btrfs to ext4?
Normally it is straight forward to add an external drive with the YaST partitioner. Maybe you have choosen the wrong drive/partition to edit and accidently overwrote a valid conbfig.
Which BTW is not really wrong. It depends on what you want to achieve. When you e.g. have a user Storage1-Med (lousy name) then that is the correct place for it’s home directory. And yes, someones home directory may be on a separate file system. Of course then ownership and permissions should then be set correct to owner Storage1-Med, group …
It is about what one wants to achieve and then, with the knowledge and understanding about the single directory tree that is used for storing files in Unix/Linux, what mounting is and the file ownership and permission feature at you fingertips, then create what you want to get.
Okay, it’s got tangled. So let’s rebase this situation:
Where I am right now:
Tumbleweed (KDE) is reinstalling as we speak on: nvme01 (2TB SSD)
standard setup for the current release
nothing surprising done or deviating from the guided setup
this will be the ‘system’ drive housing root, home, swap, efi, etc
The computer also has: SDA1 (12TB HDD)
including (currently) a 1.81TB EXT4 partition - created by the previous borked install
including (currently) a 7.93TB NTFS partition - that will be deleted and reformatted
What I want to achieve:
a) Is for the 1.81TB EXT4 partition to be accessible from Dolphin with read/writer permissions for the user account, a.k.a. home/me/
n.b. Frankly, i don’t care about it being mounted into /home/me/Storage1-Med, it just has to exist in Dolphin as an option that /me/ can see and write to without recourse to elevated permissions.
Steps to achieve:
Perhaps in this instance, all i need to do is: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Mount_additional_disk UUID=7d423ba2-96bf-4493-acf9-ed22e897eed5 /home/me/Storage1-Med ext4 defaults 1 2
Q. Would this do the job?
b) Once I have tackled Storage1, I wish to achieve the same for a new Storage2, which would involve using Yast Partitioner to delete 7.93TB NTFS partition and then create a 7.93TB EXT4 partition in its place.
n.b. At which point, I would want to provide the same /me/ access as I did for Storage1-Med in a) above.
Steps to achieve:
Perhaps in this instance, all i need to do is:
Use Yast Partitioner to create the new 7.93TB EXT4 partition (and not touch the FSTAB options there) https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Mount_additional_disk UUID=7d423ba2-96bf-4493-acf9-ed22e897eed5 /home/me/Storage2-Med ext4 defaults 1 2
Q. Would this do the job?
It doesn’t matter how the mountpoint is called. As long as the partition is mounted, it is “always” accessible/visible via Dolphin. That means, you can mount it under /bananarama, /my/little/pony, /mnt/my/hamster/is/coughing…you will always have access via Dolphin.
I guess your confusion (or maybe slight mistake) came from your deliberate try to mount it under /home/me.
I usually mount external drives under dedicated mountpoints like /data or /mnt/data. In your case that would correlate to /Storage1-Med or /mnt/Storage1-Med. This makes sure that there are no confusions with home directories…
I would suggest following easy steps to get you up and running.
Install Tumbleweed with the default partitioning setup. Do not care about your external drive yet!
After your system is setup and you made sure that you are able to reboot at least once, open the YaST Partitioner
Delete the two ext4 and ntfs partitions on /dev/sda (make sure that you have a data backup if there is something stored on it,; make sure that you format the correct drive!)
create a new ext4 partition on drive /dev/sda and mount it under /mnt/Storage1-Med
(create a second ext4 partition on drive /dev/sda and mount it under /mnt/Storage2-Med if you want two partitions)
Finish the partitioner (this will create all the needed fstab entries)
Give your user me, write and read permissions for the new mountpoint via the already known way sudo chown -R me:me /mnt/Storage1-Med (and sudo chown -R me:me /mnt/Storage2-Med)
You really need to take a step back and read some basic Unix (or Linux) primer to understand how permissions work.
Partially. It will make the filesystem on this partition available and accessible. It will not change permissions that files inside this partition have.
what I am trying to understand is what I did to remove the /me folder?