Accessing mount points for all users...

[Jeff Vian]

On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 13:17 -0700, Robert Werch wrote:
> Here's the deal:
> 
> I'm running winblows xp and fc3 (sel targeted / permissive) on the same
> laptop.  I've formatted two of my xp partitions as vfat filesystems
> (Documents, Music).  I'd like a user group in FC3 to be able to read,
> write, and execute on these partitions.  The user group that I would
> like to have access is called 'xp_access' and contains 2 users.  I
> created two mount points /windows/Documents and /windows/Music.  Then I
> modified /etc/fstab to automatically mount the partitions there,
> respectivly.  My problem is this...  if I create the mount point as
> root, it is owned by root, and therefore only accessable by root.  I try
> to change the assigned group to xp_access (with or without root being a
> member of the group), and I get an error message saying 'Operation Not
> Permitted'  (I've tried it as root, sudo user, su user, graphically from
> gnome and kde, and from a terminal in gnome and in kde....  to no
> avail.)  If I create the mount points as a user, they are owned by the
> user...  I have full access to the partitions as that user, but not as
> the other user.  I try to change group permissions and assignments of
> the mount points (as root or as the user that created the mount points)
> and I get the same error message...  How can I not have permission to do
> so???  I thought root could do anytihing..  and I thought the owner of
> something could do anything with it....  I'm assuming user error (my
> error) and a simple fix...  Otherwise, I'm frustrated!!!
> 
> In fstab I've tried different things in colume 4 (defaults, uid=500,
> gid=503 (xp_access),w)...  all to varying degrees of success.  Like I
> said, as root I can read, write, and execute in these partitions, but
> the whole idea of linux is to not operate as root.  I can get one user
> to have full access automatically, but not other users when they log
> in...  Here is what my fstab file looks like right now:
> 
> # This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
> /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1
> LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
> none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
> none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
> none /proc proc defaults 0 0
> none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
> /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0
> /dev/sda6 /windows/Documents vfat uid=500 0 0
Change this to something like
/dev/sda6 /windows/Documents vfat users,uid=500,gid=500, 0 0

Then make sure both users are members of the same group (gid=500), and
make sure the mount point has rwx permissions for the group.

Either user then should be able to mount/unmount the filesystem and make
any changes wanted..

> /dev/sda7 /windows/Music vfat uid=500 0 0
> /dev/hdb /media/cdrecorder auto
> pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,ro,exec,noauto,managed
> 0 0
> /dev/hda /media/cdrecorder1 auto
> pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,ro,exec,noauto,managed
> 0 0
> 
> 
> User 500 can do with the files what they want, and so can root...  But,
> user 501 can't...  I've tried many things, and can't figure out what I'm
> doing wrong....  suggesstions???
> 
> thanks for the help.  newbie.
>