[publicmenace]

What specific syntax would I use to change the ownership of a directory to my user name? I have a directory called "Data" in /media that is currently owned by "root" and I would like to change the ownership to "tmr". I haven't been able to figure out the correct chown argument to effect this change. The directory "Data" is actually an NTFS partition so maybe Linux won't let me do this, although how changing ownership of this directory from root to tmr could be a bad thing is beyond me.

This is what I've tried so far:

tmr@compaqowner:~$ sudo chown tmr /media/Data
[sudo] password for tmr: 
tmr@compaqowner:~$ cd /media
tmr@compaqowner:/media$ chown -R tmr Data
tmr@compaqowner:/media$

Nothing. Still owned by root. I've strained my feeble Linux muscles to their limit and have no idea what I'm not doing correctly .

This post has been edited by publicmenace: 06 February 2010 - 03:29 AM

[smax013]

publicmenace, on 06 February 2010 - 03:27 AM, said:

What specific syntax would I use to change the ownership of a directory to my user name? I have a directory called "Data" in /media that is currently owned by "root" and I would like to change the ownership to "tmr". I haven't been able to figure out the correct chown argument to effect this change. The directory "Data" is actually an NTFS partition so maybe Linux won't let me do this, although how changing ownership of this directory from root to tmr could be a bad thing is beyond me.

This is what I've tried so far:

tmr@compaqowner:~$ sudo chown tmr /media/Data
[sudo] password for tmr: 
tmr@compaqowner:~$ cd /media
tmr@compaqowner:/media$ chown -R tmr Data
tmr@compaqowner:/media$

Nothing. Still owned by root. I've strained my feeble Linux muscles to their limit and have no idea what I'm not doing correctly .

While I could be wrong, I believe the part in red is your problem. If I recall correctly, things like file and directory permissions are typically linked to the drive format type.

[waldojim]

change the directory permissions before you mount the ntfs. Then be sure to mount it with the 'users' option so that it is available to more than just 'root'...

[publicmenace]

waldojim, on 06 February 2010 - 03:49 PM, said:

change the directory permissions before you mount the ntfs. Then be sure to mount it with the 'users' option so that it is available to more than just 'root'...

I have the NTFS partition configured to automount (the subject of one of my previous posts) at start-up. So if I unmount the partition and reset the permissions will that be permanent or is it something I would have to do each time the partition remounted after a restart?

The current permissions are "Create and delete files" for Owner, Group and Others so the current state doesn't inconvenience me in any way but I don't like "Others" to have those kinds of rights. It makes me a little nervous to have one of my drives "World writable."

Okay, here we go:

tmr@compaqowner:/media$ sudo umount Data -v
/dev/sda2 umounted
tmr@compaqowner:/media$ chown -R tmr Data
chown: changing ownership of `Data': Operation not permitted
tmr@compaqowner:/media$

Oh, boy. Now my puny Linux muscles are really trembling. Bash indicates that the drive has been unmounted but it still won't let me change permissions. But when I go into /media using the file browser and right-click on Data it shows an unmount selection in the context menu, which indicates to me that the drive is still mounted, although the icon disappeared from my desktop.

This post has been edited by publicmenace: 07 February 2010 - 04:35 AM

[waldojim]

you may need to change ownership as the super user - try adding sudo to the beginning of that command

[publicmenace]

waldojim, on 07 February 2010 - 01:56 PM, said:

you may need to change ownership as the super user - try adding sudo to the beginning of that command

I did do the sudo thingy right before the umount command, if you look closely, jim. I assumed that I was still sudo when I did the chown command. You don't have to type sudo at the beginning of every command, do you? I thought you stayed superuser for the whole session. Right now I'm in MS land so I can't play around with it.

[waldojim]

sudo requires it for every command

you could also use "sudo su" to continue as root user, then you don't have to.

[publicmenace]

waldojim, on 11 February 2010 - 05:43 PM, said:

sudo requires it for every command

you could also use "sudo su" to continue as root user, then you don't have to.

Okay, that did the trick. Thanks, jim. Now I own my NTFS partition and "Others" don't have any permissions. Yee-haw!

[bantian602]

chmod 777 directory