Anthony Huereca wrote:
> In /etc/fstab, add "umask=0" w/o quotes as one of the options at the end of hte
> partition you want to be writable. Should be right after the other options.
> Here's mine for instance:
> /dev/hdb5 /windows vfat user,exec,nodev,nosuid,rw,conv=auto,umask=0 0 0
>
> And this is another thing Mandrake should do automatically. They mount it
> automatically for you right now, so it probally wouldn't be that hard for them
> to make it writable to everyone. Or maybe there's a good reason to leave it
> defaulted as read only.
>
There's generally, as far as I'm aware, no reason to mount dos drives
automatically. This should be a /mnt mount point and /mnt mount points aren't
intended to be automatically mounted.
On the other hand, I'm refering to automatically mounting during the boot process,
instead of when the mount point is accessed later on.
rw should make it writable. I'm not sure why umask=0 is needed, unless this is
just because it's not ext2. rw, alone, makes ext2 filesystems writable.
Filesystems which don't directly pertain to the actual Linux configuration you
boot into should not be mounted during boot, unless you're dealing with networking
(in which case I don't have enough knowledge to say one way or the other, except
that in many a Unix environment, these are automounted only when a user tries to
access them, instead of during the boot process).
What I've read and helps to keep everything clearer is that what you create in /
are symbolic links to the mount points in /mnt.
E,g.,
/c: => /mnt/c:
By using ls -l or ls -F against /c: or even just /, the user sees /c: is a
symbolic link to a /mnt mount point and can therefore immediately realize or
assume that this is not mounted during the boot process.
mount /mnt/c: - will "automatically" mount /mnt/c: according to the
definition in the fstab file, if there's a definition for it there.
If that's not done, a user does
ls /mnt/c:
and /mnt/c: is automatically mounted, then this is automounting as is often known
in Unix.
Then, /c: is accessible, in all of these cases.
I'm not sure what form of automatic mounting people are referring to, here,
because automatic applies in all three cases, in different ways. In Solaris,
automounting "foreign" filesystems refers to the latter meaning, as far as I'm
aware, but because this is a newbie list, people could mean something different.
Even in the expert mailing list, people could mean any of these three
possibilities.
"Automatic" is a fairly general concept and context usually helps to clarify the
meaning. Explicit explanation always clarifies the meaning.
So, which are you people usually referring to?
The general recommendation of placing any filesystems which aren't mounted during
the boot process in /mnt is a good idea, because it keeps a system configuration
more immediately understandable. Mount points can be placed almost anywhere, even
buried n directories deep; however, to become accustomed to creating
configurations according to more general or "standard" guidelines, it's good to
follow these.
Create mount points in /mnt and symbolic links to these in /, or your home
directory (/ is better, because in / these are accessible by everyone who has the
privileges to use these). It's a little extra overhead in setting up, but when
doing ls -F on /, for example, it's immediately evident that /cdrom, /a:, /floppy,
/c:, /d:, etcetera, are symlinks to /mnt mount points.
Mounting can't be done using these, because they're symlinks, but mounting is done
relatively infrequently, while access is done much more often; therefore, the
extra typing of /mnt for mounting and umounting is insignificant.
Mandrake may have made / the location of these mount points, but this renders the
system a little less immediately understandable, because any actual directory
hard links in /, should be part of the main configuration. cdrom, dos partitions,
and floppies aren't always in use and don't really make up part of the principal
Linux configuration. These are "add-ons", whereas /boot, /var, /home, /usr, /tmp
are not conceivable as "add-ons".
That's the "religious" point of view, but most systems probably do it this way,
for this kind of reasoning. You'll find the same kind of explanation in LDP and
other documentation, as well as books. On many Unix systems, you'll find such
mount points in other locations, such as under some /usr directory.
Sometimes vendors may choose to change the more standard ways, but this can
potentially cause problems over the long term, as you switch from one environment
to another. By adhering to "convention", this kind of problem is avoided. Also,
not all programs accept symbolic links, as far as I'm aware (ran into one or two
about a week ago). /mnt should not contain symbolic links, at least none used by
programs, but / will on "conventional" Linux systems, where as not on others;
therefore, some programs may need additional coding to check for symlinks and to
follow these until they get to the actual mount points, in cases where symlinks
would cause programs to fail, which can happen.
Hence, "convention" isn't always bad. Straying from it may appear more conducive
to user friendliness or ease of use, but can potentially cause problems.
Conclusion, I reiterate that mount point should be placed under /mnt, which is why
/mnt is there. For user friendliness, add symlinks in /, but mount and umount via
/mnt.
If there's any good reasoning otherwise, then I'ld be interested in reading it.
I'm trying to coax newbies along the more conventional path, but maybe there are
reasons not to.
mike
> > another stumper for me?
> >
> > I just wanted to make a new directory on the DOS partition that I could
> > put some WP8 files in (because the apostrophe comes out on the printer
> > as something stupid in Linux right now) and it said I didn't have
> > permission. I checked the "fstab" and hda1 includes "user" in
> > permissions. I checked properties by right-clicking on the icon and it
> > includes user, group and others for both read and write.
> >
> > OK, so I made the directory as super-user, gave it "a+rwx" permissions,
> > and still couldn't save a file in it. Access denied. No permission to
> > write or what ever....
> >
> > Again, what am I missing here?
> >
> > Bob
> --
> Anthony Huereca
> http://m3000.1wh.com
> Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
