# Can't chmod or chown on mounted system.

## athlonkmf

Ok, this is the problem.

I've installed Gentoo exactly acording to the install-doc. 

Now, i have mounted  my windows fat32-partitions on /mnt/windowdrive* but as a user I can't do anything with these files, so I wanted to chmod some of them to 777.

Although there were no errormessages, the files didn't seem to be affected with the chmod-commands.

So I decided to simply chown the files to the user, but then I get the message: Operation not permited even though I'm logged in a console as root

Anyone know what the problem may be?

I've tried to add the strings user or defaults in the fstab for some partitions to test it, but still no success.

Of course, I'm able to write or delete as root, but that's not the solution

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## Zu`

FAT32 doesn't support file permissions. So trying to chmod those files on a filesystem like that won't work.

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## athlonkmf

 *Zu` wrote:*   

> FAT32 doesn't support file permissions. So trying to chmod those files on a filesystem like that won't work.

 

so how am i suppose to edit those files as a normal user then? umask?

And it's the same problem for smbfs-filessystems actuallyLast edited by athlonkmf on Sun Jun 02, 2002 5:57 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## craftyc

I have the same problem. What can be done?

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## Maldrim

Edit your fstab and modify/or add the umask=(Your desired setting) that way the drive will be mounted with the permissions you want.

umask=0 is the equivalent of chmod 777

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## lx

In addition to umask the options uid (user id) and gid (group id) can be used in the option field of /etc/fstab to specify a more detailed protection, check man mount -> fat for more specific info.

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## craftyc

OK I tried it and it worked perfectly. Thanks.

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