Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Bill Kendrick]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 01:31:54AM -0800, Dave Margolis wrote:
> good point.  the archive does become a working searchable helpdesk (or
> whatever), so answering the question from more than one angle can't hurt.

Heh... At least twice I have typed in a question (or error report or somesuch)
into Google and one of the first results I hit is a VOX post.

In at least one case, it was MY OWN POST from a few years back. :^)

I obviously have far less memory than our list archives + Google
(who I heard just added another BILLION pages to its index,
if I correctly remember the newsbit I heard on the radio today)

-bill!
(holding pinky to mouth:  "4 _BILLION_ web pages!  MUAHAHAHAHAH!")
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Dave Margolis]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, ME wrote:

> > Hmmm. Your use of the word limit in quotes comes dangerously close to
> > being condescending, but I'll assume that's not how it was meant.
>
> It was not at all an attack. It is meant to highlight a theme in the
> response-- that of choice vs. limits. It was not a comment on you or your
> question. It was an emphasis to my content.

This was only to point out that sarcasm (or any form of levity) can often
be misread.  I'm more guilty of this here, so I'll apologize too.  This
was not meant to insight, but just to defend my right to ask a question.
Reading your comments below, it looks like no 'defense' was necessary.
So thanks, and sorry.


> I thought an example was obvious and omitted at least one example for
> this, but here is at least one: The person who owns the laptop may want to
> also use windows too, another? it is not their own personal laptop, but
> provided by their work, and they are required to use Windows-only apps in
> the field.

I struggle with this at work (which is very much a Windows world).  I
solve this problems with rdesktop (love that program) and a powerbook that
runs the Mac remote desktop client, but again, not everybody's solution.

> I did not make the assumption the machine was a single-user machine. Since
> such archives are available for peer review, I'd rather have an answer
> that may provide someone (and others) with advice that could be used in
> the general case rather than a specific implied case based on the content
> of the thread. The solution I provided is a very good one for servers and
> for single user systems. The directions for making it work for both are
> the same.It is a very useful system. Nobody else pointed it out in the
> thread so I added it. It is archived for people to find with google. It
> has many advantages-- including teaching single user system admins a
> method they can apply if they should ever decide to grow into a server
> with multiple users.

good point.  the archive does become a working searchable helpdesk (or
whatever), so answering the question from more than one angle can't hurt.

i maintain that yours was the best (in my opinion) way to do the fstab
mount.

> DOS is sufficient. Windows 9X is sufficient. You only asked for examples.
> Whether the users's preference is Windows or DOS does not matter,  A
> reason is still provided-- Several reasons actually. Some people may
> prefer to have the windows interface instead of DOS. All it takes is at
> least one person who does this to choose windows instead of dos for their
> solution to be an example of a case where someone would want to dual boot
> windows and linux on the same multi-user system.
>

i suppose i'm too eagerly defending 'the way i would do it'.  linux gives
us the freedom of no single or correct way to day anything.  i'll qualify
the whole thing.  FOR ME, dual booting a multi-user system still doesn't
make much sense...  but, that statement doesn't help anybody solve their
problem, though, so it's almost useless to say.


> You can only grow out of it to the point where your vendors of hardware
> permit it. If the hardware vendor you use does not provide a Linux path
> for resolving the examples listed above, then there is little opportunity
> to outgrow it- unless you have the time and resources to reverse engineer
> the missing tools and build them.
>
> For future hardware purchases, the consumer can take the time to buy
> hardware which is better supported, but the existing older hardware still
> exists and may be used.

we're all hoping this is increasingly less of a problem, but yes, it is a
problem.

> does not encourage me to answer questions you have. I do not want to have
> my text viewed as an attack or harmful. It is possible that you will view
> this reply as harmful, and this is also not an intention. :-/
>

not at all.  i read the above 'think about it' as 'i don't need to
bother answering that'.  i took that as a blow off (which i obviously
shouldn't have - you've given plenty of answers to my original question).

on the other hand, i was trying to say 'if there are so many good reasons,
let's see them', but re-reading that, it doesn't convey that.  so again, sorry.
this is one of those situations where if we were having this conversation
in person, things might have gotten enthusiastic, or maybe even
'heated', but never 'nasty'.

> Where is the reward for taking the time to provide an answer to a question
> when you feel your words are being read in such a way to sound offensive?
> Look at the archive of messages written here by me. Have I been abusive?
> Do my replies look negative or suggestive?
>
> People wonder why my responses are often long; it is because people tend
> to read things into the text. There comes a point, where choosing not to
> answer a question is more rearding than the pleasure gained in helping
> fellow Linux users. If you don't like what I write, or I offend you, let
> me know-- preferrably 

Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[ME]

Dave Margolis said:
> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, ME wrote:
>> One of the amazing things with software is that it can grow beyond the
>> confines and limitations that people try to impose on it. Luckily, since
>> we use Linux, we do not need to "limit" ourselves to only use software
>> as
>> it was expected.
>
> Hmmm. Your use of the word limit in quotes comes dangerously close to
> being condescending, but I'll assume that's not how it was meant.

It was not at all an attack. It is meant to highlight a theme in the
response-- that of choice vs. limits. It was not a comment on you or your
question. It was an emphasis to my content.

> Anyway, I was asking a question, not making a statement.  I asked 'What
> is?'.  I didn't make the statement 'There is no such thing...'

Excellent. Answers were provided to this too.

>> Consider a laptop that is used at installfests to act as a server of
>> files
>> for installs, a gateway/masquerading unit, and a shell server for
>> multi-user access.
>
> I don't see why any of the above machines require dual-boot with Windows.

I thought an example was obvious and omitted at least one example for
this, but here is at least one: The person who owns the laptop may want to
also use windows too, another? it is not their own personal laptop, but
provided by their work, and they are required to use Windows-only apps in
the field.

All you need is for at least one user to desire Windows on such a laptop
for the example to be valid. The point was for me to answer the questions
as to "why a user might want to have a multi-user system with dual boot to
windows."

I assumed that what was being asked for was an example of a case where
such a dual-boot window/linux multi-user system  might be desired.

>> Also, consider hybrid systems with wine being used remotely.
>
> Depending on how your run Wine, yes, but not neccesary.

The examples are not necessary but sufficient. They are, by definitions,
examples of reasons why someone would want to dual boot-- answers to your
question.

>> Just because a person cannot see a use for something does not mean that
>> a
>> use does not exist for it. You want more examples? Read on...
>>
>
> I didn't suggest that a use didn't exist.  I just suggested the solutions
> being offered got off the track of answering the original question, which
> sounded to me like it was coming from a desktop user.  But I would never
> suggest that a desktop can't scale into something more, or that security
> shouldn't be considered because of some vague definition of how a computer
> is used.

I did not make the assumption the machine was a single-user machine. Since
such archives are available for peer review, I'd rather have an answer
that may provide someone (and others) with advice that could be used in
the general case rather than a specific implied case based on the content
of the thread. The solution I provided is a very good one for servers and
for single user systems. The directions for making it work for both are
the same.It is a very useful system. Nobody else pointed it out in the
thread so I added it. It is archived for people to find with google. It
has many advantages-- including teaching single user system admins a
method they can apply if they should ever decide to grow into a server
with multiple users.

Encouraging people to provide useful answers is what helps to build or
grow a support system for opensource products. Discouraging useful answers
harms documentation for opensource products. If you had approached me in
private about your concern, I would have replied to my post in public
pointing out that I did not mean what it seems you read from the post and
offer an appology.

>> Our uni Networking and CS labs are this way. 1 Windows install and 2
>> different Linux installs. Yes, we do utilize the multi-user functions on
>> these systems in our experiments.
>
> Yeah, experiments, not real multi-user machines that also happen to
> dual-boot.  Perhaps I'm muddling multi-user with REMOTE-user, but I would
> suggest for unix boxes that's more often the case than not.

Semantics-- difference of definition:
I view a "multi user machine" a machine used by "multiple users"
interactively at the same time as sufficient. Your definition *also*
includes a concept of uptime. We can never agree on this point while we
have different definitions. ("also" used in * and * to empasize that we
both share "multiple simultaneous interactive users" as part of our
definitions of "multi users system" but yours also includes uptime as a
further refinement. The point of this empahsis is to address the
similarities, not the differences.)

Your definition is not a bad one just as mine is not; they are only
different. Each is valid. The difference? Lumping vs. Splitting.

>> Well, we have different machines that have specific purposes. Also,
>> there
>> are still some systems out there that require the admin to boot to
>> windows
>>
>> Other cases for having a bootable windows syste

Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Dave Margolis]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, ME wrote:

> One of the amazing things with software is that it can grow beyond the
> confines and limitations that people try to impose on it. Luckily, since
> we use Linux, we do not need to "limit" ourselves to only use software as
> it was expected.

Hmmm. Your use of the word limit in quotes comes dangerously close to
being condescending, but I'll assume that's not how it was meant.

Anyway, I was asking a question, not making a statement.  I asked 'What
is?'.  I didn't make the statement 'There is no such thing...'

>
> Consider a laptop that is used at installfests to act as a server of files
> for installs, a gateway/masquerading unit, and a shell server for
> multi-user access.

I don't see why any of the above machines require dual-boot with Windows.

>
> Also, consider hybrid systems with wine being used remotely.

Depending on how your run Wine, yes, but not neccesary.

>
> Just because a person cannot see a use for something does not mean that a
> use does not exist for it. You want more examples? Read on...
>

I didn't suggest that a use didn't exist.  I just suggested the solutions
being offered got off the track of answering the original question, which
sounded to me like it was coming from a desktop user.  But I would never
suggest that a desktop can't scale into something more, or that security
shouldn't be considered because of some vague definition of how a computer
is used.

> Our uni Networking and CS labs are this way. 1 Windows install and 2
> different Linux installs. Yes, we do utilize the multi-user functions on
> these systems in our experiments.

Yeah, experiments, not real multi-user machines that also happen to
dual-boot.  Perhaps I'm muddling multi-user with REMOTE-user, but I would
suggest for unix boxes that's more often the case than not.

>
> Well, we have different machines that have specific purposes. Also, there
> are still some systems out there that require the admin to boot to windows
>
> Other cases for having a bootable windows systems:
> BIOS Upgrades for the system
> SCSI Card Firmware updates that only run from DOS or windows
> System hardware initialization for hardware that uses proprietary code to
> start the hardware working so that Linux can use it
> Being required by the  hardware vendor to run diagnostic software that
> only runs in windows before you can have parts replaced

All but the last of the examples above suggests dual-booting DOS, not
Windows, or even booting from a DOS floppy when possible.  I made myself a
DOS bootable CDROM which I find comes in handy every now and
then...

I don't know.  I just consider dual-booting something that you grow
out of as a desktop user and not really something appropriate for
production Linux boxes.  That's why I asked the question about the lab or
public access computer, which was a scenario I thought up where a dual-boot,
multi-user system made sense.

>
> (many more reasons if you think about it)

Or not so many, or perhaps you would have listed them to back up your
argument.


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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[ME]

Dave Margolis said:
> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, ME wrote:
>> On a multi-user system with a mounted windows filesystem, you may have
>> desire for everyone to have read access, but only a few to have write
>> access to the mounted windows volume. Here is what I have found to work:
>>
>
> I don't understand this scenario.  What is a dual-boot, mulit-user system?
> If a system is truly multi-user, I would assume that means maximum uptime.
> I don't remember being told I couldn't ssh into a machine I have an
> account on because at the moment somebody had booted it into Windows!

One of the amazing things with software is that it can grow beyond the
confines and limitations that people try to impose on it. Luckily, since
we use Linux, we do not need to "limit" ourselves to only use software as
it was expected.

Consider a laptop that is used at installfests to act as a server of files
for installs, a gateway/masquerading unit, and a shell server for
multi-user access.

Also, consider hybrid systems with wine being used remotely.

Just because a person cannot see a use for something does not mean that a
use does not exist for it. You want more examples? Read on...

> Does anybody out there have dual-boot machines with public access (like in
> a lab or something)?

Our uni Networking and CS labs are this way. 1 Windows install and 2
different Linux installs. Yes, we do utilize the multi-user functions on
these systems in our experiments.

> I assume the machine in question is a single or limited user desktop,
> and that the machine's owner wants the easiest and/or most
> elegant method of mounting the windows drive for read/write access.

Well, we have different machines that have specific purposes. Also, there
are still some systems out there that require the admin to boot to windows

Other cases for having a bootable windows systems:
BIOS Upgrades for the system
SCSI Card Firmware updates that only run from DOS or windows
System hardware initialization for hardware that uses proprietary code to
start the hardware working so that Linux can use it
Being required by the  hardware vendor to run diagnostic software that
only runs in windows before you can have parts replaced

(many more reasons if you think about it)

> A question:
> Couldn't the entry 'user' be left off this next line below with the same
> effect?

I believe that user is an option to permit users to mount the device.

And if you check the option "defaults" it includes "nouser"

I include it in mine so users can mount or unmount if they wish.

>> /dev/hda1  /mnt/dosc vfat
>> defaults,user,auto,uid=win,gid=win,umask=002
>>  0  0
>
> This is a good suggestion for many user access problems.  Creating a
> special group instead of umasking/chmoding some directory or device to 777
> is always a better plan of attack.  This kind of thing has come up before
> on this list...getting sound as a user being a recent example.

The above options were created for this kind of purpose-- leverage the
existing authentication and control to decrease users' need to "reinvent
the wheel."


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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Dave Margolis]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, ME wrote:

> On a multi-user system with a mounted windows filesystem, you may have
> desire for everyone to have read access, but only a few to have write
> access to the mounted windows volume. Here is what I have found to work:
>

I don't understand this scenario.  What is a dual-boot, mulit-user system?
If a system is truly multi-user, I would assume that means maximum uptime.
I don't remember being told I couldn't ssh into a machine I have an
account on because at the moment somebody had booted it into Windows!

Does anybody out there have dual-boot machines with public access (like in
a lab or something)?

I assume the machine in question is a single or limited user desktop,
and that the machine's owner wants the easiest and/or most
elegant method of mounting the windows drive for read/write access.

A question:
Couldn't the entry 'user' be left off this next line below with the same
effect?

> /dev/hda1  /mnt/dosc vfat defaults,user,auto,uid=win,gid=win,umask=002
>  0  0

This is a good suggestion for many user access problems.  Creating a
special group instead of umasking/chmoding some directory or device to 777
is always a better plan of attack.  This kind of thing has come up before
on this list...getting sound as a user being a recent example.

Dave M.

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Henry House]

På tisdag, 17 februari 2004, skrev Peter Jay Salzman:
[...]
> > 1)  Does this order look okay?  Is /dev/hda1 in the right place?
> 
> it depends.  did you plug the new hard drive in IDE 4 slot A or slot B?
> if you put it in slot B, the drive spins at a faster rate and can
> prematurely burn out the motor.  a lot of people who complained about
> IBM deskstars crapping out early were guilty of using slot B.  since
> then, IBM has placed slot AB converters, so for modern deskstars, it
> doesn't matter.  if you own one of these things and it says "CHS"
> somewhere on the drive itself, you have an older model.

???

What do you mean by "slot A/B"? Is this different from master and slave?

> > Man fstab 
> > says that order is important.

It is important to the extent that you must mount nested filesystems in a
sensible order. E.g., mount / before /usr and that before /usr/local.

> in the case of iocharset, it appears that iocharset is used to convert
> between 8 bit  uhhh "ascii" (with all due respect to the fact that
> ascii is 7 bit) and unicode.
> 
> you should be OK you're only reading / writing in english.  note that
> micah, mark and henry know this kind of thing WAY more than i do.

I know very little about character sets on non-Unix operating systems, but
it is unlikely that Bob is using non-ASCII characters.

In all likelyhood you are only using ASCII on both windows and Linux (i.e.,
the 7-bit subset of the eight bits of 8-bit text). If this is true, do not
worry about it at all.

If your LANG environment variable is unset or is "C", you are not using 8-bit
chars.

[...]

-- 
Henry House
The unintelligible text that may follow is a digital signature. 
See  for information.  My OpenPGP key:
.



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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Ken Bloom]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:52:24AM -0800, David Hummel wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:40:19AM -0800, Ken Bloom wrote:
> > In addition to everyone else's wonderful suggestions, I also always
> > mount vfat drives with the showexec option, which turns off the exec
> > bit for files that aren't .exe files, but leaves it on for
> > directories. You can't do that with umask.
> 
> Good option.  "user" and "users" implies "noexec" though.
> 

Just note that noexec and showexec are different. noexec will prevent
you from running an application but it won't change the permissions
actually listed for the file. showexec will do the opposite -
because you can always chmod a program (even on vfat linux will
remember until you unmount), if you use showexec without noexec, then
you can chmod +x a script and run it, it just doesn't appear
executable by default.

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[ME]

Gee. What else could be said on this topic?

Heh heh heh...
(comments below)

Robert G. Scofield said:
[chop]
> 1)  Does this order look okay?  Is /dev/hda1 in the right place?  Man
> fstab
> says that order is important.

Other answered this well enough in this thread.

> 2)  Instead of "umask=0" I originally tried "defaults", and then
> "rw,user."
> But with these, Open Office couldn't write to the Windows files.  (I've
> haven't tried backing up yet.)  Umask=0 is working fine.  But here's the
> question.  I've come across an old Mandrake 9.0 fstab and here's the entry
> for the Windows partition:
>
> /dev/hda1   /mnt/windows   vfat   iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0
> 0 0
>
> Is there some advantage to having this sort of complicated entry?  Will I
> screw something up with my simple umask=0?  Should I copy the Mandrake
> entry
> into my SuSE system?

[chop]

I did not see any mention of this so I'll comment on it.

On a multi-user system with a mounted windows filesystem, you may have
desire for everyone to have read access, but only a few to have write
access to the mounted windows volume. Here is what I have found to work:

/dev/hda1  /mnt/dosc vfat defaults,user,auto,uid=win,gid=win,umask=002
 0  0

Focus on the options "uid=" and "gid=" and the "umask" otion discussed by
others:

Of couse your mount point and your device will differ, and you may have
other options to add, the above is very useful.

First, create a user named "win" (example) and set its shell to be
/bin/false and set the password to be invalid for any crypt (! or * for
example in password field)

Also, create a group called "win".

Then, when the above options are read during the mount, the mount has a
directory tree of files chmod 775 , owned by "win" and group "win".

As a result, you can locate anyone into the "win" group and they can all
read and write to the windows share. This permits all of these users to
have write access at the same time and makes the volume always available
on boot.

By alternative, you can set the mount option to 007 and then nobody can
read unless they are amember of the win group.

I use this on a few systems that have multiple users and a mounted windows
filesystem.( umask 007 )

If you have users on your system that you do not completely trust, you
probably do not want to expose a bootable windows filesystsm to read
access. Files can be copied off the volume for cracking purposes to use
the next time the windows system is "booted" (this assumes that the
windows volume can be booted and would be.)

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Tue 17 Feb 04, 11:52 AM, David Hummel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:40:19AM -0800, Ken Bloom wrote:
> > In addition to everyone else's wonderful suggestions, I also always
> > mount vfat drives with the showexec option, which turns off the exec
> > bit for files that aren't .exe files, but leaves it on for
> > directories. You can't do that with umask.
> 
> Good option.  "user" and "users" implies "noexec" though.
> 
> -David

so you can use the exec option.   :-)

pete

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[David Hummel]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:40:19AM -0800, Ken Bloom wrote:
> In addition to everyone else's wonderful suggestions, I also always
> mount vfat drives with the showexec option, which turns off the exec
> bit for files that aren't .exe files, but leaves it on for
> directories. You can't do that with umask.

Good option.  "user" and "users" implies "noexec" though.

-David
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[David Hummel]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:38:31AM -0800, Jonathan Stickel wrote:
> 
> David Hummel wrote:
> >
> >/dev/hda1/windowsvfatauto,rw,user,umask=0 0 0
>
> But won't the "user" be root since it gets mounted by root at boot?

Yes.  Actually "users" would be better, so that any user can
unmount/mount.  But with "umask=0", anyone will be able to make changes.

-David
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Ken Bloom]

In addition to everyone else's wonderful suggestions, I also always
mount vfat drives with the showexec option, which turns off the exec
bit for files that aren't .exe files, but leaves it on for
directories. You can't do that with umask.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 09:34:05AM -0800, Robert G. Scofield wrote:
> When I first installed SuSE 9.0 it automatically put my Windows partition in 
> /etc/fstab.  That was nice because I want to be able to use Open Office in 
> Linux to work on Windows files.  More importantly, I need to be able to back 
> up my Windows files with my Linux CD burning software.  I recently had to 
> install a new hard drive.  And I just noticed that, after re-installing SuSE, 
> the Windows partition was not being mounted.  I've been playing around with 
> fstab and with the following configuration I can work on Windows files:
> 
> /dev/hda5/ext3   defaults  1 1
> /dev/hda6/empty   ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda10   /homeext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda11   /opt ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda9/tmp ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda8/var ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   umask=0   0 0
> /dev/hda7swap swap   pri=420 0
> devpts   /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5   0 0
> proc /procproc   defaults  0 0
> usbdevfs /proc/bus/usbusbdevfs   noauto0 0
> /dev/cdrecorder  /media/cdrecorderauto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0
> /dev/cdrom   /media/cdrom auto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0
> /dev/fd0 /media/floppyauto   noauto,user,sync  0 0
> 
> Here are two questions:
> 
> 1)  Does this order look okay?  Is /dev/hda1 in the right place?  Man fstab 
> says that order is important.
> 
> 2)  Instead of "umask=0" I originally tried "defaults", and then "rw,user."  
> But with these, Open Office couldn't write to the Windows files.  (I've 
> haven't tried backing up yet.)  Umask=0 is working fine.  But here's the 
> question.  I've come across an old Mandrake 9.0 fstab and here's the entry 
> for the Windows partition:
> 
> /dev/hda1   /mnt/windows   vfat   iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
> 
> Is there some advantage to having this sort of complicated entry?  Will I 
> screw something up with my simple umask=0?  Should I copy the Mandrake entry 
> into my SuSE system?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Bob
> 
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Jonathan Stickel]

David Hummel wrote:
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:03:14AM -0800, Jonathan Stickel wrote:

Since the partition is mounted as root, and fat32 doesn't really do
file ownership, all the files and permissions are set to root when it
gets mounted automatically during boot.  So without the umask entry,
no one except root can write to the drive.


Unless you're using the "user" or "users" mount options.


Perhaps use the "noauto,owner,rw" options like a cdrom so that the
partition belongs to the mounting user.  But the user then has to
mount it manually at some point.


/dev/hda1/windowsvfatauto,rw,user,umask=0 0 0

But won't the "user" be root since it gets mounted by root at boot?
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[David Hummel]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 11:03:14AM -0800, Jonathan Stickel wrote:
> Since the partition is mounted as root, and fat32 doesn't really do
> file ownership, all the files and permissions are set to root when it
> gets mounted automatically during boot.  So without the umask entry,
> no one except root can write to the drive.

Unless you're using the "user" or "users" mount options.

> Perhaps use the "noauto,owner,rw" options like a cdrom so that the
> partition belongs to the mounting user.  But the user then has to
> mount it manually at some point.

/dev/hda1/windowsvfatauto,rw,user,umask=0 0 0

-David
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[mrp]

> It seems to me there should be a better way to do this.  Perhaps use the 
> "noauto,owner,rw" options like a cdrom so that the partition belongs to 
> the mounting user.  But the user then has to mount it manually at some 
> point.  I haven't tried this yet myself.

Unfortunately, that's not what the "owner" option means.  The "owner" is a 
little like the "user" option.  "user" allows normal users to mount/umount
that filesystem, whereas "owner" allows normal users to mount that filesystem
as long as they own the block special device that the filesystem resides on
(i.e. /dev/fd0a).  Some OS's chown the floppy/cdrom to the person logged in
on the console, so that allows only the person logged in on the console to
mount and umount those filesystems.  That makes sense for removeable media,
but /dev/hda1 probably isn't removable, and isn't chowned to the console
user. 

Unless you chown /dev/hda1 to yourself, using "noauto,owner,rw" wouldn't
allow you to mount the dos/fat filesystem.  What you probably want is
"noauto,user,rw", then the user can manually mount the filesystem, and
I *think* then that user will have ownership, rather than root, but I
could be wrong.  The downside is that you need to explicitly mount the
filesystem when you want to use it and umount it when you're done.

  -- Mitch
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Tue 17 Feb 04, 10:54 AM, Robert G. Scofield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> On Tuesday 17 February 2004 10:25, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> >
> > out of curiosity -- why did you reinstall?
> 
> My hard drive went bad.  In fact you were the one who said I needed a
> new hard drive.  So I installed Linux on the new hard drive.  Maybe
> "reinstall" was not the right word.

ahhh... ok, so you replaced the drive?   good.  i really think that was
the right thing to do.  for sure.

> > and when you say "windows isn't being mounted", do you mean at boot?
> > what happens when you type "mount /mnt/windows"?
> 
> Yes, it wasn't being mounted at boot.  I could mount Windows with the mount 
> command.
 
ok.  it's a bit complicated.  in the best of all worlds, /etc/fstab
would control automatic fs mounting, but it doesn't.  not directly.
what gets automatically mounted at boot is dependent on your init.d
files.

for instance, on my system, /etc/init.d/mountall.sh contains:

#
# Mount local file systems in /etc/fstab.
#
[ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && echo "Mounting local filesystems..."
mount -av -t nonfs,nosmbfs,noncpfs,noproc 2>&1 |
   egrep -v '(already|nothing was) mounted'


mount -a mounts all filesystems that don't have "noauto" and aren't of
type you see there (i'm not sure what nonfs means).

anyway, you may want to put your detective hat on and take a look at how
your filesystems are getting mounted at boot.  i'll prolly be a bit
different from my system (debian).

also, check out dmesg and /var/log/messages for relevent info.  perhaps
your system is trying to automount windows but can't for some reason.
that would be logged.
 
> > it depends.  did you plug the new hard drive in IDE 4 slot A or slot B?
> > if you put it in slot B, the drive spins at a faster rate and can
> > prematurely burn out the motor.  a lot of people who complained about
> > IBM deskstars crapping out early were guilty of using slot B.  since
> > then, IBM has placed slot AB converters, so for modern deskstars, it
> > doesn't matter.  if you own one of these things and it says "CHS"
> > somewhere on the drive itself, you have an older model.
> 
> On this computer it's IDE 1 (I believe.)  And it was an IBM deskstar
> that burned out.  I checked the Vox-tech archives and learned that
> people were having problems with the IBM deskstar.  At Fry's there's
> an Hitachi Deskstar.  But I bought a Maxtor at CompUSA after getting
> some information from Fry's employees that even I could figure out was
> bogus.

heh.  that was supposed to have been a joke.  ;-)   i was feeling goofy.

> > i can't see why unless you do something like mounting /usr/local under
> > /usr, you'd want to mount /usr first.  in your case, you prolly just
> > want to mount / before anything else (as we all do).
> 
> I think man fstab says something about mounting order and fscking order.
 
yeah, mitch confirmed this for me.

if B mounts underneath A, you want to mount A before you mount B.

you don't have any filesystms mounting under another filesystem (other
than / of course).

>  > so it looks good
> > to me.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> >
> > bob, that field of fstab (field 4) is essentially options for mount.  so
> > you can figure out what the options mean by doing "man mount".
> 
> Yeah I looked at that a little, which is why I had a feeling that "defaults" 
> would not let me write to the Windows partition.  But I tried it anyway.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Should I copy the Mandrake entry into my SuSE system?
> >
> > no.  you should do what works.  i know that sounds like a cop-out
> > answer, but it's the absolute truth.
> 
> Thanks for the input.
> 
> Stay warm back there.

absolutely.  it got up to 40 degrees a few days ago.  it felt downright
hot.  i even went out without a coat (i'm developing east coast
temperature insensitivity).

pete

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Robert G. Scofield ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> On this computer it's IDE 1 (I believe.)  And it was an IBM deskstar
> that burned out.  I checked the Vox-tech archives and learned that
> people were having problems with the IBM deskstar.

The IBM models that for a brief while had a problematic production-quality 
record seem to have been certain ones of the Deskstar 60GXP and 75GXP
series, not the Deskstar model _line_ as a whole.

-- 
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Mark Street]

Look at your options for the windows partition

umask=000 is equal to rwxrwxrwx on the doze partition

I would probably do a defaults with your umask entry tacked on.
man mount, and search for defaults.

/dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   defaults,umask=0   
0 0

The 'auto' option allows the system to mount all defined partitions 
in /etc/fstab on boot.  It is probably called with a 'mount -a' from the init 
scripts.

On Tuesday 17 February 2004 09:34 am, Robert G. Scofield wrote:
> When I first installed SuSE 9.0 it automatically put my Windows partition
> in /etc/fstab.  That was nice because I want to be able to use Open Office
> in Linux to work on Windows files.  More importantly, I need to be able to
> back up my Windows files with my Linux CD burning software.  I recently had
> to install a new hard drive.  And I just noticed that, after re-installing
> SuSE, the Windows partition was not being mounted.  I've been playing
> around with fstab and with the following configuration I can work on
> Windows files:
>
> /dev/hda5/ext3   defaults 
> 1 1 /dev/hda6/empty   ext3   defaults  
>1 2 /dev/hda10   /homeext3   defaults   
>   1 2 /dev/hda11   /opt ext3   defaults
>  1 2 /dev/hda9/tmp ext3   defaults 
> 1 2 /dev/hda8/var ext3  
> defaults  1 2 /dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   
>umask=0   0 0 /dev/hda7swap swap
>   pri=420 0 devpts   /dev/pts
> devpts mode=0620,gid=5   0 0 proc /proc
>proc   defaults  0 0 usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb 
>   usbdevfs   noauto0 0 /dev/cdrecorder 
> /media/cdrecorderauto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0 /dev/cdrom   
>/media/cdrom auto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0 /dev/fd0  
>   /media/floppyauto   noauto,user,sync  0 0
>
> Here are two questions:
>
> 1)  Does this order look okay?  Is /dev/hda1 in the right place?  Man fstab
> says that order is important.
>
> 2)  Instead of "umask=0" I originally tried "defaults", and then "rw,user."
> But with these, Open Office couldn't write to the Windows files.  (I've
> haven't tried backing up yet.)  Umask=0 is working fine.  But here's the
> question.  I've come across an old Mandrake 9.0 fstab and here's the entry
> for the Windows partition:
>
> /dev/hda1   /mnt/windows   vfat   iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0
> 0 0
>
> Is there some advantage to having this sort of complicated entry?  Will I
> screw something up with my simple umask=0?  Should I copy the Mandrake
> entry into my SuSE system?
-- 
Mark Street, D.C.
Red Hat Certified Engineer
Cert# 807302251406074
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Jonathan Stickel]

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
On Tue 17 Feb 04,  9:34 AM, Robert G. Scofield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

...

/dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   umask=0   0 0
...

Will I screw something up with my simple umask=0?


no, i don't believe so.

to be honest, i'm not sure what umask=0 does for you.  linux already
knows how to access vfat.  it already knows that there are no
permissions on vfat.  i never used this option on any dual boot i've
ever owned.
maybe someone can explain why it's necessary to set a umask for a vfat
filesystem?
I'm still fairly ignorant myself about mounting stuff, but I've used 
umask= for my fat32 partitions (per suggestion of someone at an 
installfest).  It sets the permissions for all files to r-w-x for 
everybody.  Non-root users can then read, write, and execute all the 
files on the partition.  Since the partition is mounted as root, and 
fat32 doesn't really do file ownership, all the files and permissions 
are set to root when it gets mounted automatically during boot.  So 
without the umask entry, no one except root can write to the drive.

It seems to me there should be a better way to do this.  Perhaps use the 
"noauto,owner,rw" options like a cdrom so that the partition belongs to 
the mounting user.  But the user then has to mount it manually at some 
point.  I haven't tried this yet myself.

Jonathan
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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Robert G. Scofield]

On Tuesday 17 February 2004 10:25, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
>
>
> hi bob,

Hi Pete.
>
> out of curiosity -- why did you reinstall?

My hard drive went bad.  In fact you were the one who said I needed a new hard 
drive.  So I installed Linux on the new hard drive.  Maybe "reinstall" was 
not the right word.

>
> and when you say "windows isn't being mounted", do you mean at boot?
> what happens when you type "mount /mnt/windows"?

Yes, it wasn't being mounted at boot.  I could mount Windows with the mount 
command.


> it depends.  did you plug the new hard drive in IDE 4 slot A or slot B?
> if you put it in slot B, the drive spins at a faster rate and can
> prematurely burn out the motor.  a lot of people who complained about
> IBM deskstars crapping out early were guilty of using slot B.  since
> then, IBM has placed slot AB converters, so for modern deskstars, it
> doesn't matter.  if you own one of these things and it says "CHS"
> somewhere on the drive itself, you have an older model.

On this computer it's IDE 1 (I believe.)  And it was an IBM deskstar that 
burned out.  I checked the Vox-tech archives and learned that people were 
having problems with the IBM deskstar.  At Fry's there's an Hitachi Deskstar.  
But I bought a Maxtor at CompUSA after getting some information from Fry's 
employees that even I could figure out was bogus.

>
>
> i can't see why unless you do something like mounting /usr/local under
> /usr, you'd want to mount /usr first.  in your case, you prolly just
> want to mount / before anything else (as we all do).

I think man fstab says something about mounting order and fscking order.

 > so it looks good
> to me.

Thanks.


>
> bob, that field of fstab (field 4) is essentially options for mount.  so
> you can figure out what the options mean by doing "man mount".

Yeah I looked at that a little, which is why I had a feeling that "defaults" 
would not let me write to the Windows partition.  But I tried it anyway.
>
>
>
> > Should I copy the Mandrake entry into my SuSE system?
>
> no.  you should do what works.  i know that sounds like a cop-out
> answer, but it's the absolute truth.

Thanks for the input.

Stay warm back there.

Bob

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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[mrp]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 09:34:05AM -0800, Robert G. Scofield wrote:
> /dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   umask=0   0 0

Order is only really important in mounts at boot time, and since you're not
mounting this partition at boot, it's not important where it appears in the
list.

The order is really imporant only if you have nested mounts.  That is, if
/usr and /usr/local are separate paritions, you want /usr to mount first,
and therefore it should appear first in the list. / is a special case,
since it's not mounted by the same process.. but before the main boot
sequence (though in some older *nix systems it was mounted read-only
initially, and had to be remounted after some initial processing.)

I don't know what the appropriate mounting options are.. but there's a good
list of them in the mount man page.  The ones you have seem fine.  Maybe this:

/dev/hda1   /mnt/windowsvfaTrw,umask=0,user,auto0 0

  -- Mitch


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Re: [vox-tech] FSTAB Questions

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Tue 17 Feb 04,  9:34 AM, Robert G. Scofield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> When I first installed SuSE 9.0 it automatically put my Windows partition in 
> /etc/fstab.  That was nice because I want to be able to use Open Office in 
> Linux to work on Windows files.  More importantly, I need to be able to back 
> up my Windows files with my Linux CD burning software.  I recently had to 
> install a new hard drive.  And I just noticed that, after re-installing SuSE, 
> the Windows partition was not being mounted.

hi bob,

out of curiosity -- why did you reinstall?

and when you say "windows isn't being mounted", do you mean at boot?
what happens when you type "mount /mnt/windows"?


> I've been playing around with 
> fstab and with the following configuration I can work on Windows files:
> 
> /dev/hda5/ext3   defaults  1 1
> /dev/hda6/empty   ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda10   /homeext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda11   /opt ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda9/tmp ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda8/var ext3   defaults  1 2
> /dev/hda1/mnt/windows vfat   umask=0   0 0
> /dev/hda7swap swap   pri=420 0
> devpts   /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5   0 0
> proc /procproc   defaults  0 0
> usbdevfs /proc/bus/usbusbdevfs   noauto0 0
> /dev/cdrecorder  /media/cdrecorderauto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0
> /dev/cdrom   /media/cdrom auto   ro,noauto,user,exec   0 0
> /dev/fd0 /media/floppyauto   noauto,user,sync  0 0
> 
> Here are two questions:
> 
> 1)  Does this order look okay?  Is /dev/hda1 in the right place?

it depends.  did you plug the new hard drive in IDE 4 slot A or slot B?
if you put it in slot B, the drive spins at a faster rate and can
prematurely burn out the motor.  a lot of people who complained about
IBM deskstars crapping out early were guilty of using slot B.  since
then, IBM has placed slot AB converters, so for modern deskstars, it
doesn't matter.  if you own one of these things and it says "CHS"
somewhere on the drive itself, you have an older model.

> Man fstab 
> says that order is important.
 
i can't see why unless you do something like mounting /usr/local under
/usr, you'd want to mount /usr first.  in your case, you prolly just
want to mount / before anything else (as we all do).  so it looks good
to me.

> 2)  Instead of "umask=0" I originally tried "defaults", and then "rw,user."  
> But with these, Open Office couldn't write to the Windows files.  (I've 
> haven't tried backing up yet.)  Umask=0 is working fine.  But here's the 
> question.  I've come across an old Mandrake 9.0 fstab and here's the entry 
> for the Windows partition:
> 
> /dev/hda1   /mnt/windows   vfat   iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
> 
> Is there some advantage to having this sort of complicated entry?

bob, that field of fstab (field 4) is essentially options for mount.  so
you can figure out what the options mean by doing "man mount".

in the case of iocharset, it appears that iocharset is used to convert
between 8 bit  uhhh "ascii" (with all due respect to the fact that
ascii is 7 bit) and unicode.

you should be OK you're only reading / writing in english.  note that
micah, mark and henry know this kind of thing WAY more than i do.

> Will I screw something up with my simple umask=0?

no, i don't believe so.

to be honest, i'm not sure what umask=0 does for you.  linux already
knows how to access vfat.  it already knows that there are no
permissions on vfat.  i never used this option on any dual boot i've
ever owned.

maybe someone can explain why it's necessary to set a umask for a vfat
filesystem?

> Should I copy the Mandrake entry into my SuSE system?

no.  you should do what works.  i know that sounds like a cop-out
answer, but it's the absolute truth.  

copying something is never a good thing to do.  let something serve as a
guide?  yes.  but blind copying?  never[1].

pete

[1] Unless you intend to back something up.  But even then, thought
should go into what to backup, when to backup and how to backup.

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