I have a problem that I've been trying to research & fix for over a week, and it's time to admit I need help. Despite my low forum ranking here I'm not a noob @ gnu-linux. Despite having used one distro or another as my main OS for over 10 years, there is some brick wall (or blind spot) I can't seem to get past.
I've been running Mint 18 KDE (64) as my main distro. I did a fresh install when I integrated a new SSD into my desktop box a couple months ago.
[ Intel core i7, 8GB RAM, nVidia GeF* 950GTX --none of which should affect the issue, but I include it FYI.]
The Problem:
When I plug in a USB flash "thumbdrive" it gets auto-mounted under /media/usb0 and is owned by root, with rwxr-xr-x permissions -- instead of under /media/silverbear owned by me.
Code: Select all
silverbear@masaI7 /media $ ls -al
total 52
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Apr 23 12:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 26 root root 4096 Apr 10 13:02 ..
drwxr-x---+ 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 22:18 root
drwxrwxrwx+ 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 21 20:54 silverbear
lrwxrwxrwx 1 silverbear silverbear 4 Apr 7 19:15 usb -> usb0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 8192 Dec 31 1969 usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb1
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb2
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb3
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb4
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb5
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb6
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb7
1] Thumbdrive is factory-formatted FAT, and I've never messed with reformatting it. It shouldn't HAVE restricted permissions at all.
Yes, I know it's the mount-point that has the permissions. This leads us to Weirdness Factor #2:
2] When no thumbdrive is plugged in, that same (now empty) /media/usb0 mountpoint is owned by "silverbear."
Code: Select all
silverbear@masaI7 /media $ ls -al
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Apr 23 12:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 26 root root 4096 Apr 10 13:02 ..
drwxr-x---+ 2 root root 4096 Mar 5 22:18 root
drwxrwxrwx+ 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 21 20:54 silverbear
lrwxrwxrwx 1 silverbear silverbear 4 Apr 7 19:15 usb -> usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb0
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb1
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb2
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb3
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb4
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb5
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb6
drwxr-xr-x 2 silverbear silverbear 4096 Apr 7 19:15 usb7
a] I don't use a thumbdrive very often, only when I need to transfer files to one of the other household computers (portables). But the last time I wanted to use this very thumbdrive, it worked fine. Since I can't remember exactly when that was, I don't know what I may have done to the system just before it went crackers. Possibly a kernel update. AFAIK, that's never created this kind of issue --certain not for me, anyway.
b] Thinking something I did might be something that messed my polkit, I booted the Mint 18.1-64 KDE install disk. Automounting works just as one would expect, mounting the thumbdrive under /media/mint (the default user). The contents of the subdirectory /etc/polkit-1 are the same as on my install, as are the contained .conf files.
c] I've experimented with KDE's Settings > Hardware > Removable Storage, thinking it might be a KDE-based problem. No joy.
Bottom line: it seems some process is changing the automounted thumbdrive's mountpoint and it's ownership to root.
Anybody have the foggiest idea how to help an old bear out on this puzzler? I'd really rather not have to do a complete reinstall on my SSD.
