Disk ownership by root, how to change?

[Gizmouk]

Hello all, I'm a recent convert from Windows having problems with the fact that 'root' owns all my disks. How can I change this to my user ID of 'chris' ?

Running this command (which I found on here) returns...

chris@office ~ $ mount|grep ^/dev
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
/dev/sdd4 on /mnt/32CDD5731F873A12 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/70C00943C0091150 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sde1 on /mnt/usb-BUFFALO_External_HDD_0000141D5C32-0:0-part1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdf1 on /mnt/wwn-0x50024e920290a857-part1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/chris/Photos COPY type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

I have plenty of disks but can't do much as root ownership gets in the way.... I have tried mounting disks and using SUDO CHOWN like this...

sudo mount /dev/sdf1 /media/Xternal
sudo chown -R chris:chris /media/Xternal

But 'root' still retains ownership... I have re-booted in between

What am I doing wrong???

[altair4]

Please post the output of this command:

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cat /etc/fstab

And this one:

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sudo blkid -c /dev/null

Most of those look like NTFS partitions so you can't chown, chmod, or pretty much chanything an ntfs partition. You need to specify ownership and permissions at the moment of mount or in fstab.

[Mute Ant]

The owner-and-permissions information is held in the file-system (not the disk) and only works normally if it's a POSIX file-system, like EXT2|3|4 or BTRFS. So you can't chown a FAT file-system, as an example.

Mounting non-POSIX file-systems like FAT or NTFS, you have to specify the owner and permissions during the mount. If you don't, linux will use root as the owner with read-only for everyone else. You can't alter that once the file-system is mounted.

[Gizmouk]

chris@office ~ $ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=714db5c8-96da-4963-a692-8629e3760f36 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=05617aad-37aa-44c9-a582-ddc95d49d80a none swap sw 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/70C00943C0091150 /mnt/70C00943C0091150 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=PHOTOGRAPHS 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/32CDD5731F873A12 /mnt/32CDD5731F873A12 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=INFORMATION 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/0783AE3B2FA05626 /mnt/0783AE3B2FA05626 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-BUFFALO_External_HDD_0000141D5C32-0:0-part1 /mnt/usb-BUFFALO_External_HDD_0000141D5C32-0:0-part1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=exTivo 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/wwn-0x50024e920290a857-part1 /mnt/wwn-0x50024e920290a857-part1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=BACKUPS 0 0
chris@office ~ $
chris@office ~ $ sudo blkid -c /dev/null
[sudo] password for chris:
/dev/sda1: UUID="714db5c8-96da-4963-a692-8629e3760f36" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="8ca01ddc-01"
/dev/sda5: UUID="05617aad-37aa-44c9-a582-ddc95d49d80a" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="8ca01ddc-05"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="PHOTOGRAPHS" UUID="70C00943C0091150" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="cb368b55-01"
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="Photos COPY" UUID="17C3C9B727A74162" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="18a2525d-01"
/dev/sdc5: UUID="1f8241a9-badb-4214-8190-3ace0d6fcf88" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="18a2525d-05"
/dev/sdd1: PARTUUID="4b9b0b6f-15b8-4d81-bb61-d4eb972b16cb"
/dev/sdd2: UUID="0783AE3B2FA05626" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="2e83a41b-9357-427f-b262-6adb83b45509"
/dev/sdd3: UUID="d68f15ea-8df8-4361-98e1-3fb43b128497" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="6101c458-13f8-4e70-b109-c021c4f55cb3"
/dev/sdd4: LABEL="INFORMATION" UUID="32CDD5731F873A12" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="INFORMATION" PARTUUID="fce91bbd-bf60-41a2-8438-a5e2426b0e84"
/dev/sde1: LABEL="Xternal" UUID="0B15DAD267233B27" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="71b2bc6b-01"
/dev/sdf1: LABEL="ExTivo" UUID="24849F6370C511E4" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="d442c640-01"
chris@office ~ $

I think these are nearly all NTFS, moved over from my Windows system..... THANKS!

[altair4]

Let's take this one as an example:

/dev/disk/by-uuid/32CDD5731F873A12 /mnt/32CDD5731F873A12 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=INFORMATION 0 0

First: A rant: Lord have mercy I hate what the Disks utility does to fstab.

Second: In the context of that line I'm not sure what you meant by "can't do much as root ownership gets in the way". It's true that with that line it will be owned by root but by default an NTFS partition in fstab unless directed otherwise will allow read / write to everyone.

Third: If you want to change ownership you need to add another option you your list: uid

/dev/disk/by-uuid/32CDD5731F873A12 /mnt/32CDD5731F873A12 auto uid=chris,nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=INFORMATION 0 0

So unmount the partition:

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sudo umount /mnt/32CDD5731F873A12

Edit fstab and add the uid=chris option to that specific line.

Then remount with this command:

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sudo mount -a

The partition will now be owned by you.