[NTFS] Rights management

[ArnoOnline]

I used to have a dualboot with Ubuntu / Windows 7, but I recently made the switch to Fedora as Fedora 15 has Gnome 3 out of the box. After a week of usage, I now notice severe problems with my NTFS partitions (being about 2,5Tb in size; all my data...). Within Windows I seem to have lost all rights as 'normal administrative user' and - as it is impossible to change those rights on the OS disk when running Windows - I can not change the permissions back. So, as Fedora changed the NTFS permissions in the first place, I now am trying to fix the permissions from there back to what they should be. What I have noticed:

- The only partition working correctly within Windows is shown in Fedora as being owned by 'root:root' with a 777 setting (shown as 'create and delete files'). This partition is automatically mounted on boot (through /etc/fstab)
- The partitions with problems have my user (the main Fedora user) as owner and other groups have _no_rights_. This seems to cause the problems within Windows.
- When I run nautilus in administration mode, I am able to select a new owner (picking 'root'), but the dropdown immediately jumps back to its original selection (thus I cannot change the owner although I am root). Using the command line I had to wait a few minutes (I used sudo chown -R root:root /media/THEDISK), but it seems that nothing actually changes.

Anyone got any clue why Fedora changes permissions on my NTFS disks and how I can fix these issues? I have browsed the web, but I could not find any recent fix that solves this problem. As I was originally planning to use Fedora or Red Hat on my work computer I hope that this is easily fixable, but you just have to know the 'how' =)...

[Dutchy]

If I understand you corectly then you are able to run Windows normally but can't access some of your data files. Then as an administrator you still should be able to regain ownership of the files. When you've fixed the permissions that way you should look in to ntfs-3g.usermapping. it can be handy for dualboot situations where you share ntfs disks between multiple OS.

[Jean Pierre]

To manage NTFS ownership and permissions interoperable with Windows, you have to define the mapping between the Windows users and the Linux users, because the users are not identified the same way in both systems (and are specific to each computer).

If you get no permission at all for some user, this is probably because you have defined a wrong user mapping. If so please post your user mapping file (mountpoint/.NTFS-3G/UserMapping), and your mount options. Please also indicate your ntfs-3g version.

If you just want to make some/all your files fully accessed by everyone, you can mount your partition with option permissions and do a chmod 777 file, and to make them owned by the Windows administrator do a chown root:root file. You cannot define ownership or permission for a non-administrator user without defining the Windows identity (SID) of that user.

See http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs...d-permissions/ for details.

[ArnoOnline]

I noticed that four of my partitions are mounted through fstab using the format:

UUID=[...]    /path_to/mount_point    ntfs-3g    defaults    0 0

After reading some information on the suggested and additional websites, I figured that these mounts (being about 50% of the total) should now be world writable. They are also stated as being owned by 'root:root' with 777 permissions within Fedora. So, what would be best to do? Should I mount my other partitions in the same way (through fstab) so that they become world writable? In that case I hope that this will enable me to fix the permissions on them. A related question follows: if I mount a NTFS partition by clicking on it through Nautilus, this partition will be mounted differently (owned by the current linux user with limited permissions). Is it possible to modify this behaviour (automounting NTFS partitions as world writable by root, like with fstab)? This would probably prevent the permissions mess in the future ;-).

Edit: For reference, my NTFS-3G version (default for Fedora 15): ntfs-3g 2011.4.12 integrated FUSE 27

[Jean Pierre]

Should I mount my other partitions in the same way (through fstab) so that they become world writable?

With only the "defaults" mount option, your files should indeed be world writable.

if I mount a NTFS partition by clicking on it through Nautilus, this partition will be mounted differently

Nautilus may force different settings, you can see the actual mount options in /var/log/messages. Not knowing these options, I cannot say more.

[ArnoOnline]

I used the mount-command to get the following options:

Fstab Mounted:

/dev/sde1 on /media/Disk_1 type fuseblk (rw,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)

Nautilus mounted:

/dev/sdd1 on /media/Disk_2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)

Although these differ slightly, Nautilus does seem to give global ownership and permissions:

/var/log/messages

Oct 25 13:08:35 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[3621]: Mount options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,allow_other,nonempty,atime,fsname=/dev/sdd1,blkdev,blksize=4096,default_permissions
Oct 25 13:08:35 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[3621]: Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 1

However, when I check the permissions I see that the current user is owner and rights are limited. Any clue?

[Jean Pierre]

Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 1

So, ownership has been forced for some user/group. The information is in /var/log/messages just above what you have posted, in a line beginning by "Cmdline options:". You probably have a user and group forced in this line which are different from the user/group you want (or possibly you have a wrong mapping in /media/Disk_2/.NTFS-3G/UserMapping)

Please post the "Cmdline options" line from /var/log/messages, and the contents of UserMapping (or say you are sure there is none).

However, when I check the permissions I see that the current user is owner and rights are limited.

What is the history of this partition ? was it used on another system with different user identification ?

[Dutchy]

What happens when you mount with these mount options:

defaults,uid=500,gid=500,umask=0022,windows_names

I used to have this in my fstab before I moved over to ntfs-3g.usermapping (which can be a bit tricky to get right).

[ArnoOnline]

Except for the umask that seems to be the settings used by Nautilus, I did not have time yet to check it out though (need to get up in a few hours; can check tomorrow ). My /var/log/messages shows:

Oct 26 00:51:31 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[2283]: Mounted /dev/sdb3 (Read-Write, label "Working Disk", NTFS 3.1)
Oct 26 00:51:31 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[2283]: Cmdline options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,dmask=0077,fmask=0177
Oct 26 00:51:31 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[2283]: Mount options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,allow_other,nonempty,atime,fsname=/dev/sdb3,blkdev,blksize=4096,default_permissions
Oct 26 00:51:31 Xirt-PC ntfs-3g[2283]: Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 1
Oct 26 00:51:45 Xirt-PC dbus: [system] Activating service name='net.reactivated.Fprint' (using servicehelper)
Oct 26 00:51:45 Xirt-PC dbus: [system] Successfully activated service 'net.reactivated.Fprint'

Also, I checked for the UserMapping file, but it is non-existent =).

---------- Post added at 11:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:55 PM ----------

Sorry for double post, but I decided that sleeping is something for the weekend ;-). Here we go...

Command

ntfs-3g -o defaults,uid=500,gid=500,umask=0022,windows_names /dev/sdb3 /media/Test

Shows in mount:

/dev/sdb3 on /media/Test type fuseblk (rw,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096)

When checking permissions (properties) it shows the current linux user as owner (full access) and only 'access' for group and others.

[Jean Pierre]

Cmdline options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,dma sk=0077,fmask=0177

This is the cause of the behavior you get : Nautilus forces owner and group to 500, directories permissions to rwx------ and files permissions to rw-------
I do not know whether this is hardcoded in Nautilus, maybe you have some control on the settings.

AFAIK, the only way to ignore these settings is to define a user mapping file, this would take precedence over the uid/gid/dmask/fmasks options.

[flyingfsck]

"I checked for the UserMapping file, but it is non-existent =)."

This is the source of your problems. I guess that you had one, but accidentally deleted it at some point in time.

[ArnoOnline]

I am very sure that they were never present in the past few years and I have never had this problem before (used Ubuntu though). However, what Jean Pierre is saying makes sense. Usually you could set the auto-mount options through gconf-editor (/system/storage/defaults), but it seems that nowadays it is not that simple anymore. For now, I guess mounting through fstab or manually mounting is the way to go. Or is it very simple to make a mapping file that gives me root / 777 access (like the fstab examples)?

[Jean Pierre]

Or is it very simple to make a mapping file that gives me root / 777 access (like the fstab examples)?

It depends of what you want to achieve. The mapping file is mostly to get standard Linux ownership and permissions, like those you get on ext[234], and have them interoperable with Windows. It is not intended to get root ownership for files not created by root.

First of all, it would be useful to understand the real problem you are facing. With your current settings, your files/directories have limited permissions, but this should not be a problem if you log as user 500 (or root). Moreover these are simulated ownership and permissions only seen by Linux, with full access actually written in the file properties, so Windows users should have full access to the new files you create on Linux.

Do you have several possible users ?

Also note that Ubuntu identifies users with uid starting from 1000 whereas Fedora used to start from 500 (changed to 1000 recently, or about to change).

---------- Post added at 01:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 AM ----------

Within Windows I seem to have lost all rights as 'normal administrative user' and - as it is impossible to change those rights on the OS disk when running Windows - I can not change the permissions back.

This looks like your files were created on a different Windows system. Knowing the history of your files (how and where they were created) would be useful.

To sort this out, can you post the output of :

ntfs-3g.secaudit -vv MOUNTED-FILE | grep 'dec S-1-5-21'

with :
1) MOUNTED-FILE being a file created by a user of your current Windows 7 instance
2) MOUNTED-FILE being a file for which your current Windows 7 cannot change permissions

[ArnoOnline]

Within Linux I got only one user: the one created when installing Fedora which automatically logs in on boot.

Considering the history of the files: the Windows version was installed about 1,5 month ago and Fedora about two weeks ago. The problems on all disks (including the one with Windows) were not present during the first month, so I think something went wrong when I mounted the partition in Fedora.

I will test the commands and show the output here when I get back home.

[katykat]

If iots a nautilus problem, you may want to use a better file manager such as gnome-commander, which here has no problems with NTFS drives.

Sometimes the problem may be with the Win permissions themselves, and must be set in Win to something like:
cacls *.* /C /T /E /P Everyone:F