External drive mounts with root permissions.

[Joseph Sinclair]

This is related to the simple fact that FAT (and VFAT) doesn't have a concept of file permissions, so Linux has to "invent" permissions.

On Ubuntu (or any Gnome desktop), gnome-volume-manager is the daemon that performs the automount, and it's configured via gconf.

in the gconf-editor tool, find the key /system/storage/default_options/vfat/mount_options and open it (it's a list of strings).
Add strings for the following if they aren't there or aren't set this way:
uid=
fmask=0137
dmask=0027

the uid= line causes gconf to assign the user owner of all files on fat/vfat volumes to the current user.
the other two lines make files (reasonably) accessible and prevent the "all files are executable" issue sometimes seen in vfat volumes.

You might experiment with other mount options as well.

To get a stable mount point; add the key "/system/storage/volumes/_org_freedesktop_Hal_devices_volume_uuid_0000-0000/mount_point"  (replace 0000-0000 with the UUID of your device volume) with a value equal to the full path where the volume should be mounted.

You can also change this after mounting the device by right-clicking on the drive icon on the desktop, select properties, choose the "Volume" tab, expand the "Settings" section, and enter a value in the mount point box.  Remove and re-insert the device to get the new mount point.

Trent Shipley wrote:
> My machine automounts an external drive with root permissions.  My main
> goal is to use the drive for backups, which seem to fail even though the
> GUI back up program runs a sudo window before launch.
> 
> 
> How can I mount the drive at a stable mount-point? 
> 
> How can I automount it with universal permissions?
> 
> 
> I am on Ubuntu 9.10.
> 
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