Operation (by root) not permitted

[Kevin Faulkner]

Your problem is right there. You have noexec as a mount option. Remove it and 
everything should work.
On Sunday 29 August 2010 21:52:13 ChasM Marshall wrote:
>   Hiya,
> 
>   Okay, I'm baffled.  What in the Ubuntu 9.07 is going on here?
> 
> # uname -a
> Linux BlueBeast.localhost 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17
> 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
> 
>  Logged in as root I've edited /etc/fstab.
> I want the /Meta vfat partition completely open (unlocked).
> 
> # cat /etc/fstab
>  # /Meta was /dev/sda5
>  UUID=45F2-140B  /Meta     vfat    utf8,users,noauto   0       1
> 
> # mount
>  /dev/sda5 on /Meta type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,utf8)
> 
> # cat /etc/mtab
>  /dev/sda5 /Meta vfat rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,utf8 0 0
> 
> # ls -al
>  drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4096 1969-12-31 17:00 Meta
> 
> # chgrp -hR users /Meta
>  chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/Linux/TextTest.txt': Operation not
> permitted chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/Linux': Operation not permitted
>  chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/TextTest.txt': Operation not permitted
>  chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/FireFoxMint.jpg': Operation not permitted
>  chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/FireFoxFedora.jpeg': Operation not
> permitted chgrp: changing group of `/Meta/FireFoxSuSE.jpg': Operation not
> permitted chgrp: changing group of
> `/Meta/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-190.53-pkg1.run': Operation not permitted chgrp:
> changing group of `/Meta': Operation not permitted
> 
>  I can not figure out what in Ubuntu (Mint 7) stops root (#) from assigning
> permissions here. Can you?
>  This vfat partition was created in SuSE 9.3 and used mkdosfs to create the
> file system. /Meta is a common mount point (folder?) for multiple of my
> Linux distros.  But it's getting harder to use. As root, it functions okay
> (mostly) as a common data folder.  I want to give access to all users of
> any current-booted Linux.  In SuSE 10.3 the process required a new
> /etc/fstab entry followed by the chgrp command as above.  But in Ubuntu,
> I'm a bit lost.
> Here I can see a disagreement between /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab that I can't
> reconcile.
> 
>   It may be a while before I can return to the PLUG mail list.  So be
> patient with me.
> 
>   (-:  Chas.M.  :-)