Ubuntu

Make USB Hard Drive Accessible To ALL Users?

Asked by Sir Nikon

I have noticed that with Ubuntu, only one user is allowed access to a USB hard drive. The permissions for read and write are always assigned to whoever is logged in at the time the USB hard drive is connected to the computer. And with this particular hard drive, it is always connected to the same port so whoever logs in first, gets full access to the hard drive while any other user isn't even allowed to read its contents.

So that brings me to my question: How can I make it so the USB hard drive is accessible to all users regardless of who mounted it first?

I have tried to change the permissions on the drive through CHMOD but that doesn't seem to help. I attempted to add some lines to fstab (a while back) but I have since forgotten where fstab is located and what lines I added.

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Benoit Malet (benoit-malet) said : 		#1

Hello !

fstab is located in /etc.

In fact, you can modify the permissions used by default in that file, depending on the filesystem used on the USB drive. All the informations are in the man pages (for mount and fstab), but if you want the quick/easy way, you can post here the content of your current fstab (and tell us which filesystem you use).

Regards,
Benoît

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Sir Nikon (omnineko) said : 		#2

The USB hard drive is a 160gb. Western Digital My Book with a FAT32 partition. When it's plugged in, Ubuntu automatically makes "/media/My Book" the path to it.

Currently, my fstab is as follows:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=67f57df1-80a6-421b-bbd3-791d8887a934 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda3
UUID=bf175e86-7edc-4356-b164-56c700cc6721 /home xfs defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda2
UUID=eebd7c7a-71e7-4e94-91ed-65d6ef04747e none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/usb vfat noauto,user,umask=0000 0 0

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Benoit Malet (benoit-malet) said : 		#3

Hello !

In fact, the last line should do the trick, except that /dev/sda1 seems not to be the correct location. You should replace it by the actual mapping of your drive (you can find it by having a look in gparted, the partitioning tool). You can also adjust the path you want it mounted to.

Regards,
Benoît

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Romovil (romovil) said : 		#4

I have connected this Seagateś FreeAgent Pro USB drive to my Ubuntu(Fiesty) machine, but I can not write files to it. All the "Permissions" appear as "Read Only" and the Owner, Group and Others appear as "Unknown".

What can I do in order to be able to Read-Write files to this device?

Thank you.

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nibbles (nibblesnbits) said : 		#5

I haven't gotten that far yet, but you could try going to Places, Computer, File system and then navigate to /media/{name of folder for your drive} and right-click on that. Go to the Permissions tab and set your permissions there.

Good Luck!

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nibbles (nibblesnbits) said : 		#6

(My turn...)

Thanks Benoit! Your confirmation of Sir Nikon's fstab last line got my USB drive working. (I had no line for the USB device in fstab at all.)

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