[SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

rhallen · 2012-01-14 11:23:22

Hi all,

After having some issues with other Linux distros on my new laptop, I decided to give Arch a try -- after all, it seems like everybody who uses it loves it. For the most part, things went well, but after installation I noticed that all of my files are owned by root and sit in the root group.

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    8192 Jan 14 11:56 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jan 10 18:44 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      51 Jan 14 09:44 .Xauthority
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 13 00:04 .adobe
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root     108 Jan 12 23:45 .asoundrc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    3698 Jan 13 00:04 .bash_history
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 12 23:28 .cache
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 12 23:28 .config
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 11 00:54 .dbus
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      29 Jan 12 23:35 .dmrc
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 14 11:55 .emacs.d
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jan 11 00:54 .fontconfig
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 14 11:55 .gconf
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 11 00:54 .gnupg
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      50 Jan 14 09:44 .gpg-agent-info
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 12 21:06 .gstreamer-0.10
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jan 11 00:54 .kde4
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 11 00:54 .local
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 13 00:04 .macromedia
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 12 23:28 .pki
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root     256 Jan 11 00:54 .pulse-cookie
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan 12 21:54 .wicd
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2133352 Jan 14 12:13 .xsession-errors
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    8192 Jan  9 04:41 Documents
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jan 14 12:01 Downloads
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Jan  4 18:00 Music
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   20480 Jan  8 17:15 Pictures
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jan  8 15:22 Videos

Obviously, the permissions mean I can edit these files freely from my user account. But still, every other distribution I have used for a reasonable amount of time -- RHEL, Mint, OpenSUSE -- has set the owner, group, and permissions completely differently. Is this normal for Arch, or did something go wrong during my installation?

Last edited by rhallen (2012-01-14 13:33:33)

graysky · 2012-01-14 11:30:33

Is that your homedir or root's? That isn't normal. If that is your homedir, how did you copy it over? Some methods do not retain ownership or dts.

rhallen · 2012-01-14 11:48:17

This is my homedir. /home is an ntfs-3g volume so it can be shared with Windows, which I suppose I should have thought to mention. I know some distros don't like that, so maybe that is the problem...? Still, I have used other distros where I have mounted an ntfs-3g volume via fstab (though not as /home) and I do not recall having this issue.

lucke · 2012-01-14 12:04:31

If you mount a partition with ntfs-3g with default options, files on it are owned by root. Use uid to set the owner and gid to set the group. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NT … onfiguring

graysky · 2012-01-14 12:05:56

Off topic but don't use ntfs for your home dir. Use a Unix-native format for permissions.

rhallen · 2012-01-14 12:15:17

Thanks! Indeed, the ntfs partition is mounted with default options, so I'll have to change the configuration if I continue in this mode. As for using ntfs for /home, I've seen the warnings against that, I've also seen others saying it's okay -- and now that I've tried it, I think I'm going to stop....

.:B:. · 2012-01-14 12:55:31

Much to the contrary graysky, it's not offtopic. It's why all the files in his home dir are root:root. As such, his whole point is moot.

Typical case of user error.

Even if you like NTFS, there's no point in using it over native Linux filesystems. There are only drawbacks to using NTFS on Linux. There are better ways to share your data than to make your homedir NTFS - like creating a separate data partition on Windows and mounting that somewhere on Linux (but NOT on /home).

rhallen: please change your topic title to reflect what's really going on . Now it's misleading.

Last edited by .:B:. (2012-01-14 12:58:41)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-01-14 11:23:22

[SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#2 2012-01-14 11:30:33

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#3 2012-01-14 11:48:17

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#4 2012-01-14 12:04:31

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#5 2012-01-14 12:05:56

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#6 2012-01-14 12:15:17

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

#7 2012-01-14 12:55:31

Re: [SOLVED] Mounting /home on an NTFS volume

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