Arch Linux

eltwiglet

Member

Registered: 2025-05-08

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Directory permissions differ on /boot/ warning

Recently received this warning while doing a system update.

:: Processing package changes...
( 1/15) upgrading amd-ucode                                                                                                                 [#####################################################################################] 100%
warning: directory permissions differ on /boot/
filesystem: 750  package: 755

Currently using systemdboot with my vfat EFI partition mounted to /boot/.  I read through this thread and it doesn't seem like this permissions issue is too much to worry about, but I'm still curious about why it's happening in the first place.

My system is about a month and a half old, and I installed arch manually just generally following the installation guide.  I don't remember changing the permissions at all, and I'm unfortunately not familiar enough with Linux permissions in general to understand how they get set in the first place. 

I would appreciate any help or insight into this warning.  Thank you!

Last edited by eltwiglet (2025-05-10 23:40:03)

cmt

Member

Registered: 2025-03-11

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED] Directory permissions differ on /boot/ warning

What are the contents of /etc/fstab? I have 700 permissions on my efi partition and I've never had issues but always get this warning as well.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,287

Re: [SOLVED] Directory permissions differ on /boot/ warning

/boot is group/world readable in the filesystem package but systemd-boot will lose it over that

! Mount point '/boot' which backs the random seed file is world accessible, which is a security hole! !
! Random seed file '/boot/loader/random-seed' is world accessible, which is a security hole! !

You probably changed it because of that? Or rely on systemd to mount /boot (w/o any fstab entry but guessing from the label)?
That's fine (as fine as guessing stuff gets), you typically don't need anyone but the root to access /boot and as a matter of fact only need it to be mounted when updating kernel or botloader etc. (anything that puts an update in /boot) anyway.

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eltwiglet

Member

Registered: 2025-05-08

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Directory permissions differ on /boot/ warning

What are the contents of /etc/fstab? I have 700 permissions on my efi partition and I've never had issues but always get this warning as well.

Fstab is as follows

# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/nvme0n1p3
UUID=ea59567f-6f35-4d79-a151-9ad1c59d2830       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=5893-3C13          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0137,dmask=0027,codepage=437,iocharset=a>

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=62a8c06a-5600-4e2d-9396-374b6ac9c3f1       none            swap            defaults        0 0

Looking at the fstab file, I definitely remember changing it and it is now quite obvious why my permissions are the way they are.

/boot is group/world readable in the filesystem package but systemd-boot will lose it over that.  You probably changed it because of that?

This is exactly what happened.  I simply forgot this previous issue I had and the solution I used to fix it.  Thank you both for your help, and I will mark the thread as solved!