Permission Setting Help [solved]

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

hi everyone, just finally got my gentoo system up and running, but now i've run into another problem, when i am in root i am able to create file and directory fine, but when i log on as user, i cannot create folder or file. It says Permission Denied.

As you can see I am a noobie at this linux stuff, please help me out, and show me how to change the permission setting, i dont want to explore the setting becuz im afraid i might mess up the system.

fennec · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2003 Posts: 613 Location: Montreal

where are you trying to create files when you are logged in as a normal user ?

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:30 pm Post subject:

Ugh, please could you not post in pink next time? It's pretty hard on the eyes!

Anyway, where are you trying to create files? If they're in your home directory, then it may just be that you don't have write permissions to /home/<username>. If that's the case, try this command as root:

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

ahah sorry about the pink font, i was trying to make it purple, anyhow, yes i am trying to create files and folder in my home directory, when login on as a normal user and not as root.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:52 pm Post subject:

Ok, does your home directory actually exist? What is in the /home directory?
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neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

ahaha stupid me, i used ur command, Maedhros, and it's working now, instead of the chown -R <username>:users /home/<username>

i just did chown -R <username>:users /

well its working now thanks guys for the help

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:01 pm Post subject:

Erm.... Oh dear...

There are large parts of the filesystem that should be owned by root, and some that should be owned by different users. Only your home directory should be owned by your user....
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neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

hi its me again, i know i've posted some of the most newbiest question, but hey i learn rite, anyhow

i wanna be able to compile c program in gentoo and run the output.

i use the command, cc hello.c and gcc hello.c, i get it to compile, and it gave me an output file called a.out.

now im wondering how do i execute a.out or another command to get by program to output something on screen?

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject:

This should probably be in a new thread. :wink:

Anyway, change the permission on the a.out file to executable (chmod +x a.out), then run it like so: ./a.out.
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No-one's more important than the earthworm.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

also if it is dangerous to have that much access, how to i change it so that in normal user mode i only get to access the home directory?

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject:

I don't know how to repair it really - the permissions are carefully set up by everything that gets installed, and the only way I can think of is to start again. The user owning everything is as bad as running the system as root - but worse because some programmes won't be able to function properly. They're expecting to find the files they control, but they can't access them because your user is the owner now, not the user that they're running as.

I suspect you didn't have a home directory because you missed the -m option to useradd, when creating your user.
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No-one's more important than the earthworm.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:24 pm Post subject:

No, removing the user wouldn't do anything much at this stage (except to possibly make the system even more unusable?!). For next time though, userdel will delete users. The -m option to useradd creates a users home directory when it creates the user.

You couldn't write anything, because in the absence of a home directory, you were put in the / directory when you logged in - and that's one of the many bits of the system that ordinary users aren't supposed to be able to write to.

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No-one's more important than the earthworm.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

aahah well u know what, we all learn from our mistake rite, so im gonna go ahead and give that a try and if thing start acting funny, i guess im left with the option of spending another whole day installing it, since gentoo is install on my old pentium-mmx 266Mhz computer, which is a pain by the way when installing, but fun somewhat

Maedhros · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:29 pm Post subject:

Ah well, it's all part of the fun!

I think you'd be in the lucky few if you'd only installed Gentoo once, anyway!
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No-one's more important than the earthworm.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

ahaha

actually that is incorrect, this would be my 7th time installing gentoo in 4 days, i know huh, but i dont mind, its fun, i learn alot about linux, and plus if something dont work the first time, try again, its they only way to succeed.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

big thanks to you Maedhros for all your help, i really appreciate that.

neogen · Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2004 Posts: 163

sorry to bother again, i know i've also posted this message in another one of my post.

but is there anyway to configure the compile so that when its done compiling i can just use the command 'a.out' to execute the file instead of using the command './a.out' ?

Maedhros · Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:22 am Post subject:

You'll have to put it in one of the directories in your PATH - try echo $PATH to see which those are. If you want to create a new folder, like /home/<username>/bin to put these things in, add a line like this to your .bashrc file: