Portable USB drive permission denied

[brm]

Hi all. Hardware is a new WD Blue 2TB disk in a portable USB case.
I have been trying to set it up using Systemd automount - following this guide

[root tip] [How To] systemd mount unit samples

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ Example mount units for systemd The examples here are a supplement to the guide on systemd mount units Remember to remove the comments placed in the units - they are not writing for copy-paste but as examples. (comments is text beginning with a #) [root tip] [How To] Use systemd to mount ANY device Only use an automount unit if the device is not readily available at boot like removable devices and network locations. Important rule …

And this page as well

[root tip] [How To] Use systemd to mount ANY device

wow this is great.

The drive has been partitioned using Fdisk. Then GParted was used to create btrfs file systems
for each of the partitions.

All partitions show in the Kde Removeable Devices when I boot. The usb device appears on the root file system as per the guide. Automount is working, as I can access partition 1 (for example) but I cannot write to it. So I have a permission problem it seems.

Any thoughts - ideas?

This is the contents of usb-wdblue.mount file.

[Unit]
Description=Mount Backup disk (/data/backup)

[Mount]
What=dev/disk/by-uuid/bdefe00d-469d-4536-8cf9-0d53847eec4c
Where=/usb/wdblue
Type=btrfs
Options=rw,noatime
#TimeoutSec=seconds

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

---

Moderator edit: In the future, please use proper formatting: [HowTo] Post command output and file content as formatted text

[Aragorn]

[Tutorial] Working with additional 'drives'

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ 1. INTRODUCTION Microsoft Windows started its life as a graphical user interface on top of MS-DOS, a 16-bit single-user, single-tasking operating system that in turn originated as 86DOS, an unauthorized 16-bit rewrite (by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer) of Digital Research’s originally 8-bit CP/M operating system. Both CP/M and MS-DOS were at the time developed for computers that did not support any other storage media than floppy disks. Considering this legacy, Microsof…

[Tutorial] Understanding and working with UNIX filesystems and permissions

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ Note: This post is meant as a tutorial. Please do not post on this thread regarding any problems you’re having with permissions, but start a new thread instead. Thank you. PREAMBLE: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND If you are new to the world of GNU/Linux ─ and especially if you come from the Microsoft Windows ecosystem ─ then you will undoubtedly have already noticed that GNU/Linux handles permissions and storage volumes quite differently from what you might be used to …

[Nachlese]

@brm

but I cannot write to it.

You as your normal user - or as root as well?

Set the permissions on the mountpoint.

[cscs]

Unless I am missing something …

You describe being able to mount these partitions.

That has nothing to do with the read/write/access privileges of users or groups.

If you mount a regular ext4 usb to /media … /media will still be owned by root and the contents of the usb will still have the same permissions as it did when it was created. If you did not chown or chmod some directory for $USER to access, then only root would have rights.

[brm]

Yes it is supposed to automount - when you access the disk using Systemd configs in
/etc/Systemd/system. I have tried chown the mount point - but no luck yet.

Hmmm
the tutorial asks for the disk to be mounted on the root file system - not in /home.
So I can see /usb (in the root directory tree) is owned by user.
But the next sub directory /wdblue is owned by root.

I may have to disable this mount by disable the systemd process
then try to chown - then try enable systemd again. I will try this.

Yes despite the sub-directory /wdblue being chown to user - it does not persist. the sub directory goes back to owner root.

My process
stop systemd xxxx.mount
disable systemd xxx.automount

All worked ok

Then chown /usb/wdblue to user. This part is not working yet.

[Yochanan]

In the future, please properly format terminal and file output. Note I’ve done it for you this time.

[brm]

Update. Its early days by my problem is Solved.

I am now able to write to the USB hard drive as user. For example in Dolphin File Manager I can use the split window feature and drag files from “Home” to the drive.
Previously this was halted with “Permission Denied”.

I can attribute this to a couple of things.

1. Changing the file /etc/systemd/system/ xxxx.mount
   to show “Options=user,uid=my userid”
2. After deleting the mount point in the file tree. I allowed the system to recreated it (done automagically by systemd) then applied

sudo chown -R owner:group /usb/xxx to the new mount point.

Thanks all.