[SOLVED] Copying to a USB stick

GPGAgent · 03-30-2024, 01:11 PM

Title says it all, sounds dead easy, but I have problems doing this

I want to use the commandline and here is what happens.

Plug in USB stick

df -h shows this:

Code:

/dev/sdc1        29G   16K   29G   1% /media/jonke/A239-DFE4

I want to mount it as /media/OTR_MMSCIFI so I did this:

Code:

sudo mkdir /media/OTR_MMSCIFI

I had to use sudo because I didn't have permission under my login

Then I unmounted sdc1

Code:

umount /dev/sdc1

df -h shows sdc1 is unmounted

I mounted it

Code:

sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/OTR_MMSCIFI

df -h shows it is

Code:

/dev/sdc1        29G   16K   29G   1% /media/OTR_MMSCIFI

Then I copy a file

Code:

cp OTHERWORLDS.png /media/OTR_MMSCIFI

And I get this:

Code:

cp: cannot create regular file '/media/OTR_MMSCIFI/OTHERWORLDS.png': Permission denied

Fair enough it's owned by root

So I issued

Code:

sudo cp OTHERWORLDS.png /media/OTR_MMSCIFI

entered the sudo password an it copied, but everything is owned by root now.

What should I do so I can just use my login to:

Create a mount point
Mount USB
cp folders to USB

Seems a reasonable thing to do

I'm guessing the mount point is the issue because I don't have permission with my login to create a folder in /media

yancek · 03-30-2024, 01:55 PM

Change the owner of the mount point /media/OTR_MMSCIFI. Standard users by default generally have read/write access only to their /home/username directory and not to partitions on external devices. This is standard behavior in Linux. You can change the owner partitions. If the USB you are using is simply data it should not be a problem. Do you have a Linux filesystem on the usb?

michaelk · 03-30-2024, 02:21 PM

Interesting, depends on what distribution/version you are running but most desktops these days automatically mount the drive when plugged in with r/w permissions for that particular user. A239-DFE4 would indicate a VFAT filesystem.

Typically linux permissions are by filesystem and not mount point of which VFAT is not compatible. You can manually mount the drive using mount options uid,gid that matches your user's uid and gid.

GPGAgent · 03-30-2024, 06:28 PM

Thanks yancek and michaelk

The USB is formatted as FAT32 - I use it on Windows systems and my TV to play movies.

Anyway, I changed ownership of /media/OTR_MMSCIFI to $USER

Code:

sudo chown $USER OTR_MMSCIFI/

So far so good, I plug in my USB stick and copy to it, but the files jist go tp/media/OTR_MMSCFIFI - not the USB stick

So I unmounted it

Then I mounted it

Code:

$ mount /dev/sdc1 /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
mount: only root can do that

Okay lets try this

Code:

sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
[sudo] password for jonke:          
mount: /media/OTR_MMSCIFI: special device /dev/sdc1 does not exist.

I'm obviously doing this incorrectly, it cannot be so hard, all I want to do is to pop my usb stick into a port, and then cp a folder full of files to it.

Something like this should work

Code:

umount /dev/sdc1
sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdc1 -n "OTR_MMSCIFI"
mkdir /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
sudo chown $USER OTR_MMSCIFI/
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
cp -r -v OTR-MURDER-MYSTERY-SCIFI /media/jonke/OTR_MMSCIFI

michaelk · 03-30-2024, 06:53 PM

[\quote]/dev/sdc on /media/username/TEST type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0022...[/quote]

Here is output of mount for a FAT32 flash drive automatically mounted when inserted on my debian 12 system. The mount point /media/username/drive_label is automatically created and the drive mounted using uid=1000,gid=1000 which is the uid and gid for my user on this system. Without the uid,gid it will be owned by root.

Quote:

mkdir /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
sudo chown $USER OTR_MMSCIFI/
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/OTR_MMSCIFI
cp -r -v OTR-MURDER-MYSTERY-SCIFI /media/jonke/OTR_MMSCIFI

Your mounting to /media/OTR_MMSCIFI but then copying to /media/jonke/OTR_MMSCIFI which does not work. Changing the owner of the mount point prior to mounting has no affect on the filesystem itself. I don't have a Mint VM at the moment but I would expect it to do something similar.

yancek · 03-31-2024, 07:56 AM

Linux user:group and rwx permissions do not apply on vfat filesystems, I missed that in your initial post. You can use fmask, dmask and/or umask in the /etc/fstab file or in your mount command. I expect the original location allowed you to copy as a user and likely would also work if you used "/media/jonke/OTR_MMSCIFI" as the mount point.

GPGAgent · 03-31-2024, 10:06 AM

Hi Guys, Thanks for the update, I'll check through it and a bit more research ie duckduckgo!

GPGAgent · 03-31-2024, 11:04 AM

Update, I've simplified my task with a tiny bit of research and help from you guys

The steps are:

Code:

~$ sudo umount /dev/sdc1
[sudo] password for jonke:          
jonke@charlie:~$ sudo mkfs.fat -n MMSCIFI -F 32 /dev/sdc1
mkfs.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
jonke@charlie:~$ cp -r -v OTR-MURDER-MYSTERY-SCIFI /media/jonke/MMSCIFI

Because I'm using FAT32 I don't specify a mount point, linux sorts that out for me

Cheers all Happy Easter