FAT32 and dosfstools

Forum: Apt-get
Topic: FAT32 and dosfstools
started by: WoofyDugfock

Posted by WoofyDugfock on Mar. 10 2005,15:27

1. Am I right in concluding that you have to install dosfstools in order to format as FAT32, msdos or vfat (using mkfs.vfat etc)?

This works, but I had a feeling that capabilty was already included in dsl somewhere ...(?)

2. Also, these filesystems only seem to be accessible as root ...is that right?

WDf

Posted by ypx on Mar. 10 2005,16:48

the built in capability is there with cfdisk.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Mar. 10 2005,17:38

I know I can make fat/vfat partitions with cfdisk,
but I'm not aware of a method to format them using cfdisk..

The mkdosfs file is in the 5way.tar.gz as well,
if you've been playing with the pendrive/embedded version..

73
ke4nt

Posted by WoofyDugfock on Mar. 11 2005,08:15

Thanks. Guess a partition's not much good without a filesystem, so I do need mkdosfs.

Not using pendrive/embedded so the easy way to get mkdosfs is to apt-get install dosfstools.

RE: my second question -- I've been writing an easy-to-use set of scripts to (u)mount up to 7 encrypted volumes using loop-aes via emelfm buttons. This all works suprisingly well except that when I format my loop device with vfat or msdos and then umount, on mounting again I can only access the mount point directory as root.

It seems the usual code to grant permission to the user dsl (taken from the web), where $FILE is the encrypted container/device and /mnt/tmp is the mount point, is:

chmod go= $FILE
# Then after mounting on /mnt/tmp:
chown dsl -R /mnt/tmp
chmod go= -R /mnt/tmp
# Then umount.

This works fine for ext2 or ext3 but I get "permission denied" type errors on chown for vfat or msdos, and "pt-chown needs to be installed", whatever that is.

(PS: the scripts seem to have to be run as root anyway because losetup requires root, but it would be nice to have the option of accessing a mount point directory as dsl if so desired - though it might be argued that an encrypted mount point should only be accessible as root for security reasons anyway?).