Is it possible to share multimedia between users on the same computer?

[idonald]

Wouldnt it just be easier to revert those permission changes than setup bind fs? I cant fully get my head around bindfs, I get the basic concept of it bit get a little lost on the technicalities and I don't like the idea of running a configuration that I don't understand easily.

I read on ask ubuntu that the default user permissions were changed in 12.04 which allows users to share files easier which is why I made the permission changes via Nautilus.

Here is the link: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricOcelo...le_permissions

By the way I just want to say thanks for taking the time to assist with this, I really appreciate your help

[Morbius1]

The default umask was changed in 12.04 from 022 to 002 resulting in new files created by a given user having permissions of 664 instead of 644. That in itself doesn't make them shareable unless you change the group to a common group or use something like setgid. But you circumvented all that and rather than repeatedly messing with permissions in your home folder my suggestion was to use bindfs and leave your home folder alone.

If you feel more comfortable with reverting somehow to the original permissions then go for it.

[idonald]

If you feel more comfortable with reverting somehow to the original permissions then go for it.

The way you wrote that makes me think it's not easily done, is it possible?

[Paddy Landau]

You can submit the following two commands, but be aware that it will set all of your files and folders in your own home folder, which is not necessarily what you want.

Warning: I have not tested these commands, so wait until someone such as Morbius replies in case they find problems with my commands.

chmod u+rwx,g+rx,g-w,o-rwx ~
find ~ -xdev '(' -type d -exec chmod ug+rwx,o-rwx {} + ')' -o '(' -type f -exec chmod ug+rw,o-rwx {} + ')'

Morbius: I have learned from you in this thread, thank you. Is there a "dummy's guide" to advanced chmod functions, such as chmod 2775 and SGID? I have been experimenting with them and, although I get it to work as you explain, I don't understand how they work.

[Morbius1]

You can submit the following two commands, but be aware that it will set all of your files and folders in your own home folder, which is not necessarily what you want.

Warning: I have not tested these commands, so wait until someone such as Morbius replies in case they find problems with my commands.

chmod u+rwx,g+rx,g-w,o-rwx ~
find ~ -xdev '(' -type d -exec chmod ug+rwx,o-rwx {} + ')' -o '(' -type f -exec chmod ug+rw,o-rwx {} + ')'

Morbius: I have learned from you in this thread, thank you. Is there a "dummy's guide" to advanced chmod functions, such as chmod 2775 and SGID? I have been experimenting with them and, although I get it to work as you explain, I don't understand how they work.

I don't know if I'm the ultimate authority on this subject but it should be in the man pages for chmod.

Your commands look like they will work but there is an easier way to do this:

chmod -R ug+rwX,o-rwx /path

The big "X" sets folders to x but not files unless the files where executable to begin with.

This will set the home folder to 770 instead of 750 but it's group is still the same as the user so it doesn't really matter. All the files will be set to 660 unless they were individually set to executable in which case those will be 770.

Like you though I generally don't like to mess around with changing permissions of home folders. In looking at my own home folder there a lot of odd permissions in there and a few files that are owned by root so ...

EDIT: What can be done is copy all the existing files from the user's home directory to the /home/share that he wants to have in there. Then change permissions on all of them in /home/share so that they are writeable to group. Any newly created files added to his home folder or to the share folder will save as 660 so it's not a continuing problem only an initial one.

[Paddy Landau]

Morbius, thank you for pointing out the +X. That does indeed make things simpler!

[idonald]

I'm at work just now but just wanted to give my thanks for the help posted here by everyone, I will be trying these steps over the weekend.

[idonald]

After reading the man page for chmod and a few other articles on file/folder permissions in general(on top of what I have learned from this thread), I am beginning to realise the scope of my error in changing the permissions in my home directory.

I will play about with these extra commands and see how it goes but I might re-install the OS over the weekend and start from scratch. I don't have any files on the computer yet as it was a fairly new installation anyway.

If I do decide to re-install, I shall follow the advice from this thread more closely so I do not make the same mistakes.

[idonald]

I did a re-install last night to get myself back to stage where the permissions were not messed up. I have set things up a little different this time. I have made a separate partition in /media/shared and left the OS on one partition.

I will probably create a group called usershare or something and set /media/shared as the home location for this group.

I am going to go through this guide again and use bindfs with an upstart job as Morbius1 has suggested as I now understand it more clearly. I am going to follow the guide to the letter and not adjust any permissions via Nautilus like I did last time.

Hopefully everything will work as intended and I don't mess anything up. The cool thing I have noticed with this is that the second partition shows on the launcher in Unity as a second hard drive and my partner and daughter will find it a lot easier accessing the files/folders.

I have only put the OS back on at this stage and not configured applications and settings yet so I guess this is the best time to ask before I progress with this over the weekend. Because the second partition is mounted at /media/shared, would I loose the contents of this partition if I ever decided to do a format/re-install?

[Paddy Landau]

I will probably create a group called usershare or something and set /media/shared as the home location for this group.

A group does not have a "home location".

I have only put the OS back on at this stage and not configured applications and settings yet so I guess this is the best time to ask before I progress with this over the weekend. Because the second partition is mounted at /media/shared, would I loose the contents of this partition if I ever decided to do a format/re-install?

If it is a separate partition, it will not be touched — provided that you exclude it from the reformat or re-installation. As a note, you should always keep backups anyway — even if your installation or reformat works correctly, what happens should your hard drive die?

If it is a separate partition, you don't need to create a new group or go through the bindfs method. Just format that partition as NTFS, and you're done!

(If it is not a separate partition, reformatting your data partition (which is the same as your OS partition if you chose the default installation) will indeed erase the data. But by what you have described, it does sound as though you have created a separate partition.)