Ubuntu 14.04 MS Word Doc Read Only in shared "Home" folder

**volkswagner** · August 8th, 2015

I guess I should have been more descriptive.

Please post the output for a directory that contains the files you're have trouble with.

**TheFu** · August 9th, 2015

777 permissions on /home/curt/public is completely unnecessary. Please don't leave it that way.
Sooner or later you will need to learn and understand file and directory permissions on Unix since it is a multiuser OS. Sooner is better than later, BTW. Ubuntu has a tutorial for this - google it.

BTW - "Curt" is not a group. Group names are lowercase. Unix is case sensitive, so you need to be extremely careful when using different case for anything. It matters. Generally, it is best to go all lowercase for everything, except files and directories. For those, Just use whatever case you desire - always. You'll get used to this - OSes that don't care about case will bother you, eventually.

smb.conf - the "domains" section has an error. Is that really the file? Run testparm to see what samba knows.

**Curt_Smock** · August 9th, 2015

VW -

I hope this is what you were looking for...

Code:

-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt  376832 Aug  8 21:02 Test Database.accdb
-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt   38259 Aug  8 20:56 Test Document-Adobe Acrobat.pdf
-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt    8703 Aug  8 20:55 Test Document-MS Excel 2010.xlsx
-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt   13849 Aug  8 20:54 Test Document-MS Word 2010.docx
-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt 1115232 Aug  8 20:58 Test Photoshop Document.psd
-rwxrw-rw-  1 curt curt   97792 Aug  8 21:03 Test Publication Document.pub

These documents all cannot be saved when opened by another user after being created by me.

Curt

**Curt_Smock** · August 9th, 2015

TheFu -

I didn't think that I had a 777 mask set for public, only the data folder? In any case I will look at the tutorials that you mentioned. Here is the result of testparm...

Code:

Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
Processing section "[printers]"
Processing section "[print$]"
Processing section "[Data]"
WARNING: The "acl check permissions" option is deprecated
Unknown parameter encountered: "share modes"
Ignoring unknown parameter "share modes"
Processing section "[Public]"
WARNING: The "acl check permissions" option is deprecated
Unknown parameter encountered: "share modes"
Ignoring unknown parameter "share modes"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions

**volkswagner** · August 9th, 2015

Can you show an example of permissions with a folder containing both files created by you and files created by user other than you?

**SeijiSensei** · August 9th, 2015

I'd like to suggest another test. Install LibreOffice on the Windows machines. If you use that on both the Windows and Linux machines, do you have the same file-locking problems?

I still think your problem has something to do with MS Office and not Samba or Linux, since you wrote in your first post:

Strangely enough, this behavior does not occur with a plain text notepad document. It seems to be only affecting MS Word and Excel documents.

**Curt_Smock** · August 9th, 2015

SeijiSensei -

OK, I loaded up LibreOffice on my Windows machine and got the following error. I created the ODT file on my user and then switched to another user and tried to access it. I have not tried installing LibreOffice on another machine yet. That will be the next step. It looks like it's not only MS Office products that are affected, unfortunately.

File Lock.PNG
Strangely, I am getting random times that the MS Word/Excel and Acrobat documents are editable by all users from time to time. Let me do some more research and get back to the group. The ODT file has remained uneditable to everyone but me, however.

Curt

**SeijiSensei** · August 10th, 2015

Did you close the document on the machine it was created on before trying to edit it from another machine? That's exactly what file-locking is designed to prevent. Even on an all-Linux system like mine, if I open a document in LO, it will be locked on other machines.

**Curt_Smock** · August 12th, 2015

SeijiSensei -

Sorry for the long pause in replying...just took my oldest down to college today. I just tried top open the ODT file while logged in as another user and no joy, same error. The ODT file was attempted to be opened only by the other logged in user. Could this be a Windows 7/Linux compatibility issue? I still need to find some time to install LO on another machine. I will report back once that has been achieved.

**Curt_Smock** · August 23rd, 2015

SeijiSensei -

Well, I could not figure it out, although I have a suspicion it had to do with the fact that I had a group called "curt" on the Ubuntu Server and my password was the same to log onto the server as it was to log onto my laptop, plus my Windows user was "curt" as well, so maybe some conflict existed there. In any case, I ended up re-loading my laptop with Win 7 (It needed it anyways) and created a new user name and a different password for my login. The problem went away. Funny thing is on a couple of password protected excel documents, I had to save a copy of the document before I could work on them. The problem seems to have corrected itself with me deleting my login and user off of my laptop. Thanks for everyone's help.

Curt