Why is this failing?

[HermanAB]

Are you using AppArmor or SELinux?

[WB0HYQ]

Neither one. Not even sure what they are.

Running Ubuntu 20.04LTS with the X-Windows overlay (It boots up as "Xubuntu"). It was an upgrade from 18.04 and originally 14.04. I have a feeling this would all go away if I reinstalled a fresh copy of 20.04 and overwrote the disk. However, I have a LOT of applications, most of which I wrote myself, and hate to have to recreate them.

Bill.

[WB0HYQ]

What's your main problem?

I am unable to create/rename/delete ANY directories in my /home/bill directory. I need to remove directories that don't have any files in them, and I would also like to create some new ones at that directory level.

Bill

[deadflowr]

See what

getent group | grep 124

shows for the group.

What does getfacl show for /home/bill?

Also what is the file system's mount situation,
look at what

mount | grep /dev/sdb1

shows

[WB0HYQ]

getent group, with a grep for "124", returns nothing. Without the grep, the list shows no entry for "124".


And the mount situation is:

bill@bill-UBU:~$ mount | grep /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
bill@bill-UBU:~$

Bill

[WB0HYQ]

I've created a group named x124 with a GID of 124 and put my username (bill) into it. Now the results of the 'getent group' command is:

bill@bill-UBU:~$ getent group | grep 124
x124:x:124:bill
bill@bill-UBU:~$

Does this help me in any way, or has it muddied the waters? I can delete the group if necessary.

Bill

[The Cog]

What does

getfacl /
getfacl /home
getfacl /home/bill

say?

[WB0HYQ]

Sorry. Was out of the house mowing lawn.

results of those three commands:

bill@bill-UBU:~$ getfacl /
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: .
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

bill@bill-UBU:~$ getfacl /home
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: home
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

bill@bill-UBU:~$ getfacl /home/bill
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: home/bill
# owner: bill
# group: x124                   <<<<--------- THIS is what I cannot change!
user::rwx
user:bill:rwx
group::r-x
group:bill:r-x
mask::rwx
other::rwx
default:user::rwx
default:user:bill:rwx
default:group::rwx
default:group:bill:rwx
default:mask::rwx
default:other::rwx

bill@bill-UBU:~$

Bill

[Holger_Gehrke]

ACLs are probably not the problem since they always correspond to the permission bits (see "man 5 acl", section "CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ACL ENTRIES AND FILE PERMISSION BITS"). In general ACLs are used to grant additional permissions to user(s), they can't be used to take permissions away.
One possible reason might be an error in the file system which has led to the fs being remounted read-only. Try booting from a live USB and running fsck on the file system.
Another possibility are attributes, specifically the "immutable"attribute (which does just what the name implies). Use lsattr to see what - if any - attributes are set for the directory and the file in it.

Holger

[WB0HYQ]

A few days ago, I booted into a live DVD and tried just that. I was unable to mount the drive. No matter what I tried, it failed. I tried several methods which I found in various Linux forums, but none worked. I was probably doing it wrong because the error referred to "mount point" being incorrect. I've never mounted a drive/partition manually. They were either plugged-in USB drives or were SATA drives installed internally and picked up on boot by the OS.

I suppose if absolutely necessary, I could unship the drive from one computer, hook it to a SATA to USB dongle, and plug it into another of my Ubuntu machines. I hope this doesn't matter, but the system is dual-boot with Windows 7 on one physical drive, and Ubuntu on a different physical drive.

Bill