Why if I am the "root" user I get no access rights, and don't have permissions on some things?

Why do my cdrom and floppy have locks on them in the root/mnt/ folder?

These may seem like stupid questions, but I am really trying to learn this OS. It seems like it would be a very powerful tool if only I can get it at a working condition.

Thank you,
BC

Root should be like superman in our world. Nothing should be blocked or not accessed from root. If root can't get in, who can? If root on your machine cannot access or do certian things, there is something definitly wrong with yoru setup.

BC,

I wouldn't mkfs and reinstall everying on your system just yet. The root user may appear to be denied access to some things due to either permissions or kernel activity. ex. If you try to execte a file that is not executable, you will get a permission denied error, even as root. Also if you try to unmount a used filesystem you will also get errors. Post some examples of what you are trying to do and someone will explain why you are getting the errors.

As for the locks... Both the floppy and cdrom may be mounted. Type looking at /proc/mounts and see what file systems are mounted. unmount the file system and see if the locks persist.

Gary

I found out that my cdrom and floppy mount on boot up. When I umount them the locks do disappear, when they are mounted, the locks show up and when I click on the I get "can't enter /mnt/cdrom you do not have access rights" or something to that effect. I change the settings to have the cdrom not mount at bootup to see if that would make a difference, but alias it does nothing different.

I hope someone knows what this means, and how it can be fixed.

I have reinstalled Linux about four times already, and these are the settings before I even do anything on the system.

Thanks for any help,
BC

In your last reply you mentioned the word 'click'. Are you trying to access the filesystems in an X GUI? Try going to a command shell and cd to /mnt/cdrom both before the cd is mounted and after the cd is mounted. What are the permissions on the mount point?

Post your fstab and mtab files with the cd mounted, and post an ls -la in the /mnt directory. That will give us a few more details.

Gary

If you set 0000 permissions also, then also root can access the file or directory since root need to administrate everything.

1 members found this post helpful.

PLEASE STOP posting in old threads...this was closed for FOURTEEN YEARS. And your post doesn't address the original issue.