HowTo: Mount your NTFS Partition for Read/Write Access in openSUSE 10.2

Page is out of date Contemporary version here∞

Introduction

There's quite a lot on this in the Suse Linux Support Forum∞, anecdotal, fragmented, mostly good advice. So I thought I would put this reference page in the Wiki to consolidate and put the usual command line incantations into (perhaps) a comprehensible perspective.

An update is pending for 10.2 --> 10.3. The openSUSE 10.3 version is here: Swerdna•Net∞

Facets


RPM Packages

The openSuse dot org site maintains a repository of filesystem-related RPMs∞, including the RPMs for FUSE and NTFS-3G. Their labels look like this: fuse-2.6.5-3.1.i586.rpm for FUSE and ntfs-3g-1.328-2.2.i586.rpm for NTFS-3G, but remember that the version numbers change over time. I like RPMs because they're so easy to install and more to the point, to uninstall. So I recommend you download the RPMs and install them with YAST. Newer users should not bother compiling from source because there's no advantage at all for these mature and proven codes.

Permanent Mounts

You can observe your NTFS partition in Yast's partitioner manager, available via Yast --> System --> Partitioner. It will look something like mine which has this entry:



Suppose that you want to mount that partition in a folder you create for it located anywhere you like in your filesystem, say at /mnt/winxp.

To mount your NTFS partition permanently, add your version of the following line into the file system table, at the bottom, no line spaces, and make sure it's followed by a carriage return:



When you reboot, the partion will mount into the folder /mnt/winxp with permissions drwxrwxrwx, i.e with read/write access for everybody, in the style of Microsoft's insecure filesystems.

Here's an alternate option for fstab: If you want the permissions to be linux-like, you can specify a particular owner for the mount folder and its contents with this sort of line in fstab:



In this example the "umask" with octal value 0022 produces permissions drwxr-xr-x on folder /mnt/winxp, for the owner/user with gid=1002, just like a standard linux user.

Temporary Mounts

If you want to mount the NTFS partition temporarily, then you don't put an entry into fstab. Instead you just execute this command as root user in a terminal:



Note two things: Regardless of who owns the folder "winxp", this mount command changes the folder's permissions to read/write for everyone. Also, in openSuse 10.2 the command will produce a statement in your terminal beginning "Deficient Linux kernel detected ....". That's only a comment. It doesn't require action.

OK, that's fine if you want everyone to have access to the mounted NTFS partition in folder /mnt/winxp. If you want normal Linux-like permissions (rather than Microsoft free-for-all permissions) to apply to the mounted partition, you execute this alternate command as root user in a terminal:



This alternate command-line version produces permissions drwxr-xr-x on folder /mnt/winxp, for the owner/user with gid=1002, which is the normal situation for a Linux user's home folders.

If you want to adjust the folders, documents or user permissions further, you should read the man page∞. Pay particular attention to the umask, dmask and fmask options. Also please note the useful force option.

Credits - I adopted this info and these methods after reading the following:


There's a probability that NTFS-3G will be integrated in openSUSE 10.3∞.

Be well
Swerdna
Drop by for a visit∞