On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 10:28:54AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote: > I'll attempt to refine my problem definition. > My primary use case is a laptop: > 1. purchased explicitly for use as a test bed. > 2. whose HD has been erased multiple times in ONE day. > 3. is isolated from ANY network. > 4. has multiple installs of Debian, primarily classed as: > a. a full GUI install - what one would get choosing all > installer defaults. > b. a GUI install limited to the tools I use routinely. > c. an install oriented to whatever my current experiment needs. > 5. has 2 classes of "DATA Partitions": > a. those which UID 1000 may mount without entering any > password. > b. those which *ANY* user may mount only by using root > password. > The second use case is an existing machine with WinXP which is > why I do not wish these "DATA Partitions" to be Windows readable.
Simply creating a Linux file system (ext3 or whatever) on the partition should be enough to prevent Windows from mounting it (or "mapping" it, or whatever Windows calls the act of opening up a file system for use by applications). > My original question had (apparently incorrectly assume that > partitions handled user/group/world permissions in the same > manner as file systems. If you want to write files on this partition, it has to be formatted with some kind of file system, and then mounted. If the file system is a unix-like one, then it will have unix file metadata like ownership, group ownership and permissions. > I gather that I can approximately solve the problem with > appropriate entries in /etc/fstab (pointer to good tutorial > please). That approach has short comings: man fstab Consider using file system labels so that you don't have to put cryptic UUIDs into the fstab, or potentially volatile device names. man e2label > 1. requires custom editing of /etc/fstab for each install. > 2. requires custom editing of /etc/fstab for each install > whenever a partition is added. There is absolutely no way you're going to be able to mount a file system as an ordinary user (UID 1000 or whatever) without putting a line in the /etc/fstab file. So then the goal becomes to make this process as easy and foolproof as possible for yourself, or for whoever's doing these hourly wipes and reinstalls. I'd recommend e2label for this. I don't know why you need users to be able to mount the file system via commands, instead of just having them automatically mounted at boot time. /etc/fstab would also be used for the latter. That's how most file systems work (/, /usr, /var, /home, etc.).
