Creating Loopback Device

[BMW]

Hi all,

I am following the intstructions on here: http://wiki.osdev.org/Loopback_Device to mount my hard disk image.

I have a file, os.img, which is 16MiB in size. It is formatted with the FAT16 filesystem. I use this command to create loopback device:

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sudo losetup /dev/loop0 os.img

Then I mount the loopback device with this:

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sudo mount -t msdos /dev/loop0 OSDrive

Then if I try to paste files into the OSDrive folder, I get this:


How can I fix this?

[escortkeel]

You are going to want to give your file browser root permissions. Perhaps try invoking it at the terminal, prefixed with "sudo".

[iansjack]

Using root when you don't need to is dangerous ; doubly so if that use is to run a file browser. Far better, IMO, to just change the permissions on the root directory. This is pretty basicc Unix stuff.

[Nable]

man mount
/vfat
Then you'll find how to set uid/gid (as FAT* FSs don't support unix ids/gids) for all files and directories on the mounted file system, so that you can work with this filesystem (till it's mounted) without being root.

[BMW]

Using root when you don't need to is dangerous ; doubly so if that use is to run a file browser. Far better, IMO, to just change the permissions on the root directory. This is pretty basicc Unix stuff.

If I try change permissions it says "operation not permitted"

[iansjack]

I'd advise you to get a book about Linux and learn the basics. It will make life much easier. This is not really the place to teach you how to change file permissions.

[BMW]

I'd advise you to get a book about Linux and learn the basics. It will make life much easier. This is not really the place to teach you how to change file permissions.

I know how to change permissions.

What exactly do I change the permissions on? I tried changing the permissions on the directory to which the loopback device was mounted... is this right? Because it still gets this result after doing "sudo chmod a+rwx OSDrive":

(when trying to copy file to loop device)

EDIT: Also I think the wiki article may be wrong.

Sometimes, the loop device is erroneously referred to as 'loopback' device, but this term is reserved for a networking device in the Linux kernel (cf. loopback). The concept of the 'loop' device is distinct from that of 'loopback', although similar in name.

EDIT#2: Ok, I have fixed this. What I did was put this in fstab: (then I can just use "mount OSDrive" to mount it and it gives me ownership)

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/dev/loop0 /home/username/Programming/OS/OSDrive msdos noauto,user 0 0