chmod issues

[DavidP]

I am having issues with chmod.

My Linux install is on an ext4 filesystem. I also have a fat32 filesystem on the same disk. The fat32 filesystem is called "ARES".

I have the fat32 filesystem mounted, and I want to change the permissions of some of the files/directories on it. So I navigate to the directory where I want to be:

$ cd /media/ARES

From there I have a subdirectory called web with a single file index.html in it. I run the following command:

$ chmod -R 755 web

index.html gets its file permissions changed correctly, but nothing happens to the web directory itself. I've even tried sudoing....and nothing...

Is it something to do with the fact that it's a mounted fat32 filesystem? Why won't it let me change the permissions of the directory?

[Salem]

Try the same thing on your ext3 file system.

> $ chmod -R 755 web
FAT32's idea of permissions is little more than "who's holding the keyboard". The group and world permissions are meaningless.

[DavidP]

Indeed it does work for both directories and files on my primary ext4 filesystem.

I still find it strange that it works for files but not directories on the fat32 filesystem...weird...

Anyways, I guess this means I'll have to change filesystems on that volume...lucky for me I just partitioned it yesterday, and there's only like 4 files on the whole thing, so it won't be a mess to do.