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Glutanimate
Asked: 2012-08-31 02:54:02 +0800 CST

All files on automounted NTFS partition are marked as executable

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I have set up an NTFS partition to automount via fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=e63fa8a2-432f-4749-b9db-dab328807d04 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0          1
# /boot was on /dev/sda4 during installation
UUID=e9ad1bb4-7c1f-4ea9-a6a5-799dfad71c0a /boot           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /home was on /dev/sda8 during installation
UUID=eda8c755-5448-4de8-b58c-9cb75823c22d /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda9 during installation
UUID=804ff3a7-e5dd-406a-b63c-e8f3c635fbc5 none            swap    sw              0       0

#Windows-Partition
UUID=368CEBC57807FDCD   /media/Share  ntfs    defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000,noexec    0   0

As you can see I have added the noexec bit to the configuration. Why? Because any file I create on or move to the partition is automatically marked as executable.

The problem is that there is no way of changing that through nautilus. I cannot uncheck the "Allow executing file as program" option.

The noexec option doesn't help, unfortunately. It only prevents nautilus from displaying the "run" or "read" dialog but doesn't change the executable flag.

Is there any way I can fix this?

nautilus

2 Answers

  1. The noexec option has nothing to do with the actual permissions; it's just for not allowing to run anything from that partition:

    ~ $ ls -l test.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jw jw 28 Aug 30 13:05 test.sh
~ $ ./test.sh
Hello world
~ $ sudo mount -o remount,noexec /home
~ $ ./test.sh
bash: ./test.sh: Permission denied
~ $ ls -l test.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jw jw 28 Aug 30 13:05 test.sh

    As you see, once the partition is mounted with the noexec option, test.sh cannot be run; but the permissions themselves did not change.

    NTFS does not support the executable bit. The way that an NTFS is seen by the system and what how permissions are set depends therefore only on how it was mounted. Normally, this is done with the umask mount option. This explains also why you cannot change the permissions: there is no way to store them, because NTFS does not support them.

    Unfortunately, if you mount everything with the 'non-executable' bit, you will not be able to change into directories, because they must be executable in order to be entered. You can use the options dmask and fmask for setting default permissions separately to for directories and files on a mounted NTFS system.

    • 10
  2. Best Answer

    With January's help I was able to find the following fstab options that solved my problem:

    umask=0000,fmask=0111

    The fstab entry for my NTFS partition is now as follows:

    #Windows-Partition
UUID=368CEBC57807FDCD   /media/Share  ntfs  defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0000,fmask=0111    0   0

    Source: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/mount-ntfs-so-that-files-are-not-executable-buts-directories-are-363315/

    Edit: Changing these options also means that you will not be able to set anything to executable on your NTFS drive. In my case that's not a problem as I don't plan on storing any executables on this partition.

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