Mandrake 9.1 on a WinXP Network

[Yoken 0]

Hi,

 

BACKGROUND:

 

I'm dual booting with winXP on an NTFS partition, and

Mandrake 9.1 on my second partition. The rest of the pc's at

work are all running winXP.

 

 

WHAT I WANT TO DO:

 

1) Be able to write files to my winXP partition. through my searches i found that i need a fat32 partition aswell since Linux can't write to ntfs yet?

 

2) I want to be able to read/write files to the shared folders on the winXP pc's on the network.

 

 

DONE SO FAR:

 

Currently i got it right to mount shared folders using my /etc/fstab file. in the file i added the options ,rw,_netdev

to make it read-write and state that i need network connection before mounting the drives... now on startup in linux the drives are mounted... and i can copy from them, but cannot copy TO them.

 

 

MY QUESTIONS:

 

1) Whats the easiest way of converting some of my NTFS free space to FAT32 so that i can create a new partition where Linux and windows can read/write to ?

 

2) How do i get it right to have read-write permissions on the shared folders ? All the shared folders give full control to all users on the network.. but that doesn't seem to fix it ??

 

 

I've been going at this problem for a week now... please ... i need help.

 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Originally posted by Yoken:

Quote:

1) Whats the easiest way of converting some of my NTFS free space to FAT32 so that i can create a new partition where Linux and windows can read/write to ?

 

I would think the easiest way to do this would be to just create a folder in your existing Linux partition that Windows boxes can have access to. Just create a shared folder.

 

mkdir /shared [enter]

 

Then:

 

chmod -R 666 /shared

 

You will have to remain in Linux so Windows boxes can have access to it though.

 

If you really need a whole partition for shared folders I would buy or borrow a copy of Partition Magic to do this. First, resize your NTFS partition to create the space you want for your shared folders, then format it as Fat32, also with Partition Magic. (There is possible danger in this so be very familiar and careful with what your doing here before you actually do it!!) Also, be sure to back up valuable files before any partitioning adjustments.

 

Quote:

2) How do i get it right to have read-write permissions on the shared folders ?

 

Once you have created the fat32 partition, boot to Linux and mount it. Make a note of where that fat32 partition is created. Let's say your shared file folder is at hda7. First, you must create a mount point for it. you can put it anywhere, but at /mnt is the most common location. As root go:

 

mkdir /mnt/shared [enter]

 

..or whatever you wish to call your newly created shared files location.

 

Then go:

 

mount /dev/hda7 mnt/shared [enter]

 

Then, you have to mount /mnt/shared itself..

 

mount /mnt/shared

 

You should now be able to enter your shared folder partition using nautilus or konqueror, and create files there.

 

To change the permissions so everyone can read/write to files placed in /mnt/shared, still as root go:

 

chmod 666 -R /mnt/shared [enter]

 

It can be a security risk to have an entire partition that everyone can read and write to, so you may want to set permissions for each folder in /mnt/shared rather than having read/write for the whole partiton. You can set the permissions easily enough for each folder with Nautilus as root.

 

Quote:

All the shared folders give full control to all users on the network.. but that doesn't seem to fix it ??

 

I'm not familiar with Windows now at all, but I would think there would be a freebe FTP or SSH GUI uploader/downloader available for Windows for your other Windows boxes to have access to your Linux server and those shared files.

 

You might also want to have a look at samba, which I know nothing about.

 

I must clarify, this is how I would approach it, so please seek out other advice and information..