I look at files on an an unRAID user share that i connect to from my Apple Mac  as guest.

Using Terminal permissions shows as

paul staff -rwxrwxrwx

i.e owner by paul (my MacOS username) with full permissions for everyone. But that isnt actually the case because if I try to delete the file I get

Permission denied

 

I have navigated to the files via the unRAID shares browser, but nowhere can I find anything that shows the file permissions

 

So:

- Why does macOS not show me the real permissions ?

- Where can I see permissions from within unRAID itself ?

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Paul Taylor

Open up the Terminal Window (on the Tool Bar of the GUI--   it has the icon   >_   )  and use the following command

 

ls -al /mnt/user/

Now hit the up-arrow key and add the name of the Share that you are interested in after the last / 

Repeat until you get to the directory/files you are interested in. 

1 hour ago, Paul Taylor said:

- Why does macOS not show me the real permissions ?

I will assume that you are using SMB.  SMB is another layer between the Linux OS and the SMB (think Windows) world.  SMB is actually controlling the access to the files and the access (With Unraid is setup through the SHARES pages) is determined by the settings in /etc/samba/smb.conf files.  (smb.conf has several included files that it processes when it runs.)   The whole thing is rather convoluted and it can take some real study to figure out the hows-and-whys of the complete system.

33 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Open up the Terminal Window (on the Tool Bar of the GUI--   it has the icon   >_   )  and use the following command

 

ls -al /mnt/user/

Now hit the up-arrow key and add the name of the Share that you are interested in after the last / 

Repeat until you get to the directory/files you are interested in.  

Thankyou, that solves it, I was not aware of the Terminal option.

 

Can also use

ls -alR /mnt/user/

to recusrively get listing.

 

But I am a bit surprised that you have to use Terminal to see the permissions, not very user friendly for users not familiar with UNIX.

22 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

I will assume that you are using SMB.  SMB is another layer between the Linux OS and the SMB (think Windows) world.  SMB is actually controlling the access to the files and the access (With Unraid is setup through the SHARES pages) is determined by the settings in /etc/samba/smb.conf files.  (smb.conf has several included files that it processes when it runs.)   The whole thing is rather convoluted and it can take some real study to figure out the hows-and-whys of the complete system.

SMB is a layer between OS and SMB, did you mean this  ?

53 minutes ago, Paul Taylor said:

SMB is a layer between OS and SMB, did you mean this  ?

Yes, and I slipped an extra "the" into that second sentence.  I also tend to combine SMB and samba into a single term and I probably should not do that.  I think one should really think of SMB as the set of rules for a file transfer protocol and samba as the Linux/UNIX (and several UNIX-like OS's) sub-system that actually allows SMB to interface with the Linux/UNIX file system.  

 

I suspect that your Mac probably uses some version of samba to implement SMB (as I understand that underlaying Mac OS is based on some UNIX variant).  If you were to look at a Mac SMB share that you set up from outside (say using a WIN10 computer), you probably would not be able to see your Mac permissions either...

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Frank1940

1 hour ago, Paul Taylor said:

But I am a bit surprised that you have to use Terminal to see the permissions, not very user friendly for users not familiar with UNIX.

Normally a user has no need to see the Linux level permissions on a file as by default all files will be owned by 'nobody' and be in the 'users' group with access controlled by samba.   There is the Tools >> New Permissions tool to set files back to this if they get different permissions for some reason.

 

It would be nice to be able to see them via the GUI when troubleshooting, but I can see this might raise more support questions than it answers.

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

Normally a user has no need to see the Linux level permissions on a file as by default all files will be owned by 'nobody' and be in the 'users' group with access controlled by samba.   There is the Tools >> New Permissions tool to set files back to this if they get different permissions for some reason. 

 

It would be nice to be able to see them via the GUI when troubleshooting, but I can see this might raise more support questions than it answers.

So in normal circumstances everything is nobody/users , unRaid doesnt let you create new users ectera so root is the only other likely owner, right ?

When you say controlled by Samba, do you just mean when you mount the drive from PC/Mac you can decide whether to connect as guest or other user (root), or do you mean something else?

Is connecting as guest the same as connecting as user nobody or not ?

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Paul Taylor

1 hour ago, Frank1940 said:

Yes, and I slipped an extra "the" into that second sentence.  I also tend to combine SMB and samba into a single term and I probably should not do that.  I think one should really think of SMB as the set of rules for a file transfer protocol and samba as the Linux/UNIX (and several UNIX-like OS's) sub-system that actually allows SMB to interface with the Linux/UNIX file system.  

 

I suspect that your Mac probably uses some version of samba to implement SMB (as I understand that underlaying Mac OS is based on some UNIX variant).  If you were to look at a Mac SMB share that you set up from outside (say using a WIN10 computer), you probably would not be able to see your Mac permissions either...

I looked at unRAID from a Windows PC, and that does correctly show the users and groups ( nobody/users versus root/root), however I can never understand how Windows shows permissions which I viewed from Mac as I am familiar with the UNIX style rwxrwxrwx permissions.

 

You lost have me regarding SMB , if that is  a Windows thing why would a Mac connecting to unRaid use SMB since neither are Windows based systems

 

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Paul Taylor

IF you read the samba configuration files you will find that root is not permit to be a SMB user!  (This is a security issue!)  

 

SMB is the default file transfer protocol for many different OS's today.  The primary reason being that several years ago most corporate PC's run Windows and those PC's had SMB built-in.  Folks who provided server software (and systems) found out that they were effectively blocked from the market if they did not provide SMB service on their product line!  

 

I have some experience using NFS and that told me that it is not easy to set up a large network of servers and clients (particularly client/servers) as you have use static IP addresses to access a resource.  At least, I never found a way around that problem... 

 

I have stated in the past that SMB is a kludge (first released by MS in 1992 when the 30386-20MHz was king of the hill) and, when you have a problem, witchcraft often seems to be the best approach to fix things.  (Two folks with identical problems will sometimes have to use two different solutions to fix things.  And either solution for one folk works for the other folk.)  

 

59 minutes ago, Paul Taylor said:

I looked at unRAID from a Windows PC, and that does correctly show the users and groups ( nobody/users versus root/root), however I can never understand how Windows shows permissions which I viewed from Mac as I am familiar with the UNIX style rwxrwxrwx permissions.

How are you doing this on the Windows PC?  I can get the Linux owner but I can not get the group or Linux permissions to show up in Windows File Explorer.

Here is some history on samba:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)

8 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

How are you doing this on the Windows PC?  I can get the Linux owner but I can not get the group or Linux permissions to show up in Windows File Explorer. 

If I just right click oo the folder and select Security tab it shows me user/group/other. But I cant see permissions, that's why I was using my Mac instead.

Screenshots below show initial folder permissions and then after file moved with Docker app)

 

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Paul Taylor

1 hour ago, Paul Taylor said:

So in normal circumstances everything is nobody/users , unRaid doesnt let you create new users ectera so root is the only other likely owner, right ?

The 'root' user is used to control access to the Unraid GUI - not to the shares.  Unraid DOES let you create new users for accessing shares (via the USERS tab in the GUI) and it is this in conjunction with the security setting you put on shares that controls access.  If shares are set to Public then anyone can access so no need to set up any extra users.  If you set shares to be Private or Secure then you HAVE to set up new users in the Unraid GUI as the 'root' user is not allowed to access such shares.

 

If you run apps on the Unraid server that can create/copyfiles then it is important that it is configured to create them either as nobody/users or with permissions that allows anyone to access the files. 

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by itimpi

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

If you set shares to be Private or Secure then you HAVE to set up new users in the Unraid GUI as the 'root' user is not allowed to access such shares.

 

Not quite correct.  With the share set to Secure, everyone (a 'Guest' mode if you like) has read access but only specified authorized users have write access.  With Private, only specified authorized users have either read  or  read/write access.  With Private, only an authorized user can even browse the share.  While root is denied being set up (and logging in) as a user, he is allowed the same access as any other 'Guest' to any share.  (I will point this out as there will be some readers of this thread who may not realize that setting a share to 'Public' is the same thing as making anyone with access to the network a 'superuser' in a Public Share!  It is not necessary a bad thing as long as you realize what you are doing.  Personally, I have all my shares set to Secure without any users assigned.  I do virtually all of my file management using the Krusader Docker.  This makes my shares very secure from ramsomware.) 

 

However, if root comes through the GUI or an SSH session, he can do anything he wants to a Share regardless of its SMB security setting.

Edited June 26, 20197 yr by Frank1940

6 hours ago, Paul Taylor said:

If I just right click oo the folder and select Security tab it shows me user/group/other. But I cant see permissions, that's why I was using my Mac instead.

Screenshots below show initial folder permissions and then after file moved with Docker app)

 

OK, now I see where you are talking about seeing Linux owners permissions.  I have been looking at it on my WIN10 PC for a few hours and I am not really satisfied with what the information presented really means.   If I would looking at a share from Windows server, I would be much more comfortable.  But realizing that this is a samba share whose underlying file system is Linux, I would be most very reluctant  to draw any conclusions.  I furthermore I would not be Editing or setting any permissions via the Advance button.  

 

I looked at the second screen capture and your comment "Screenshots below show initial folder permissions and then after file moved with Docker app" and have a couple of questions: 

 

First, what Docker app did you use to move the file in that screen capture?  

 

Second, what are the permissions, owner and group using the terminal operation that I described earlier? 

 

Another observation.  On my WIN10 computer, I can see permissions for files but not for directories/folders.  Furthermore, for the files, they are wrong.  They are shown as Read and Write but actually are Read only.  As I said earlier samba operation is more witchcraft than science, so be care what you try to do with permissions and ownership from the client end.  It might work in some cases but you are more likely to create a problem than fix one! 

9 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

First, what Docker app did you use to move the file in that screen capture? 

 

Second, what are the permissions, owner and group using the terminal operation that I described earlier?

 

Another observation.  On my WIN10 computer, I can see permissions for files but not for directories/folders.  Furthermore, for the files, they are wrong.  They are shown as Read and Write but actually are Read only.  As I said earlier samba operation is more witchcraft than science, so be care what you try to do with permissions and ownership from the client end.  It might work in some cases but you are more likely to create a problem than fix one!

So this was done with my own SongKong app, Im looking to improve it to avoid this issue but first of all I need to better understand how unRAID permissions worked in the first place.

 

Terminal matches Windows

 

Yes i only said that Windows shows the correct users/groups, not the correct permissions. I have no intention of trying to modify permissions from the client. I was just trying to understand it (before I knew about Terminal), and that is why I viewed on Mac as well. I still dont really understand why Mac is so much worse than Windows since we are going unix -> unix.

Edited June 27, 20197 yr by Paul Taylor

16 hours ago, itimpi said:

If you run apps on the Unraid server that can create/copyfiles then it is important that it is configured to create them either as nobody/users or with permissions that allows anyone to access the files.  

The files are moved to a different location, and I have just realized the issues is not with the file themselves they preserve their original owership and permissions, the problem is that the directory structure that was created to move the files to is owned by root with only rx permission for everyone. so this means the files contents can be edited but the files cannot be deleted or renamed, and new files cannot be added to these directories.

 

Setting umask to 000 will provide permissions to everyone, but Ideally I want to work out in my docker ap how to create the folders as the correct user.

Are you aware of this sub-forum?

 

    https://forums.unraid.net/forum/57-programming/

 

I would think that would be the place to ask the questions that a budding developer, like yourself, could ask these types of questions.  The community is always in need of new volunteers to provide new tools to improve Unraid. 

 

By the way, I have found that Google does a much better job of finding relevant threads and posts that the forum search engine.  Be sure to Unraid as one of the terms.

26 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Are you aware of this sub-forum?

    https://forums.unraid.net/forum/57-programming/

Thanks, never saw that. Although the initial question was very much just an unRaid user question rather than Programming.