Cannot change directory owner or group

[Robert Pearson]

When I open the properties window for a Pluma directory open as superuser I see the owner and group as root. I know that this is incorrect because robert is able to create and delete files. When I try and change the owner and group to robert, the option immediately changes back to root. This is a security bug and has had no response in over two months.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
Package: pluma 1.20.2-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-20.21-generic 4.18.20
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13.3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Wed May 29 21:17:25 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-12-16 (164 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64 (20181017.2)
SourcePackage: pluma
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mike Salvatore (mikesalvatore)]

Hi Robert,

Could you please provide some clarification? What do you mean by "the properties window for a Pluma directory"? I'm not a MATE user, but as far as I can tell Pluma is a text editor; I'm not sure what is meant by a "Pluma directory". Furthermore, when you say this bug "has had no response in over 2 months," could you provide a link to the bug you're referring to?

Perhaps it would help if you could provide step by step instructions (with screen shots if they're helpful) so that I can try and reproduce this.

Thanks,
Mike Salvatore

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

After having my recent bug reports brushed of with no attempt to fix any of them, I had given up and started simply deleting any e-mail pertaining to the Microsoft level of support (i.e. none at all). I had given up on Ubuntu. The real life Ubuntu community has no ubuntu!

My mistake! Caja is the bugware with the problem. I have to open the Caja window as Administrator and it still does not allow me to set owner or group. When I try, the properties window immediately changes the displayed owner or group to root. I know that the reported owner and group are lies (even when using command line ls -l because if the owner were in fact root, I would not be able to create, modify, and delete files as robert.

I have tried to attach the four screen shots but your web-page apparently allows only one screen shot to show the problem. (The coder made yet another bad assumption.)

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

Another screen shot

[Seth Arnold (seth-arnold)]

Hello Robert, what type of filesystem is on /media/Robert/Shared?

Is there any reason to keep this private? Right now only a few people can see this bug report and I don't see any privilege boundaries that could be violated, so no reason to keep it secret.

Thanks

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

I did not set the bug as private. It is a security issue because Unix depends on the owner and group ids for security.

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

It is also a kernel issue since the built-in ls command also reports it invalid information.

[Mike Salvatore (mikesalvatore)]

Robert,

What kind of filesystem is on /media/robert/Shared? It is likely that /media/robert/Shared is a fat32, exfat, or NTFS filesystem. These filesystems do not support posix permissions and therefore any attempt to change the permissions/ownership will fail.

You stated that, "I know that the reported owner and group are lies ... because if the owner were in fact root, I would not be able to create, modify, and delete files as robert." Looking at your screenshot, it appears that permissions for "Others" are set as "Create and delete files". This grants any user on the system permission to create and delete files (including robert).

Have you tried to reproduce the issue with files on /home/robert/ ?

Thanks

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

/media/robert/Shared is an NTFS in a partition of my first internal drive.
I do not have this problem with the 4 external USB drives with NTFS file
systems. The larger (> 5TB) external drives are ext4, since Ubuntu does not
work with NTFS on large drives. I did notice the everyone permissions, so
that is why I can use the drives at all. NTSF does provide owner and group
permissions, but I guess the code in buried in Windows and not the NTSF
specification. At least Ubuntu provides a partial implementation of the NT
File System.

M <https://andre.tips/wmh/>ike, I would like to personally thank you for
responding to my report. You are the first one to respond to any of my bug
reports. I had written Ubuntu off since none of my reports had been looked
at (other than bot replies and statements saying my reports were being
discarded). At least one bug I reported is over 5 years old and still not
assigned to anyone it fix, even though the fix was simple. You appear to be
the only developer with any ubuntu.

Thank you,
Robert Pearson

On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 8:50 AM Mike Salvatore <email address hidden>
wrote:

> Robert,
>
> What kind of filesystem is on /media/robert/Shared? It is likely that
> /media/robert/Shared is a fat32, exfat, or NTFS filesystem. These
> filesystems do not support posix permissions and therefore any attempt
> to change the permissions/ownership will fail.
>
> You stated that, "I know that the reported owner and group are lies ...
> because if the owner were in fact root, I would not be able to create,
> modify, and delete files as robert." Looking at your screenshot, it
> appears that permissions for "Others" are set as "Create and delete
> files". This grants any user on the system permission to create and
> delete files (including robert).
>
> Have you tried to reproduce the issue with files on /home/robert/ ?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1830987
>
> Title:
> Cannot change directory owner or group
>
> Status in caja package in Ubuntu:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> When I open the properties window for a Pluma directory open as
> superuser I see the owner and group as root. I know that this is
> incorrect because robert is able to create and delete files. When I
> try and change the owner and group to robert, the option immediately
> changes back to root. This is a security bug and has had no response
> in over two months.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
> Package: pluma 1.20.2-1
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-20.21-generic 4.18.20
> Uname: Linux 4.18.0-20-generic x86_64
> ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13.3
> Architecture: amd64
> CurrentDesktop: MATE
> Date: Wed May 29 21:17:25 2019
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-12-16 (164 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64
> (20181017.2)
> SourcePackage: pluma
> UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/caja/+bug/1830987/+subscriptions
>

[Mike Salvatore (mikesalvatore)]

Robert,

> NTSF does provide owner and group permissions

Right, but they're Windows permissions. Linux uses POSIX permission.

>You are the first one to respond to any of my bug
reports.

I'm glad I could help. I'm sorry you didn't get responses on your previous bugs.

Have I addressed all your concerns? Can we close this bug?

Mike

[Robert Pearson (rpearsonii)]

Go ahead and close the bug. Its too bad that when they “implemented” the
NTFS they did not implement the Windows owner and group attributes.

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 10:51 AM Mike Salvatore <email address hidden>
wrote:

> Robert,
>
> > NTSF does provide owner and group permissions
>
> Right, but they're Windows permissions. Linux uses POSIX permission.
>
> >You are the first one to respond to any of my bug
> reports.
>
> I'm glad I could help. I'm sorry you didn't get responses on your
> previous bugs.
>
>
> Have I addressed all your concerns? Can we close this bug?
>
> Mike
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1830987
>
> Title:
> Cannot change directory owner or group
>
> Status in caja package in Ubuntu:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> When I open the properties window for a Pluma directory open as
> superuser I see the owner and group as root. I know that this is
> incorrect because robert is able to create and delete files. When I
> try and change the owner and group to robert, the option immediately
> changes back to root. This is a security bug and has had no response
> in over two months.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
> Package: pluma 1.20.2-1
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-20.21-generic 4.18.20
> Uname: Linux 4.18.0-20-generic x86_64
> ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13.3
> Architecture: amd64
> CurrentDesktop: MATE
> Date: Wed May 29 21:17:25 2019
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-12-16 (164 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64
> (20181017.2)
> SourcePackage: pluma
> UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/caja/+bug/1830987/+subscriptions
>

[Mike Salvatore (mikesalvatore)]

The NTFS filesystem does not support POSIX permissions.