Hello Linux Helpdesk. ;)

I use Fedora (currently 40), and have done for a while.

I always LUKS+Ext4 encrypt my local drive and decided to do the same to my external hard drive.

Last week I reinstalled Fedora 40 from a Bootable USB, but when I tried to access my files om my external drive it now gives me the error

You do not have permission to view the content of “Files”.

I’ve read online it’s due to me no longer being the “Owner” of the drive I was in my previous install of Fedora and now I’m a different user and apparently no users a part from Owner have any permissions on an EXT4+LUKS drive.

Is there any way to give myself permission to see the content again or did I bonk my backup? As a note, I DO have the correct Luks password, it shows me the name of the encrypted disk after decrypting, which is “Files”

Thank you in advance.

Edit: Thank you everybody, thanks to you I’ve been able to rescue my files. Y’all deserve a great day!

  • wildbus8979
    3·
    2 months ago

    sudo chown -R youruser:youruser /path/to/mountpoint

    Will make all the files in the path owned by you. Be careful if you have more complex permissions on there they will be lost.

    • drid@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Will try tomorrow when I get up.

      Would /dev/sda suffice as mounting point or?

      Haven’t set any permissions outside standard given ones by usage.

      Thanks for answering.

      • mlfh@lemmy.ml
        2·
        2 months ago

        /dev/sda is the whole raw disk - you typically don’t want to directly interact with /dev/sda, unless you are partitioning or overwriting it. There are a few layers between that device and the files:

        • raw disk - /dev/sda
        • disk partition - /dev/sda1
        • luks container - when unlocked, mapped to /dev/mapper/{name}
        • ext4 filesystem inside the luks container, mounted somewhere like /mnt, /media, etc

        You’ll need to find where that ext4 filesystem is mounted, and run the chown command on that. You can run lsblkand see a tree of the above hierarchy, with the ext4 filesystem’s mountpount shown in the right-hand column.

      • wildbus8979
        1·
        2 months ago

        You need the mount point not the device. Probably something like /media/Files

    • FigMcLargeHugeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Will make all the files in the path owned by you. Be careful if you have more complex permissions on there they will be lost.

      This is where ACL permissions would help. He could give his new id ACL permissions to the files and that wouldn’t mess with the current permissions.

      From the root/beginning subdir: sudo setfacl -R -m u:{replace with your new id}:rwx .