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3

Can you bypass filesystem permissions?

rated 0 times [ 3] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 8182 / 2 Years ago, wed, december 22, 2021, 8:36:15

I was using Fedora 18 until this morning when I accidently wiped some system files while make a live USB, I cannot load Fedora or get into the system. Now I am running Ubuntu 12.04 on a live USB. I have some important documents, some photos and music. I attempted to access the files through nautilus, and I was told I did not have permission. I also attempted to access through terminal, with sudo it told me cd was not a command, without sudo it said access denied.

I have an external harddrive ready to copy the files, and I am hoping that its not a total loss.

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urnaetted

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answered 2 Years ago eighethod · Accepted Answer

Ubuntu does not mount your real hard disk but you should be able to copy your data to an external hard easily enough.

First Boot from the USB and select try Ubuntu

I'm using the 12.04 CD to do this

Now press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a termininal

In the terminal enter the following command

sudo -i

Then

nautilus

enter image description here

This opens nautilus (the file manager) as root. Do not close the terminal.

enter image description here

Note: In the section down the left hand side of nautilus "File System" is the virtual file system of the live session not a real file system you real hard drives are shown as devices. In my case the device was "959cf23..."

As you are root you can now copy and paste any data you want to keep to external storage.

You can change ownership and permissions of the files by selecting properties
enter image description here

enter image description here

Alternatively don't worry about permissions for now as you can always change the permissions again from the other OS or you can make them all accessible to every one with

sudo chmod -R 777 /path/to/external/drive

Replacing /path/to/external/drive with the correct path. Warning: Make sure you type this correcly as sudo chmod -R 777 / path/to/external/drive for example will change permissions for the entire file system.

Then you can re-install the OS you want and restore your data from the backup.