how to format a usb drive with a freebsd partition

[David Adam]

Steve,

On Mon, 16 May 2005, Steve wrote:
> I have a 120 gig western digital usb drive with a FAT32 file system
> connected to a freebsd 5.3 box that I can mount and read/write to okay
> .  But (and I think this is correct) when I backup files from my freebsd
> 5.3 box to this drive, the file permissions aren't being maintained.  That
> is because it's a FAT32 files system correct?  I've always in the past
> backed up linux/freebsd files to other linux/freebsd boxes so this is the
> first time I'm dealing with this.
>
> What is the correct way to format this FAT32 usb drive so I can put freebsd
> files on it and maintain the proper owner and file permissions.

The FAT32 file system on your removable drive does not support permissions
or owner/group security. (You may not have noticed, but it doesn't support
symlinks either.)

In order to transfer files maintaining the metadata, you have two options:
- Reformat the drive to use UFS(FFS) or Ext2/3. This will involve less
work in the long term, but will make copying files to a Windows machine
impossible.
- Archive the files you want to transfer in a .tar.gz file (tar cvzf *)
and copy the resulting file to the drive. This will allow you to maintain
permissions and symlinks, but will require more work every time you want
to transfer files.

Hope that helps!

(This sort of thread really belongs on -questions at .)

David Adam
zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au