RHEL 7 and Samba Permissions in Windows
I can access my RHEL 7 server just fine from my Windows machine. I can create/edit/delete with no problems. One thing I can't do is change the file attributes like the read-only flag.
A file is owned by root and the group for the file is also root.
Owner and group have rwx on the file.
A windows user (let's call it winuser) can do anything to this file except change the read-only attribute.
I have a "winuser" user created on the RHEL server and it has root as its primary group.
The only way I seem to be able to modify the file attributes is to make winuser the owner of the file. Any ideas why?
Even if I change the group for the file to winuser, it still does not allow the attributes to be changed from Windows.
I'm thinking maybe this is a Samba configuration issue? Like I said, from the Windows machine I can do everything else: create/delete/edit. I just can't change the attributes. Am I out of luck here? Is this just not allowed unless the user is the owner?
Thanks.

Responses
Neil - Please provide a little more information about your configuration.
- SAMBA version.
- SAMBA share configuration.
- View a sample file's permissions, from both the Microsoft Windows side and the RHEL 7 side.
Neil - Thank you for providing that information.
On a general note, I don't think you should be using the 'root' user or group to secure files and folders intended for use by "general" users. The "root" user has special significance in Unix-like operating systems, as you probably know.
In this case I suggest you:
1. Create a new group for the "winuser" user, for the purposes of testing this scenario.
2. Grant ownership of the file to the new group (created in step 1).
3. Test to see if the "winuser" can modify the attributes of the file.
4. Have the "winuser" create a new file and test that user's access to the file (including ability to change permissions).
I would recommend you review the information contained at [1]. The book's revision is quite old but I believe this information is still accurate.
[1] http://oreilly.com/openbook/samba/book/ch05_03.html
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