Description of problem: Non root users cannot remount a file system read-only Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): util-linux-2.12p-9.14 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. mount /media/usbdisk1 2. mount -o remount,ro /media/usbdisk1 Actual results: mount: only root can do that Expected results: File system is actually remounted read-only Additional info: For a file system which fstab allows the user to mount read-write and unmount, there seems to be no good reason for dissallowing remounting read-only or read-write at any time. Currently "mount --ro /media/usbdisk1" and "mount -r /media/usbdisk1" works as expected "mount -o ro /media/usbdisk1" does not eventhough the man page say they are synonymous.
This entry should have been marked as a feature-request, for some reason bugzilla does not seem to allow that anymore.
There's security reason (don't forget we're taking about sbit util). The mount for non-roots is very limited. You cannot specify (=overwrite fstab) options like -t, -w, -o, -n, -a, ... You have to follow fstab setting only. And it doesn't check for -o arguments -- forbidden is arbitrary -o argument. Maybe this solution is too hard from your point of view, but it's safe and very robust solution.