Shell attributes change after copy & execution fails

Question

I create a test shell script in my Desktop directory, make it executable and it runs OK. I copy it to a mounted SD chip and the attributes change and execution fails.

Here is a test example. Note the command prompt is the working directory. It was slightly edited (added blank lines and deleted some prompts) for clarity.

I don't understand why the attributes change and why the script fails.

## print file test.sh contents
Desktop>>  cat test.sh    
#!/bin/bash                    
echo 'Works OK'
Desktop>>

## list file attributes to verify it is executable. 
##Note attributes. They change after file copy.
Desktop>>  ls -al test.sh                           
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 ron ron 28 Feb 16 13:41 test.sh       
Desktop>>

## run the shell
## shell output is correct.
Desktop>>  ./test.sh                                
Works OK 
Desktop>>

## copy shell to SD chip
Desktop>>  cp test.sh /media/removable/10-EDC/org   
Desktop>>

## change to SD chip 
Desktop>>  cd /media/removable/10-EDC/org
org>>

##list file attributes. Note that they have changed.
## org>>  ls -al test.sh                               
-rwxrwxrwx. 1 ron ron 28 Feb 16 14:58 test.sh
org>>

## run the shell. Fails.
org>>  ./test.sh                                    
bash: ./test.sh: Permission denied
org>> 

OS is Ubuntu 16.04.

It has been suggested that it may have something to do with the way the SD chip was formatted. I believe it is formatted as msdos (fat??) for compatibility with other machines. I have no experience in this (formatting issues) area.

Any assistance appreciated.

Answer 1

It depends how the SD card is mounted. A mount option is "noexec", which forbids execution of everything on the mounted device. So please check your mount options using mount (without parameters)(mount | grep media may restrict the output to your SD Card).

And yes, if the device is formatted for VFAT (as usual for SD cards, unless they are meant for a Raspberry), it won't support the User/Group/Other access flags not the Exec flag, so how these are handled is directed by mount options.