Here's the story: I'm on a breezy laptop. In the other room, I have a FC2 server with this /etc/exports /home/stephen 192.168.0.101(sync) /mnt/windows 192.168.0.101(sync) /home/stephen 24.108.141.82(sync) I won't explain the two exports for /home/stephen unless you think I should. Ok so on my breezy laptop I do this from my user console: ~$ mkdir sroom stephen@ubuntu:~$ ls -l drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-20 20:16 Desktop drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-22 18:26 sroom Note that stephen owns sroom. Then I do this from a root console # mount sroom:/home/stephen /home/stephen/sroom root@ubuntu:/home/stephen# ls -l drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-20 20:16 Desktop drwx------ 93 500 500 12288 2005-09-21 07:38 sroom Huh? 500.500? 500 does not appear as a uid or guid in my user listings. But ok, I try from my user console: ~$ cd sroom bash: cd: sroom: Permission denied No surprise. Things are strange. Wait! There's more. Let's do this from my root console: # mkdir /home/stephen/sroom.windows # mount sroom:/mnt/windows /home/stephen/sroom.windows # ls -l drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-20 20:16 Desktop drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-22 18:26 sroom drwxrwxrwx 57 root root 32768 1969-12-31 16:00 sroom.windows and from my user console: $ cd sroom.windows $ ls <long listing of files deleted> Well! Maybe root has some magic. So with the root console in /home/stephen I do this: # umount sroom # rm -rf sroom # mkdir sroom # mount sroom:/home/stephen /home/stephen/sroom # ls -l drwxr-xr-x 2 stephen stephen 4096 2005-09-20 20:16 Desktop drwx------ 93 500 500 12288 2005-09-21 07:38 sroom drwxrwxrwx 57 root root 32768 1969-12-31 16:00 sroom.windows So? I'm perplexed. Any ideas?