Re: [rdiff-backup-users] File ownership on a portable drive

[Robert Nichols]

On 12/04/2012 05:44 PM, Grant wrote:
>  >> > All the owner and group IDs (both the names and the numeric IDs) are
>  >> > kept in the mirror_metadata files.  By default, rdiff-backup will try to
>  >> > restore to the same owner and group _names_.  You can use the
>  >> > "--preserve-numerical-ids" option to restore to the same numeric
>  >> > UIDs/GIDs.
>  >>
>  >> That's great.  Does the same sort of thing apply to file permissions?  If 
> so, I
>  >> can mangle owners, groups, and permissions as badly as I want and they'll 
> still
>  >> be perfectly preserved when I restore?
>  >
>  >
>  > Any writing to the mirror other than by rdiff-backup itself is highly
>  > discouraged, but all of the metadata (ownership, permissions, ACLs, ...)
>  > is stored separately from the mirror and should restore correctly. All
>  > bets are off, though, if you add, delete, or change the contents of any
>  > file there.
>
> Can I have the correct ownership and permissions re-applied to the mirror?

I don't know of any simple way to do that, unless you consider writing a
script to parse the current mirror_metadata file and apply the permissions
as "simple".  Those permissions aren't really significant except when you
are copying files directly from the mirror rather than using rdiff-backup
to do the restore.  The repository can, after all, reside on file systems
not compatible with Unix ownership/permissions (with varying degrees of
success, alas).

--
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                Do NOT delete it.