whoops! forgot the backticks around ls: for a in `ls`;do chown -R $a:$a $a;done
this happened because I'm still updating my old bad habit of using * here, which would not have needed the ``. anyway, I'm sure I've spouted enough nonsense. hoping for the best for you! -wes On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 9:25 PM, wes <[email protected]> wrote: > hurray! a question I can help with! > > firstly, welcome Joe. > > as you've noticed, the numerical UID and GID is preserved during backup. > If the restore is done in the same fashion as the backup, the numerical UID > and GID will also be preserved during restore. It's up to the machine the > file is being accessed from (as opposed to the machine the file is being > stored on) to determine what names those numbers correspond to. > > this is a common problem with any backup software. unfortunately, often a > restore is needed after a total crash of a machine, thus having the name/ID > matchup either disappear (you DO backup your passwd file, right?) or become > out of sync or otherwise fubar. If you're backing up the entire system, > this should not be an issue. If you're only backing up user data, this may > well be a problem. > > people doing restores often have to go through the process of chown/chmod > after restoring. when I restore many users' data (ok, I only actually did > this once) I ran a loop in bash to chown the files to the name of the > directory under /home. in my case, the directories had the same names as > the users. I don't recall the exact incantation, and I'm sure I tried > several times before I got it right. something along the lines of: > > for a in ls;do chown -R $a:$a $a;done > > so for the following contents of /home: > > central joe vince wes > > we should see a loop 4 times of this: > > chown -R central:central central > chown -R joe:joe joe > chown -R vince:vince vince > chown -R wes:wes wes > > obviously, this gets more complicated if you're restoring more than just > user data, or if your users' primary groups are not their own groups (and > they are different; if they're the same, just specify that instead of the > variable). > > hopefully some of this makes sense. please feel free to respond back with > any further questions you may have :) > > -wes > > > On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Joe Aquilina <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hello all. >> >> I am relatively new to Linux and even more so to Dirvish. I have >> inherited the admin of a system where some of our machines are backed >> up nightly via dirvish to a central server. The current system has >> been in place for some years and I am just beginning to learn about >> how it all works. We haven't yet had to restore anything yet which is >> good because I am not yet sure of exactly how to do that. >> Experimenting with that on another computer as I type here... >> >> My question relates to UIDs and GIDs of user accounts on the systems >> being backed up. On these systems, there a number of users, some of >> which are duplicated across the various machines, usually with >> different UIDs and/or GIDs on the various machines. These are also >> different to the IDs used on the corresponding accounts on the backup >> server. >> >> When I look at the backups on the server after they complete, the >> directories &files have the UIDs and GIDS for the accounts as they >> exist on the backup server. These correspond to the numeric IDS from >> the machines that have been backed up. >> >> For example, there may be an account called joe, in group joe on a >> machine to be backed up with a UID of 1002 and a GID of 1003. When >> the backup completes, and I check it, everything has an owner for >> example of central and a group of vince. These correspond to accounts >> on the backup server of central with a UID of 1002 and a GID of 1003. >> Hope this makes sense. >> >> Does this matter? Is there going to be a problem if I restore the >> files back to the original machine? Will the UID & GID revert back to >> joe when the restore is done? Do I need to change anything on the >> system(s) for future backup runs to avoid this? >> >> Do you need any more information (e.g. contents of master.conf, >> default.conf, rsync command for the backup or anything else) to be >> able to assist with this query? >> >> I am hoping I am worrying about nothing but I don't fully understand >> dirvish yet so am a bit apprehensive about changing anything (and >> shudder at the thought of possibly having to change all the UIDs and >> GIDS on the various machines and then changing all the files!) I have >> other dirvish questions but will follow up with those if I can't work >> out an answer for myself. Thanks in advance. >> >> Joe Aquilina >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dirvish mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.dirvish.org/mailman/listinfo/dirvish >> > >
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