Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Changing ownership of files in archive

[Robert Nichols]

On 10/23/2011 03:51 PM, zero wrote:
> In the manual for rdiff-backup it says that one shouldn't change data in a
> backup archive, because this will make it impossible to get back old (changed
> files). But what about changing metadata? What will happen if I change the
> owner of all files in an archive? Is there any reason not to do this?
>
> The reason I ask this is because I have an archive on an external drive that
>  I used on one computer to backup a folder. I then plugged the same external
>  drive into another computer, with the idea that I would restore the folder
> to the new computer, and use the same backup archive to continue doing
> backups of the same folder on the new system. But since the user on the old
> system doesn't exist I cannot get rdiff-backup to work. So the easy solution
> is is to change the ownership of all files, but I want to make sure that
> this won't lead to any trouble.

Can't this be handled with the --user-mapping-file and
--group-mapping-file options described in the "USERS AND GROUPS" section
of the manual?  If not, it would help if you would describe what you
have tried and what the result or specific error was.  Just saying
"cannot get rdiff-backup to work" isn't terribly useful.

Just changing the ownership of files in the mirror probably isn't going to
do what you want.  Rdiff-backup is still going to try to restore the user
and group names recorded in the metadata files in the rdiff-backup-data
directory.

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