rsync default handling of permissions

[Stefan Nehlsen]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2002 at 09:25:05AM +1300, Jason Haar wrote:
> This is a "me too". We've just been stung with that too. 

I think rsync is trying to do things like rcp does:

Use the permissions of the source file and apply the umask if -p is not
set.

This makes sense if you use it in an closed environment with
a centralized user base (nis, nis+, ldap ...) and useful set umasks.

permissions of unknown user and groups are useless.

access to rsyncd is typical anonymous or based on it's own user base
( auth users / secrets file in rsyncd.conf ) and so you don't need
and don't want this behaviour.

> "rsync -r file remote::module/" appears to mean that the remote copy of
> "file" indeed ends up with the perms assosiated with the umask of the rsync
> daemon (as it should). However "rsync -r dir remote::module/" appears to
> still transmit the permissions of the dir..
> 
> In fact, this brings up another issue. What if the rsync server
> administrator wants to control permissions? What about a new config option
> "umask = 0770" for instance? That way, irrespective of what options are used
> by the client, the server controls the permissions; explicitly ensuring the
> permissions are always set to that value (setting the umask before starting
> rsync doesn't do the same thing, as this should be settable at the module
> level). 

like samba is doing it

> At the moment doesn't there seem to be a bit too much relying on the client
> to "do the right thing"?

If cp, rcp or scp is used it is easy to put permissions right

  chgrp -R test <dir>; chmod -R ug+rwX,o-rwx <dir> ; find <dir> -type d -print | xargs chmod g+s

will do the job, but it also mess up the modification times.


rsync should do this right by itself.


cu, Stefan
-- 
Stefan Nehlsen | ParlaNet Administration | sn at parlanet.de | +49 431 988-1260