Root access over ssh?

[Jim Salter]

There are any number of reasons you might still need or want rsync to 
run as root.  For one, if you're rsyncing *to* the remote machine rather 
than *from* it, you might want to preserve access times, permissions, 
and ownerships - and you've got to be root on the remote system in order 
to do that; otherwise you get stuck with everything being owned by you 
and datestamped with the current time (which among other things will 
prevent your properly being able to use datestamp at a later date to 
determine which files and directories need updating when you rsync again).

You might also be planning on moving lots of users' files, which a 
non-root account might not be able to access in the directories on the 
remote end.

Jim Salter
JRS Systems


Brian Chase wrote:

> I'm not the command line guru, but it is my understanding that if you've 
> got rsyncd running at boot time, any user can rsync over ssh to his or 
> her home directories without requiring root access.
> 
> I can't imagine a time when you'd need them to access other directories, 
> except maybe /var/html and subs, but if you do, symbolic links and a few 
> chmod's might be in order to accomplish this.
> 
> Hope to hear more from others on this to either confirm or rebuke my 
> assertions.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> BC
> 
> Paul Galbraith wrote:
> 
>> Is it possible to configure rsync in server mode, to gain access to 
>> root protected files, without the user having to log in as root 
>> through ssh?
>>
>> I'd prefer to login as a regular user through ssh and access an rysnc 
>> server on the host that's running as root.  As far as I can tell, 
>> however, that's not possible...am I wrong?
> 
> 
>