Rsync and permissions - rsync version 2.6.4 protocol version 29

Wayne Davison wayned at samba.org
Mon Nov 7 22:48:29 GMT 2005


On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 03:45:14PM +0000, Steve Tucknott wrote:
> chown GENERO/uk/reinsure/prod/rel/dbmodify.4gl : Operation not permitted
> 
> The source file has owner/group stevet:dev and the target stevet:users

Rsync is trying to change the group to match, and that is failing.

> The files are being rsync'd as user 'fyl' - fyl belongs to both dev and
> users group.

Yes, but a non-root user can't change the group on a file that the
transferring user doesn't own -- thus the error.  If you touch the
source file (changing its mtime) and let rsync update the file, the
ownership will change from stevet to fyl, and the group will then be
able to be updated.  Alternately, run rsync as root on the receiving
side.

> The 'oddity' is that if the command rsync -auvPn  is used to check
> before doing the actual copy

That's not enough to see everything that will change, since rsync
doesn't output permissions or group changes at level one verbosity
unless -i was also specified (in which case -v isn't required).  The
--itemize-changes (-i) option is available in recent versions of rsync.

..wayne..


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