Rsync Users and Groups

[Paul Slootman]

On Fri 24 Jun 2022, Kevin Korb via rsync wrote:

> Nope.  Rsync groups are not groups of users they are just @users with their
> own password.  I believe the @ just designates that you intend multiple
> people to have that password and use that username.

I think I have to disagree here.

The manpage for rsyncd.conf states:

   In addition to username matching, you can specify groupname matching
   via a '@' prefix. When using groupname matching, the authenticating
   username must be a real user on the system, or it will be assumed to
   be a member of no groups. For example, specifying "@rsync" will match
   the authenticating user if the named user is a member of the rsync
   group.

So the user used by the client rsync should exist on the system and
belong to the specified system group for any permissions that are given
to that group in rsyncd.conf to be applicable. The password will still
need to be set in the secrets file, no system passwords are used.

Check the rsyncd.conf manpage, heading "auth users".


Paul