How do I restore using --fake-super?

[Graham Leggett]

On 08 Apr 2025, at 10:28, Graham Leggett via rsync <rsync at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> Unfortunately all combinations of --fake-super that I have used so far have had the effect of backing up the backup, not restoring the backup.

Looking in the source code, it looks like the difference between rsync performing a --fake-super backup, or rsync performing a --fake-super restore, is whether the rsync binary is running as root or not.

https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/blob/9994933c8ccf7ead27c81fe4ce2eb4e08af20c7f/syscall.c#L119

This sort of makes sense when systems are working, but breaks down in a disaster recovery situation where a rescue disk is involved, and you're always root. In this case rsync is only able to backup, not restore.

My next step is to try set up some users on the rescue environment and try fake a real system, and see if I can get this to work.

Regards,
Graham
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