Re: Fresh install (ubuntu) permissions issues

Hi there,

On Sun, 24 May 2026, backuppc@sundquist... wrote:

> ...
> I reinstalled Apache2 and backuppc.
> ...

That was probably excessive.  Did you see my private mail?

8<----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 May 2026 08:59:25 +0100 (BST)
From: G.W. Haywood <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Fresh install (ubuntu) permissions issues

8<----------------------------------------------------------------------

> One commenter ... had SELinux running and had to write a policy
> ...  I don't have SELinux running.

On Ubuntu I think it's more likely to be AppArmor than SELinux.

> ... One respondent provided some code to add to .../Storage/Text.pm
> to get more info on the error.  I did this and got ...
> ---
> TextFileWrite: Failed to write /etc/backuppc/localhost.pl.new \
> (errno = Read-only file system, uids = 33,113, gids = 33 33,33 33,
> umask = 027, ver = v5.40.1, prog = /usr/bin/perl)
> ---
> ...
> ... the read-only file system message, .. didn't make sense ...

Unless there really is a problem with the filesystem, which is quite
possible but seems to me unlikely, I wonder if that might just be a
misleading error message.  Can you point me to the code that you used
to modify your Text.pm?

> ... plugged in an external drive with a fresh ext4 partition.  Did a
> temporary mount and copied over the contents of /etc/backuppc, then
> remounted it at /etc/backuppc.
> 
> And it worked!  So I must have some bad blocks where /etc/backuppc
> was in the original installation.

There could be an alternative explanation for the symptoms.  I'm
wondering if the /etc/backuppc directory in your temporary mount
doesn't have the same permissions as those in the original mount.
That might explain why you could write to the temporary mount.  If
that's the case then, the problem might be $Conf{UmaskMode} in your
BackupPC's config.pl.  Take a look at that value (it's expressed as
octal digits, they will be 027) and also at

perldoc -f umask

I think perhaps it's the *process* permissions which are too tight for
your setup, not those of files/directories in the filesystem.

You could try changing $Conf{UmaskMode} from 027 to 007 in config.pl.

If there is any temporary '.new' file hanging around after a previous
attempt then if it does not have group write permission you will want
to delete it before trying again - I'm not sure that BackupPC will
change the permissions of an existing file.

-- 

73,
Ged.


_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
[email protected]
List:    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki:    https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki
Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/