Re: Numerical owners

Wiebe Cazemier wrote:
> Denis,

Hello Wiebe,

> 
> I have a request for a non-feature :). 

:-)

>Please, never implement mapping
> UIDs and GIDs to names. Rdiff-backup didn't use to do it, but it does
> now. The author implemented an option to preserve numerical ids on my
> request, but it's not default behaviour. Tar, rsync and rdiff-backup all
> three map to names by default, but fall back to UID's when no name is
> found.
> 
> But because it's very likely you'll be restoring a dar backup from a
> livecd, which has different UIDs-to-names matches than the system you
> backed up, it's very easy to mess up your entire system when
> restoring/making a backup. If the "bin" user for example has a different
> UID on the livecd, the files will have the wrong owner once you boot
> into your restored system.
> 
> In my opinion, the backup should be as low-level as possible by default,
> to avoid making a mistake by forgetting an option. As far as I know, dar
> is the only backup program which is robust enough in that manner, and
> thefore the best program to use for system backups. The irony is, that
> it's not that well-known a backup tool als rdiff-backup, rsync and tar.
> So, a lot of people will have incorrect backups, or accidently make a
> mistake and forget the --numerical option upon restoration.

Well, the argumentation you present here is just what I was missing for. 
Intuitively, I was against doing UID/GID mapping to names (I had to 
reject twice this type of feature request ; my argumentation was a 
little weak for what I remember).

But now this definitively makes sense to not do UID or GID mapping to 
names. The most caracteristic situtation is when the /etc/password file 
is part of the backup itslef, and the restoration is done in the live 
system : two files of same owner could be restored as owner by different 
users/group if the /etc/password file is restored between them...

Thanks you for your feedback,

Kind Regards,
Denis.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEJvgDpC5CI8gYGlIRAsNAAKC+jdbV85J7f8t467BgBLFQuwbQ4QCfdEbE
yJVjiTbO7TjW0BNMVTfGQ9Q=
=HFhp
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----