Re: [rdiff-backup-users] restore by non-root users

[Ben Escoto]

On Mon, Dec 30, 2002 at 09:29:10AM -0700, Brad Reisfeld wrote:
> I run a cron job to perform directory mirroring using rdiff-backup. This
> creates an 'rdiff-backup-data' directory with permissions 700 for root. I
> believe that this policy will permit only root to carry out restore
> procedures. I would like to allow each user to perform restores of his or
> her data as needed.
> Is this simply a matter of relaxing the permissions on 'rdiff-backup-data'
> and/or its subdirectories? Are there problems with this approach? Are there
> other ways around this 'problem'?

Yes, if you just change the permissions and/or ownership of
rdiff-backup-data and any desired subdirectories, it should work.
There is a complication though: suppose user A owns directory /foo at
time 1 and B owns it at time 2.  Who owns the
rdiff-backup-data/increments/foo subdir?  Either way one A or B is
going to see which files the other had.  Of course in some
circumstances (e.g. a user's home directory) this may not arise.  Oh,
and if you give the user his/her backup directory the user might screw
it up - it would be best if you made it read-only somehow.


-- 
Ben Escoto

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