Q: Problem with OS X file permissions on devices running other file system than "hfs"

1. Different filesystems have different permission models; the simpler ones, such as FAT32, don't support permissions at all.

2. A Time Capsule's internal drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and can be made available as network storage.

(123619)

Read very carefully the -p, --perms discussion in the OS X rsync(1) man page. Useful information on what happens to files sent without the -p flag set, and target system's umask effect on file permissions.

You are talking about local, directly connected filesystems. When connecting to a networked system, everything is going to be a networked file system. Try the smbutil command line tool to see what version of SMB you are mounting. You are unlikely to see full functionality on anything other than an SMB2 volume and even then, all bets are off if you are mounting a NAS. It will be running some unknown version of the open source Samba. Apple is only going to support a Mac bound to a genuine Active Directory domain with Microsoft servers. For anything else, if you can read and write files, you are good to go.

You mentioned Time Capsule. You aren't trying to backup to this drive are you? Time Machine is black magic. Time Machine with a Time Capsule is serious voodoo. I would not trust my files to serious voodoo with an unsupported, open-source, reverse-engineered version of a file system on top of a completely foreign filesystem written by people who have sworn the death of the system you are using.

I'd look at running NFS as it is the native Unix file sharing protocol.  It will be best if you make the shared users have the same numeric values for userid and groupid.  Using smb your permissions are being translated to windows terms.  Don't know the effects on ACLs.

Robert

In addition to the above, at the very least you need to add the -E switch to your rsync:

       -E, --extended-attributes

              Apple specific option to copy extended attributes, resource forks, and ACLs.  Requires at least Mac OS X 10.4 or suitably patched rsync.

flowmac wrote:

 

Agreed, i do not trust TM at all. But you're saying that the apple #1 backup solution, TM in addition to TC, does not work properly? Is this based on experience or gut?

I'm thinking to use TC, which is running native OS X Journaled file system, to then rsync my files and folders to the TC - and i am expecting the exact and correrct attributes on the destination network share provided by the TC. Isn't this all right?

No. I think you've misunderstood. I am a big fan of Time Machine. It is black magic, but that's not bad thing. If you want to have trouble with Time Machine, connect it to a 3rd party NAS device or start making changes to it. Time Machine works best when you plug it in and let it go. I ran Time Machine with a 1st generation Time Capsule for a long time. The Time Capsule died eventually, but Time Machine never flaked out. People tell me that modern Time Capsules run even better. But the important takeaway is to flip the switch on Time Machine (however you connect it) and it it do its thing. Don't interfere. Don't try to do something with rsync. Just let it go.

It isn’t possible to partition the Time Capsule in the normal way; use the Disk Utility to create a disk image of the desired size on it. Time Machine will eventually use up all the free space on the volume it’s backing up to, but won’t do so straight away.

(124039)

flowmac wrote:

 

ah, check, got it.

so i need one TC and aim TM to it, and another TC, running as a fileserver in LAN, right? --> i assume TM will use all the space on a TC for TM backups. Or is it possible to use two partitions on TC, one for TM, one for file services. (This is what i'd expect from a NAS, is this all right with TC, too?) thx

A Time Capsule has a USB port that you can use to plug in an external drive and share that. One volume would be for Time Machine and the other for whatever. It is only Time Machine that really needs a genuine Apple file server though. If you just want a fileserver, you don't have to use a Time Capsule. But the port is there if you want it.

Hello again flowmac,

By default, external partitions have permissions turned off. This is a network volume, but something similar is likely going on. Even if permissions are turned on, your network login may simply report everything as 777. It is nothing to be concerned about.

At TIme Machine volume is special, so you may see correct permissions there.