(Solved)Setting up a external HD for backup.

[roly]

I have a external 3 terraB hard drive that I would like to setup to do backups on my wife's and my PC's. It uses USB.
I seem to be able to have perrmissions for either my PC or her's but not both.
We are both running Mageia 4.
roly

[doktor5000]

Could you show an excerpt of ls -al of one folder so we can see what you're actually talking about?

Do you want to access the files of both users as both users, and read/write the files of the other user?
Also, what filesystem do you use?

[roly]

>>Could you show an excerpt of ls -al of one folder so we can see what you're actually talking about?
I tried to do this but either I am having a senoir moment or I cannot do it. :O{

I am attaching 2 screen prints of the two partitions I have setup; scrn3 is the partition for my wife and scrn4 is for me.

>>Do you want to access the files of both users as both users, and read/write the files of the other user?
>>Also, what filesystem do you use?

What I am trying to set up with this exteral drive is that it can be pluged into my system or hers, both running Mageia 4.1, and the proper partition will mount and we can copy our files we want to backup to the mounted partition. We do not need to access each others partition.

The file system I formated the partitions to is "ext4".

[doktor5000]

As you're using ext4, you need to care about directory and file permissions. Make sure all directories are readable and executable for others,
and files should also at least be readable for others. For more information check the following links:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions ... sions-ext4
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/questi ... d-on-ext4/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/12009/so ... ltiple-lin

You could also add your user and your wife's user to some common group like "users" and then run something as root like

Code: Select all

chown -R :users /mountpoint

when that partition is mounted below /mountpoint.
That way you don't have to change the permissions- although that will only work if the newly created files belong to the common group.
To ensure that, set the sticky bit for the group on all directories:
http://superuser.com/questions/277775/e ... -the-group

[benmc]

could you attach a screen shot of your 3TB drive when attached to your system and your wifes as well.
to get this particular screen shot, change your screen shot capture mode to : rectangular region, then use the mouse, left click and drag to create a rectangular area

permisssion.png (41.05 KiB) Viewed 1379 times

insert drive, launch dolphin., lefthand pane of dolphin window should show places and your drive should be the last one listed.
click on the drive. it should change colour.
from the dolphin menu bar choose file and then properties:

properties.png (52.31 KiB) Viewed 1379 times

[roly]

Sorry to be slow, we loost power for over 24 hours.

For the last while, weeks, the updates have been messing up my system, rights, blowing away libre office, etc.

So I am not sure whats affecting me.
attached are two more screen shots requested.
roly

[benmc]

Nice wallpaper - from Hubble?

anyway. I am guessing you have made up 2 folders in the drive.
Roly backup + ? backup-, or something like that?

could you also show this line on the general tab:

general.png (44.08 KiB) Viewed 1353 times

"mounted on: /run/media/work/Data Traveller 4G"

[roly]

Yes I have many huble shots.

[benmc]

If you change your :group " users " to :group " roly " on your permissions tab, that should correct the problem.

[roly]

Only for me,what about Sue?

[doktor5000]

If you change your :group " users " to :group " roly " on your permissions tab, that should correct the problem.

That would correct what problem exactly?

@roly: Can you please show the output of

Code: Select all

id roly
id sue
mount | grep media

The last one for each box where the external drive is connected.

As you're attaching the external drive to two computers, and on each computer you have one account (sue and roly)
it's first a question if both have the same user and group id. If they are the first or the only user on those machines,
they will both have user-id and group id set as 500. In that case you won't have to set up anything.
This would also explain why one folder is shown owned by roly on one machine, and owned by sue on the other machine.
(That is, if I interpreted the screenshots correctly).

On a related note, please stop those screenshots - the way they are currently, they're pretty meaningless.
You can't even see from which object the permissions are shown, and they miss information on what box they were taken
and what is shown there. On one screenshot you show the permissions of /home, on the other of /run/media/roly.

[roly]

Sorry, the screen shots were requested by a poster higher up.

The problem is solved. I pluged into sue's pc then as root setup her partion.

Thanks for your help.
roly