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"SOLVED" Zorin 9 - problems with backup permissions

Finston Pickle

Mon Feb 20, 2017 1:52:53 pm

I recently learnt a lesson when my Zorin 9, Toshiba laptop could not find my operating system. Fortunately, I had made a backup, which I restored. I now back up regularly on both my Zorin 9, Toshiba laptop and my new Zorin 12, Kratos laptop.

I used backups on both yesterday. Unlike my previous backups, which have worked faultlessly on both machines, I encountered a problem on my Zorin 9, Toshiba laptop. It said it could not back up /home/ubuntu (my computer and Group name)/.cache/dconf or /home/ubuntu/.gvfs and that I should ensure that permissions were changed so they could be accessed.

This gets me into previously uncharted territory!

I used nautilus to look at the two files and saw that the icons had two red crosses at the top and bottom of the icon.

Looking at permissions, I found:

1. For /home/ubuntu/.cache/dconf

Owner: Me

Access: create and delete files

Group: root

Access: none

Others

Access: none


2. For /home/ubuntu/.gvfs

Owner: Me

Access: create and delete files

Group: root

Access: none

Others

Access: none


Easy, I thought - I will look up the permissions of the same files on my Zorin 12, Kratos laptop and copy them on my Zorin 9, Toshiba laptop.

Looking on Zorin 12, Kratos laptop, there was no dconf in /home/ubuntu/.cache/ and no .gvfs in /home/ubuntu/ Also there was nothing showing when I searched /home/ for .gvfs


I did find dconf on my Zorin 12 machine at /home/ubuntu/.config/dconf with permissions of:

Owner: Ubuntu

Access: create and delete files

Group: Ubuntu

Access: create and delete files

Others

Access: access files


The question is what permissions should I set for /home/ubuntu/.cache/dconf and /home/ubuntu/.gvfs on my Zorin 9, Toshiba laptop.

OR should they even be there? What are dconf and .gvfs and what do they do - were they something to do with the restore and are no longer needed to be backed up? Who/what made them inaccessible?

If someone can advise me of the revised permissions I should use, or actions that I should take, I would normally use gksudo nautilus and work in that root? version of nautilus. Is this OK, or is there a superior method that I should use?


I am sorry that this is a rather long posting, F.P.

Swarfendor437

Tue Feb 21, 2017 5:34:42 pm

.gvfs is nothing of system importance in respect of backing up it is not required - answer here:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php ... ost4974258


dconf is just an editor for your system - again no need to back it up as this is just a fine tweaking tool for your system - dconf-editor? ;) :D

Finston Pickle

Thu Feb 23, 2017 7:34:39 pm

Thanks again Swarf, I am reassured.

It seems like permissions / backups know what is important and and saves that which is needed