"Back In Time (root)" problem claimed in a blog post (lacking details)

[ken-bell]

Has anybody come across this issue as described in the blog URL below?

http://unix.cafe/wp/en/2017/09/restore-ownership-octal-permissions-backup

Quoting here; this is not something I experienced myself
I was able to see the /root contents. I mean my normal daily used user was able to read and write to /root, /boot, /usr …etc. WTH! I said! When I checked their permissions I found that they were really a mess. Some of them were even being owned by my user instead of the right owner.!

I ran to the older snapshots I have, that were taken by CrashPlan, and compared the permissions. Guess what? Yeah you’re right they were indeed different. Then I realized that, there must be a real nasty bug in the Back In Time. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to discover this issue before it was kinda too late.
End Quote

The blog post lacks all detail as to how this problem was triggered, so I'm just wondering.

Thanks.
Ken

[buhtz]

I asked the blogger to add more informations to this issue here.

[DeaDSouL]

Hello,
I don't know what exactly triggered it. All I remember I started the 'Back In Time' as a normal user, and tried to backup the 'home' and some of the system's directories. and I was getting some error that the some files couldn't be backed-up because of the permissions. I removed the snapshots, and closed the app. This time I opened the 'Back In Time (root)' it complained about something with the mounting.. I closed it, tried to umount the directory in /tmp/backintime if I recall it correctly. then removed the folder's contents manually from the remote location.
then I re-start the app and start taking the backups and snapshots.
And it was encrypted with encfs.

That's all I did.

those are the packages were installed: 'backintime-common' and 'backintime-kde4'

here are some info of the packages:
0 ✓ root@workstation ~ $ urpmq -i backintime-kde4
Name : backintime-kde4
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 288322 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : KDE Frontend for Back In Time
Description :
KDE Frontend for Back In Time.

Name : backintime-kde4
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.2.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 288322 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.2.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : KDE Frontend for Back In Time
Description :
KDE Frontend for Back In Time.

Name : backintime-kde4
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 288322 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : KDE Frontend for Back In Time
Description :
KDE Frontend for Back In Time.

Name : backintime-kde4
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.2.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 288322 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.2.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : KDE Frontend for Back In Time
Description :
KDE Frontend for Back In Time.

0 ✓ root@workstation ~ $ urpmq -i backintime-common
Name : backintime-common
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 1309443 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : Back Up Tool for Linux
Description :
Common files for Back In Time

Name : backintime-common
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.2.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 1309443 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.2.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : Back Up Tool for Linux
Description :
Common files for Back In Time

Name : backintime-common
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 1309443 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : Back Up Tool for Linux
Description :
Common files for Back In Time

Name : backintime-common
Version : 1.0.36
Release : 3.2.mga5
Group : Archiving/Backup
Size : 1309443 Architecture: noarch
Source RPM : backintime-1.0.36-3.2.mga5.src.rpm
URL : http://backintime.le-web.org
Summary : Back Up Tool for Linux
Description :
Common files for Back In Time

And I'm using Mageia 5. Linux 4.4.88-desktop-1.mga5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 14 00:03:58 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Thanks

[buhtz]

Do you still use version 1.0.36 it is quite outdated?
Can you try to reproduce the problem with current development version?

Please feel free to ask if you need help to build/install the development version.

[buhtz]

@DeaDSouL and @ken-bell There is a new forming maintaining team and we do review all issues. Is this problem still relevant for you or did you find a solution?

[emtiu]

Closed as outdated and not reproducable.