Question about owner and groups being displayed as numbers

nukey · 09-20-2005, 03:50 PM

Slack 10.2

On some folders/files the owner and group are not displayed as the usernames/groupnames but as numbers.

I have seen this a few times on different directory's

The one I'm looking at now is a directory that is a rsync from a slackware-mirror.
It makes kinda sense because I use the -a option with rsync (witch also includes to keep permissions and owner). Maybe this is causing it.

But I can also remeber seeing it on other files too.

Anyway ,

1) what exactly is causing this ?
2) and, is it bad ?

uopjohnson · 09-20-2005, 04:02 PM

I don't think it is "bad" usually what happens is a UID (the number you are seeing) is translated into a local user name on your machine. So in fact Every file on your computer is owned by a number 1001 or 501 or whatever. However, when you RSYNC from somewhere they may have a user with a number that simply does not exist on your machine in which case you see the number. I suppose that this could get dangerous if at some future date a malicious user was assigned this UID and then could access these files.

nukey · 09-20-2005, 04:19 PM

So, basicly I have 2 options, run rsync with different options or chown -R the directory

Actually, the rsync option is the only _real_ solution

, i'll check it out.

Hope I won't see this behavior somewhere else

Thanks !

uopjohnson · 09-20-2005, 04:25 PM

I guess it depends on what you are rsyncing. If you are backing up your own stuff you should keep the ownership intact to avoid a lot of confusion if you need to recover everything. Then just make sure you assign all of your users the same UID wen you reinstall. take a look at /etc/passwd the username is in third space User:x:UID:GID:etc

davidsrsb · 09-20-2005, 10:15 PM

I have had this numbered ids problem when using going through putty and then su to another user.

nukey · 09-21-2005, 09:47 AM

Just checked it, removed some dir, run rsync NOT with the -a option, and the numbers are gone ;-)