Bug 431136

Summary:	Request: Allow bup to make backups of root folders
Product:	[Applications] kup	Reporter:	Nicola Pfister <nicola.pfister>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Simon Persson <simon.persson>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	Die_Adresse, nate, nicola.pfister
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	0.8.0
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Nicola Pfister 2021-01-04 09:27:10 UTC

SUMMARY
When selecting system folders to make a backup, kup notifies that the folder can't be accessed and proposes to exclude it. I'd like to make backups of system folders using kup though but as it stands there is no useful way to achieve this.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Create new bup backup plan
2. Add /etc to backup plan
3. Don't exclude inaccessible folders.

OBSERVED RESULT
Permission denied on executing backup.

EXPECTED RESULT
Some way of caching root privileges to include root folders in backup

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: 5.10.4

KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.77.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2

kup: 0.8.0-3
bup: 0.31-3

Comment 1 Simon Persson 2021-01-25 02:02:49 UTC

I decided some time ago that system backup is not a goal for Kup, it's intended for personal files only. If you still want to use kup for this purpose then perhaps you can make the problematic files readable by a "backup" group and add your login user to this group.

Comment 2 MrFrank 2021-02-12 23:38:13 UTC

I just ran into the same use case.
Would it be feasible to skip the files which are not readable? Folders can be excluded, however, not single files.
I know you said backup of system files was not your primary intention, so just a thought ...

As this request is marked as "resolved" not sure if anyone is still reading this anyway.

Comment 3 Simon Persson 2021-03-15 06:10:15 UTC

Sorry for the late reply. Busy days. I decided quite early in the development of Kup that I didn't want to give people a false sense of security. So I never considered silently skipping files with problems. You could perhaps show a warning popup window or such. But I would still be hesitant to label that backup as successful (used for scheduling).

Comment 4 MrFrank 2021-03-15 19:58:23 UTC

Thanks for response - yes, makes of course sense!
I created an anacron job to copy the (only readable) files to a new a directory and then use kup to get the KDE integration beauty.