Daily Cup of Tech

Ryan sent an e-mail a few days ago with a problem between DeltaCopy and FreeNAS. It seems that everything copies just fine but then locks him out.

Hello,

I recently came across your website and I love it!!! I have a question about one of your articles that I was hoping you might be able to help me with (I understand that you not in the business of tech support..but hey). I went through your FreeNAS how to article and was, amazingly, able to get my system up and running relatively easily. But when I configure Rsync with Deltacopy, I run into a problem where I do not have “permission” to access the files that are automatically backed up to the FreeNas server. In other words, Rsync and Delta copy do their thing and seem to do it correctly, but when I try to access the files that have been backed up. I get network permission errors and file permission errors. Is this something that you came across when you tested this? I’m running Windows XP SP2, the latest Freenas, and a linksys router. Any information you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Again, very nice website.

Ryan.

First of all, Ryan, thanks for the kind works. I’m always glad to hear that people enjoy reading DCoT. Now, if only I could make money at it!

Now, for your technical request. The problem that you are having is with the file permissions that are set on the FreeNAS drive. By default, only the root account has access to these files.

Reset Permissions

There are two ways that you can solve this problem. The first is to change the permissions on all the files. This is a relatively easy process. Simply go to the Command section of the Diagnostics menu. Enter the following command:

chmod -R 777 /mnt/<sharename>

where <sharename> is the name of the share that you wish to reset permissions on. For example, if your share name was Backup, you would execute the command:

This would reset the permissions on all of the files in the Backup share.

Click on the Execute button once you have entered the command correctly.

Now, if you browse to your share with Windows Explorer, the files should now be available.

Change File Systems

Another way that you can avoid this problem is to change the file system on your FreeNAS server. If you choose a file system that does not support file permission (e.g. FAT32), then there is no real way that permission can be set on the files and no way that you can be denied access to the files from a file permission level.

Note: It is still possible to lock people out from accessing the files from a share level.

Recommendations

Both of these solutions will work and provide you with what you need i.e. access to your files. But, I lean toward the first solution because it allows you to both backup and secure your files on an ongoing basis. This way, if you need to recover some lost data, only you can get access to it.

But, if you are in an environment where you trust those who have access to your FreeNAS box (e.g. your home system), then I would say the second solution would work just fine for you.

I hope that helps, Ryan.  Thanks for the question.

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