Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Post-setup questions

[Maarten Bezemer]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2011, Grant wrote:

> If I were to set up a separate user for each pushed backup and one of
> the systems were compromised, only the compromised system's backups
> would be accessible to the attacker (read/write unfortunately).

No. It would indeed be read/write which is a no-go for most serious backup 
systems (lose the primary, and all you have left is a compromised backup, 
potentially no backup at all). And another risk would be that the attacker 
finds some way to elevate her privileges on the backup server due to some 
but in rdiff-backup, python or something similar. In which case the entire 
backup server would be compromised.

> > > I tried to set this up today but I ran into a problem.  My backup
> > > server backs up its own files to the USB drive.  If that operation is
> > > conducted as a normal user, it can't read all of the necessary files.
> > > If that operation is conducted as root, the backed-up files are
> > > written as root and the remote system can't read them via rsync unless
> > > I allow root logins.
> >
> > Try doing the local operation through the localhost network ;-)
>
> I don't think I follow (again).  The backup server drops its own
> important files onto the USB hard drive that is directly attached to
> it.  Anyway, that problem would be solved if I used your
> 'PermitRootLogin without-password' advice above.

You said you backup the backup server's own files to the USB drive. When 
doing that with rdiff-backup running as root, the backup will also have 
file permissions and ownership preserved (mostly). When you run that 
rdiff-backup process as a normal user (backup side) to back up files from
address@hidden (source side), just pretending that it is a remote host, 
then the backup tree will be accessible by non-root rsync user.


--
Maarten