File permissions change when transfering between external drives and laptop
I noticed a few years ago that when I transfer files back and forth between my laptop and my external drive all the files that I have transfered have changed permissions.
I format all my external drives as exFAT so I can use larger files.
Why does this happen?
Is there a better way to keep the file permissions intact when transfering files back and forth between external drives?
The test file: Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv
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This is what the file permssions looks like before I transfer it to my external hard drive
ls -l
-rw-r–r-- 1 user user 577761580 May 2 2024 ‘Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv’
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This is what the file permssions looks like after I transfer it back to my laptop
ls -l
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 577761580 May 2 2024 ‘Fantastic Fungi (2019).mkv’
When I right click file permissions dialogue box. The “Allow this file to run as a program” is ticked.
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The way have overcome this is to run a simple one liner to reset the permissions for directories and files.
Open a terminal in the directory of the folders and files you want to change
All directories will be 775. All files will be 664
find . -type d -exec chmod 0755 {} ;
find . -type f -exec chmod 0644 {} ;
Directory permission 0755 is similar to “drwxr-xr-x”
File permission 0644 is equal to “-rw-r–-r–-“.
-type d = directories
-type f = files
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exfat or fat32 is great for interoperability between linux and windows but has limited functionality under linux.
If you’re using your external drive only under linux, I suggest switching to a filesystem that works better with unix like permissions and special bits.
Also, like others, depending on your use-case I would suggest something with journaling like ext3 or ext4. If you happen to power of your system while writing something to that drive, the fs does not get corrupted/can automatically recover.
For backups with rollback maybe a FS with copy on write and automatic compression like btrfs or zfs would be better.
With btrfs borg backups allows you to create incremental backups of btrfs subvolumes. I use it to backup my home, etc and /subvolumes on my “backup server” (old pc with two raid1 hdds).
I have a friend who administeres backups for his company (afaik ~100-200GB delta per week) and he swears by zfs. I found btrfs simpler though.
Hey pitiable_sandwich540
Thank you
I dont know why I have been so focussed and stuck on exFAT for all these years.
It must have been something I read somewhere that led me to it.
from all the decent feedback i have gotten on here, ext4 seems the best way to go.
I should have known this being a linux user for over 20 years.