0

Ubuntu 18.04 and I have a folder open via right click and "open as administrator" (it's on a disk from another Linux machine, plugged into sata) and I'm copying 300GB of files to this folder.

Every 5 minutes I get a pop up prompt asking for my password. I timed it and its exactly every 5 minutes.

What is the deal? I want to let this run over night but I don't want it to get hung up.

4
  • You shouldn't need to copy files, presumably over network, as administrator. Just need to configure it properly with right permissions. Also, is is samba, ssh, ftp??? Sep 13, 2018 at 1:53
  • @mikewhatever I have the destination hdd plugged into the same computer via sata. I'm not doing it over the network. The destination hdd has Debian and once tried to move files from my windows machine to the drive over my home network using syncthing. Eventually I deleted the files from the windows machine (intended) and then it started deleting all of the files from the shared folder on my Debian server. So I'm done with transferring over the network. Unless there is an easy way to do it that doesn't involve a shared 2-way service.
    – BingBong
    Sep 13, 2018 at 1:58
  • 2
    Have you tried rsync?
    – l3l_aze
    Sep 13, 2018 at 3:00
  • @l3l_aze I've tried reading into it but I don't really understand how to set it up between windows 7 machine and the Debian server. Is it the same as Samba? It's a file sharing service yes? If so, I'm afraid of having a syncthing repeat and deleting all of my files.
    – BingBong
    Sep 13, 2018 at 3:02

1 Answer 1

5

Obviously your root permissions time out after a while. This is one of many disadvantages we are faced when running a graphical application such as nautilus as root.

A much better approach for copy tasks with root permissions would be to do that in a terminal, where you stay root by running the copy application with sudo.

rsync is just one of many file copy services but one with tremendously many options, the possibility to copy over network, have it resume on errors, skip already existing files on the destination, or let it exclude files or directories.

The basic command for rsync is very simple

 sudo rsync -a source/ destination

where source and destination are the corresponding mount points (or network locations), and -a is for a sensible "archive" option that includes all options rlptgoD.

Only one thing that always confuses me a bit is the slash / after the source directory which tells rsync to not create this directory on the destination but copy all of its content instead.

There also is a graphical interface grsync for those who dislike the terminal too much. I use grsync because it allows to drop-down select from different copy profiles I had set up for backup purposes.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .