1

I am trying to get backup so that I can upgrade my system to latest version of Ubuntu. Now while copying files some files I found are owned by user #1000 so i could not take backup of those files.

This suggests that such user does not exist in my system.

So is there a way to take backup of those files?

Note: I am using a live cd to take backups.

Improve this question
17
  • 1
    change ownership of the files using chown askubuntu.com/a/6735/1112104. But remember not to change ownership of any root file
    – Parag Katoch
    May 30, 2021 at 16:00
  • 1
    don't mess with the permissions, 1000 is the ID of the 1st user of the system. from a live session you use a root (#) as a prompt and do not need permissions to execute tasks. the link is NOT VALID for your case. LIVE SESSION and an actual system are 2 diff. things. 1000 is the id of your admin account and it is not getting translated to a name
    – Rinzwind
    May 30, 2021 at 16:16
  • 3
    repeating: there is nothing to fix. this is INTENDED and NORMAL.
    – Rinzwind
    May 30, 2021 at 16:19
  • 2
    nothing needs to be done with those files. you are on a # when mounting the partition so you can use tar to make a file and cp to copy the backup to another disk or your gdrive
    – Rinzwind
    May 30, 2021 at 16:31
  • 1
    I would recommend some kind of backup tool. See for example this link for typical backup tools and that link for a tool that can backup a whole drive (Clonezilla). - Please check that the backup is restorable (to a new drive) before you need it. Otherwise it might be too late ...
    – sudodus
    May 30, 2021 at 16:44

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

In unix, the owner of a file corresponds to a numeric user id. Just because the numeric user ID shows up instead of a username does not mean that the user does not exist, and really doesn't matter even if that is the case. (There are multiple possible causes of this, including the user not existing on the system.)

Backing up files owned by a non-existing user should not be any different than any other file. Possibly you are running the backup software as a different user that doesn't have read access to those files? Typically backup software would be run as root rather than a regular user exactly to bypass this issue.

If you are running the backup as root, is it possible this is only a warning, and the files actually did get backed up? Backup software might try to store the username of the file owner in the backup, so that if files are restored on a different system or after users are recreated with different user id's, the ownership is mapped to the correct username. Failure to look up the user might generate a warning.

User 1000 is typically the first user on the system. Did you possibly delete that user after creating another user?

If you are using a live cd, did you use sudo to escalate to root before running the backups?

Improve this answer
7
  • 2
    He is using a live session (you (user10489) can stop reading here; for anyone else:) so the user is either root or ubuntu and a # prompt. The live session does not know about the user of the system itself so it will show the ID (and that is 1000 for the 1st (admin) user, 1001 for a 2nd, 1003 for a 3rd user ;)
    – Rinzwind
    May 30, 2021 at 16:34
  • Yes the current user is ubuntu. I did not delete any user. simply using a live session where I cant get access to my earlier userid
    – Spectra
    May 30, 2021 at 16:37
  • Somehow missed the live cd part. Still doesn't answer what user or what backup tool is being used to run the backups.
    – user10489
    May 30, 2021 at 16:37
  • 1
    copy paste is not terribly effective for backups obviously. You will need to escalate to root and copy the files from there.
    – user10489
    May 30, 2021 at 16:40
  • 2
    Better to use rsync: askubuntu.com/questions/545655/… & askubuntu.com/questions/40992/… & ubuntuforums.org/… & help.ubuntu.com/community/rsync
    – oldfred
    May 30, 2021 at 18:18

You must log in to answer this question.

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