rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

lastchancetosee · 2010-05-06 18:57:53

Hi,
I'm trying to sync my music database with my mp3-player via rsync or unison, but both complain about the mp3 being a read-only device (It's detected as a FAT32 harddrive, btw.).
The interesting thing is: It is not mounted read-only. I can copy music onto it just fine via e.g. thunar, only the two sync programs complain.

What could be the problem?

brisbin33 · 2010-05-06 19:06:45

//totally guessing here...

rsync/unison may need to do something on the destination side that mv or cp does not. one of:

a) exec'ing something
b) something permissions related

a. would require you mount the drive with the exec option and b. might not be possible with the vfat filesystem.

that said, i've used rsync to move files onto my phone's sd card which was formatted vfat and mounted with the options in our udev wiki, so you might want to try mounting it with those options as an experiment.

lastchancetosee · 2010-05-06 20:46:24

The error messages are variations of:

rsync: chgrp "/media/path/to/file/on/mp3" failed: Read-only file system (30)

Seems like it's permissions-related, so maybe I should get rid of the "keep permissions" option implied in rsync -a. I'll try that and the udev rule, thanks.

Another thing: Unison takes AGES to check for changes (and I do mean ages, ~10s per file). Is that normal?

[edit:]
Another error:

rsync: mkstemp "/media/path/to/file/on/mp3/*.ogg.w7qqip" failed: Read-only file system (30)

I haven't played around with the rsync-options yet. I tried the udev rule though, didn't help. One thing is strange: the rule sets gid=100(=users), but all the dirs/files on the device are <mylogin>:root owned. Shouldn't that be <mylogin>:users?

Last edited by lastchancetosee (2010-05-06 21:05:43)

briest · 2010-05-07 16:06:24

lastchancetosee wrote:

Unison takes AGES to check for changes (and I do mean ages, ~10s per file). Is that normal?

Don't know unison, but rsync checksums files to see if the content has changed, it may take some time with large files on slow medium... maybe unison does the same?

pseudonomous · 2010-05-07 21:28:15

By the way, unison's just not going to work; it won't sync data to a FAT filesystem.

lastchancetosee · 2010-05-08 19:23:25

Thanks @ pseudonomous, I must have missed that.

@briest: AFAIK Unison uses the same mechanisms as rsync, but whereas rsync does the checking part near instantly (< 5s for my 3GB music collection) unison takes the aforementioned 10s per file.

I played around a bit with the options of rsync, but it's no use. Rsync obstinately labels the file system read-only. With or without the udev rule, with or without the options associated with -a etc.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-06 18:57:53

rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

#2 2010-05-06 19:06:45

Re: rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

#3 2010-05-06 20:46:24

Re: rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

#4 2010-05-07 16:06:24

Re: rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

#5 2010-05-07 21:28:15

Re: rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

#6 2010-05-08 19:23:25

Re: rsync/unison to/with mp3-player, problem with permissions

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