Can't backup files as root anymore

[blakemcbride]

I must back up files as root because I want to be sure all files get backed up. I have been doing "sudo backintime-qt" for years. All of a sudden, it doesn't work because it won't allow me to use backintime as root.

Windows knows more than I do and prevents me from doing what I want to do. The same goes for the Mac. Now, apparently, according to backintime, it's the same.

It's MY machine. I don't appreciate you attempting to prevent me from protecting myself from myself. If I want to run backintime as a user, I will type "backintime-qt". If I want to run it on MY machine as root, I type "sudo backintime-qt". sudo already verifies if I am authorized.

I DO NOT WANT YOU DETERMINING WHAT I CAN RUN ON MY SYSTEM. STOP IT!

[blakemcbride]

Any program can be malicious. This includes GUI, command line, drivers, and even the kernel. The only way to be 100% sure you're safe is to develop your own chips and write your own firmware, bootloader, OS, and every utility and application. So, it is impossible! Ultimately, the base security of your machine is based on trust. You trust the computer manufacturers, the firmware developers, the bootloader developers, etc. Trust at the highest level is based on two things:

1. open source

2. trust that the distro maintainer didn't modify it

Whether it is GUI or not is irrelevant.

Adding crazy measures to prevent programs from running as root does nothing except harass the users.

[blakemcbride]

Two basic principles:

1. Any backup program that doesn't back up all the files you expect is garbage.

2. Any program not running as root can't be guaranteed to be able to access all files.

Seems pretty basic to me.

[blakemcbride]

Being frustrated with this whole business, with the help of ChatGPT, I created a bash script that uses rsync to perform everything of interest to me about backintime. It's at https://github.com/blakemcbride/Rsnap-backup

[buhtz]

Dear Blake,

I DO NOT WANT YOU DETERMINING WHAT I CAN RUN ON MY SYSTEM. STOP IT!

you shouldn't scream on maintainers. And please read the docs. If this is not a bug or a feature request please use the mailing list for further discussion.

• Maintenance status
• The team
• Strategy outline / Roadmap

[buhtz]

Btw: You might also be interested in the fact that I am in the middle for rewriting the whole mounting subsystem. See PR #2449