[Pan-users] Re: Migrate settings from old pan

[Duncan]

Beso <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted
below, on  Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:18:17 +0000:

> 2008/6/6 Duncan <address@hidden>:
> 
>> Beso posted
>>
>> > rsync -av /home/user1/.pan /home/user2/ && chown user2\:
>> > /home/user2/.pan -R

> i'm on  unstable amd64 branch with 0.132 and the latest update of
> yesterday or some day ago. the configs have both been generated from
> sratch with the new version.

OK, that helps...

> both users are looking into .pan2 as defaulted and pan_home is set to
> .pan2

Then, based on the above command, you're copying the wrong dir, .pan, 
not .pan2.  Also, environmental var names are case sensitive.  It's 
PAN_HOME, not pan_home.  Of course, you may have gotten them both right 
and just reported them wrong, but those things matter and the report at 
least is wrong, so I thought I'd mention it.

Also, while we are at it, double-check the . in the front.  Make sure 
it's either there in all cases or not there (as I have here, as I don't 
like the hidden dir) but PAN_HOME is set pointing at the unhidden dir as 
well.

>> Question:  Does the .pan dir in question have a file preferences.xml or
>> a data subdir, with the file config.xml? 
> preferences.xml present in both .pan2 =>  new config files.

OK, that agrees with the 0.132 you mentioned above.

>> Finally, I'm not used to using rsync for local transfer so I can't read
>> that command line as correct on sight, but I assume you're sufficiently
>> familiar with it not to have screwed that part up.
>>
> is equal to cp -av. it just lets you resume the copying from where
> you've stopped if there are problems during the transfer. it's not more
> than an incremental cp -av.

OK.  Makes sense.

> so the strange thing is that the 2 dirs aren't interchangable anymore,
> as it used to be some time ago. both of them should be interchangeable
> without any issue, and with only a change of permissions. the only thing
> i can think is that pan now stores some use specific settings.

Not really...  The only other thing (assuming you got everything right 
above) it could be would be that some of the permissions didn't transfer 
properly.

Also, you're setup is using normal Unix permissions, not some fancy ACLs 
or SELinux, right?  Troubleshooting the fancy stuff is beyond me as I've 
never worked with it.

Something else you could try.  Evidently you either control or trust both 
user accounts, so you could try testing the old one in place... but from 
the new user.  First, make sure user1's home dir and .pan2 is readable 
(writable not necessary) by user2.  Add user2 to user1's group if 
necessary, then make sure group permissions are set correctly (group 
readable, executable for dirs) for user1's home dir (not recursively, 
as .pan2 is all we are interested in, not any other dirs), and for .pan2 
recursively.

Then, set user2's PAN_HOME to /home/user1/.pan2/

That should work to let you load the profile anyway, tho not actually get 
new headers or anything if it's not writable.

If that works, then try setting user2's PAN_HOME to its own .pan2, or 
simply unsetting the var, and putting a symlink from /home/user2/.pan2 
pointing at /home/user1/.pan2 .  That should work just as well, if it's 
done correctly.

If that works, then do the copy.  The copy should now work for loading 
the profile, altho you've not changed permissions to be writable yet.  If 
that works, /then/ do the final owner and permissions change so it's 
owned and only read/writable by user2.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman