mv: failed to preserve ownership

I have two computers, both running Ubuntu (Ubuntu Server 10.04LTS on one, Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 on the other). I setup a Samba share on the Desktop. On the Server, I mounted the Samba share to /mnt/fileserver. This is the share:

[files] path = /home/fileserver/files guest ok = yes writeable = yes create mask = 0777 directory mask = 0777

I have a script on the Server to backup my local web development files and put them on the Desktop. They are bzipped and then put into the Samba mount. When I try to move them into the Samba mount with the mv command, I get

mv: failed to preserve ownership for 'file': Permission denied

This is what my script looks like:

_DIR=$(date +%m-%d-%Y)
mkdir /mnt/fileserver/webserver_backups/$_DIR
tar vfcpj /tmp/ /var/www 2>> /var/log/backup.txt
mv /tmp/ /mnt/fileserver/webserver_backups/$_DIR/

All the files still seem to make it over okay, but I'm curious why I get this error.

2 Answers

Disregard the error.

Linux and Windows set file permissions in a radically different manner. The files get transferred just fine, but since the permission styles are incompatible, the permissions you originally had on the files don't transfer. Eg, what user owned the file, was it executable, could everyone read it or not..

Transferred files thus inherit the samba share's mount settings. If you mounted using Susan's credentials, she now owns the file.

I had this same error, but the file moved anyway. After the error check the source and destination to see if the file move was a success. I spent ages looking for a solution to the error not realizing I didn't have to resolve anything.