[ubuntu-uk] rsync chgrp problem - advice, please?

[luxxius]

Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> A very simple thing (that could have solved the whole thing in the first place now I think about it...)
> 
>> cd ~/music
>> sudo chmod -Rvf 644 .
>> sudo chown -Rvf diana:root .
> 
> this will recursively apply the permissions and the ownership to all files in the folder and all sub folders.


Matt >>> I'm going to have to run this after a 'sudo su', as follows

sudo su
cd /home/diana/music
chmod -Rvf 644
chown -Rvf diana:root

(and I won't hear about any 'fails' because of the -f;  is that right? 
Does it matter?)

   But more importantly, is it safe to run this as root?

(BTW the reason for not using this general reset before was that I want 
to use rsync to back up the music folder, and I guess (it really is a 
guess) that re-writing all the owner/group and permissions would result 
in rsync re-copying *all* the files to the usb drive - a job that ties 
up the machine for about four hours!)

--
Diana