Linux Filesystems

[GhettoFob]

Hi, I was planning on making a dedicated file server for my network using Linux (Red Hat 8.0 for now). I plan on using two physical harddrives. I'm gonna put the OS on one and the files on the other one. If I need to reinstall the OS, can I just format and reinstall it without having to worry about my files on my storage drive or would I need to take other measures to backup the files first? Basically, I'm wondering if there's any security measures that will prevent me from reading those files after a format like for NTFS partitions in Windows. Thanks in advance.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Read up on the CHMOD command.

 

[topaz22]

no, you should be fine. one problem that i may see is that if you use a more obscure filesystem like xfs, and after you format, you don't have that module compiled or built into the kernel. as long as you stick with ext2/3, you'll be fine. you don't even need to use two hard drives, just make different partitions for / and /home. when you reformat/reinstall, don't format that partition.

i'm not sure what is suggested by omega's suggestion about chmod.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You should be fine. The command you would more need to worry about than chmod is probably chown.

 

[Nothinman]

no, you should be fine. one problem that i may see is that if you use a more obscure filesystem like xfs, and after you format, you don't have that module compiled or built into the kernel.

If he gets it installed onto that, most likely his install media has that module compiled somewhere. I would personally recommend XFS, it's faster than ext2/3 and if you need you can use ACLs. I don't really dislike ext2/3 but with the other, better filesystems out there the only reason I see to use it is for compatibility purposes, sort of like FAT only ext2/3 isn't anywhere near as bad as FAT.

Basically, I'm wondering if there's any security measures that will prevent me from reading those files after a format like for NTFS partitions in Windows. Thanks in advance.

The rights will still be applied to the files, so if you reformat (for what reason, I can't fathom) you may need to change the rights with chmod or the owners of the files with chown, but that all depends on how much you f' with the file's rights. If you recreate the users with the same UIDs after the format you won't have to mess with the rights at all because they'll still be applied.

 

[GhettoFob]

Thanks for the help! One final question, say if I wanted to move the storage drive to another computer running Linux, would I have any difficulty with that? Should I set the owner of the files to root or something like that? And also, the user actually corresponds to a uid right? So if I would need to add the user back with the same uid as before?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: GhettoFob
Thanks for the help! One final question, say if I wanted to move the storage drive to another computer running Linux, would I have any difficulty with that? Should I set the owner of the files to root or something like that?

Nah. As long as you have root on all of these machines, you can always fix the permissions after you've "surveyed the damage".

And also, the user actually corresponds to a uid right?

Yep

So if I would need to add the user back with the same uid as before?

You may want to, simply to make it a little easier, however it's not really much to worry about. Worst case scenario, you have to chown -R everything on it, and that's no biggie at all.

 

[civad]

So if I would need to add the user back with the same uid as before?

You may want to, simply to make it a little easier, however it's not really much to worry about. Worst case scenario, you have to chown -R everything on it, and that's no biggie at all.