#1152351 backupninja: rsync fakesuper option ineffective due to unquoted expansion of ${rsync_options[@]}

Package:
backupninja
Source:
backupninja
Submitter:
Daniel Gröber
Date:
2026-10-28 12:21:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1152351#5
Date:
2026-10-28 12:14:39 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

When using an rsync action with fakesuper=yes to save source uid/gid and
special files as xattr to a non-root destination the rsync action script
doesn't correctly pass the --fake-super option to the remote rsync process
due to (what amounts to an) unquoted concatenation of multiple arguments in
$remote_options:


    if [ "$fakesuper" == "yes" ]; then
      remote_rsync="$remote_rsync --fake-super"
    fi

    ...

    rsync_options=($rsync_options --rsync-path="$remote_rsync")

    ...

    info "Syncing $SECTION on $dest_path..."
    command="$rsync ${rsync_options[@]} --delete-excluded $filelist_flag $excludes $batch_option $orig $dest_path"
   $nice su -c "$command" | tee -a $log

The assignment command="... ${rsync_options[@]} ..." behaves as space
separating ${rsync_options[*]} here since no array assignment is used.


Suggested fix: Refactor to use the native rsync option
--remote-option=--fake-super instead of passing --fake-super through
--rsync-path.

For testing I suggest

    mkdir /tmp/test; mknod -m 0 /tmp/test/device-node c 0 0

as those files show up as rsync warnings "skipping non-regular file" if
--fake-root at the receiving end isn't working.

Thanks!
--Daniel