Synk fails with SSHFS

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Download Synk synchronization software (http://decimus.net/)
2. Mount a network volume using MacFUSE and SSHFS
3. Try to synchronize or backup between a local machine and that volume

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Synk should backup properly to the mounted volume. It fails with an error.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
MacFUSE-Core 0.4.0, sshfs-0.3.0, Mac OSX 10.4.9

Please provide any additional information below.
The developer of Synk claims that the problem is caused by MacFUSE. See the
bug report on http://decimus.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1325 and the
developer's response.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by escargot...@gmail.com on 26 Jun 2007 at 10:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The link you provided has a comment that says:

> "This is unfortunately a known issue with MacFUSE. "

I don't know what the issue is--perhaps you or somebody who knows needs to tell 
me? I'm not aware of what 
Synk does.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 26 Jun 2007 at 11:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Looks like after making a directory, the software (either explicitly or 
implicitly) is trying to do a chown (change 
owner) to the "as seen" user/group IDs. In the case of sshfs, the "as seen" IDs 
are translated from the on-
server IDs to the local ones on your Mac. In typical cases, trying to chown to 
the locally visible numeric 
identifiers will not work if passed through to the remote server because those 
IDs would be either unknown or 
inaccessible to the logged in user. In these cases, chown would fail with an 
EPERM (permission denied).

Either the software in question shouldn't be chowning unless it somehow knows 
that the ssh *server* on the 
remote side will let the chown through (one could argue that it's sshfs's job 
to figure this out, but then again, 
sshfs uses SFTP, which doesn't expose every single thing you could possibly 
do). Alternatively, sshfs's chown 
implementation should do a reverse translation from locally visible user/group 
IDs to the analogous remote 
ones. I'll probably add this at some point.

This, however, isn't a MacFUSE _issue_. It's a limitation of sshfs/SFTP.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 27 Jun 2007 at 12:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for the response, asingh. It would certainly be nice if sshfs could make 
a
mounted volume behave exactly like a local folder in every way, but if there are
technical limitations that make it impossible, the software developer will have 
to
work around them.

Synk's developer mentioned a possible workaround, and with your fixes to the 
chown
implementation, it may work as intended.

Original comment by escargot...@gmail.com on 27 Jun 2007 at 6:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The chown additions are in the source tree. Should be in the next binary 
release too. So as far as MacFUSE can 
help with the apparent issue, it's taken care of. If there still exist other 
problems, feel free to report.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 13 Jul 2007 at 12:05

• Changed state: Fixed