[ILUG] [Q] Transferring c.200GiB via net, preserving attributes... How?

[Brian Foster]

Hello!

 I have got a shiny ‘New’ workstation (at work), and hence
 need transfer my files from the ‘Old’ workstation to it.
 Both machines are on the local intranet, and I have full
 control over both machines (plus a friendly but seriously
 overworked IT guy).

 Some relevant parameter:

  ● Old is running Kbuntu 10.04 LTS;
    New is running Kbuntu 11.10.

  ● Old has c.200GiB to transfer (on two spindles
    (and at least two FSes));
    New has c.300GiB free (on one spindle (one FS)).
    ( New also has c.100GiB free on a 2nd spindle/FS,
     but I doubt that is relevant/useful here. )

  ● UIDs differ!  (This is deliberate!)  The two sets
    sets of UID are distinct, except for 0 (‘root’).
    (GIDs are essentially identical (not a problem).)

  ● Not all files owned by one UID(and some are owned
    by ‘root’ and may not be readable to others).
     I want to preserve as many attributes as possible
    (especially the mode(permissions (including stuff
    like sticky and set-ID bits), owner/group, both
    hard- and sym-links, and modification time).

  ● No ACLs are known to be used; SELinux is not used.

  ● Physically connecting the drives of one machine
    to the other is not an option.

 Suggestions?  Hints?

 My own thinking at the moment is to:

  (1) Use ‘rsync -aH’ to transfer to a temporary area
      on New preserving all of Old's attributes;

 Then do (on New):
  (2) ‘find Temp_Area/ -user Old_UID -exec chown New_UID +’
  (3) ‘mv’ as appropriate to final location(s).

 Catch is, I'm uncertain how to best do the ‘rsync’:
  ▶ Push or Pull?
  ▶ And how to handle files which can only be read by ‘root’?
  ▶... (What am I overlooking?)

 NFS is another possibility.

 Suggestions?  Other approaches?  (There is insufficient
 free space on Old to create archives (tar, ...) of more
 than a few of GiB (10..20 GiB, max).)

cheers!
	-blf-

-- 
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