2 computers ... same username? [SOLVED]

[cecilieaux]

I keep copying stuff from one computer to the other (no useful LAN due to Window$ in the house). When I use a portable drive UI find that the file owner (me) is on another computer with a slightly different name (I had the notion that it would be more secure). This makes use of the file more complicated.

Should I use the same username on both computers?

If so, how do I change one to be identical to the other without messing things up?

Be kind. I'm 70.

Cheerio,
Cecilieaux

[deepakdeshp]

I feel if you are the only uniq user on both machines, having a different names on both machines shouldn't matter. Because for both the uid and gid should be 1000.

[deepakdeshp]

What method do you use to copy from one machine to another?

[cecilieaux]

What method do you use to copy from one machine to another?

Just copy using Nemo from Computer A to External Drive to Computer B. Occasionally, I use the Cloud, but I have small free subscriptions.

[deepakdeshp]

I feel if you are the only uniq user on both machines, having a different names on both machines shouldn't matter. Because for both the uid and gid should be 1000.

What sort of problem do you face?

[cecilieaux]

I feel if you are the only uniq user on both machines, having a different names on both machines shouldn't matter. Because for both the uid and gid should be 1000.

What sort of problem do you face?

Not really a *problem* but it worries me. Some file managers ask for user authorization to move or copy stuff from one to the other.

[deepakdeshp]

You shouldn't worry.

[Petermint]

Did you set up a second user on one machine? Example. Set up Fred on machine A. Set up Betty on B then Freddy on B. Freddy would have a different user id to Fred. On each machine, run the command:

Code: Select all

id -u

[Crito]

I usually chmod 777 the drive's root directory from the mount point right after formatting it... or you could just use FAT32/exFAT.

[axrusar]

Why not network the computers so you use the external drive just for your Backups?
Not clear if you have 2 Linux machines, or the other one is windows, but it does not matter, you can link everything together, the guys here can help.
Describe what systems you are using, OS versions etc.

[Reddog1]

Sure you can. Both my wife and I are setup on more than one computer and our usernames are the same on all. Her passwords are the same, some of mine are different. I say 'some' because I have about a dozen vm's of various linux distributions and even W10 and W7. All are set up with the same username. All the computers and all the vm's are networked and can transfer files among each other. Sharing files via usb works just fine, too, although tricky in the vm's.

[Coggy]

When you copy files between computers, the property that gets transferred (assuming you are using a *nix filesystem that supports the property) is the numeric user id. Users created in Ubuntu based distros usually start at 1000 and work up from there. This means that when you copy a file from one machine to another, and each machine has only one user, the files will appear to be owned by user 1000 regardless of the name assigned to that ID. And in general you need not worry what the usernames are. One caveat to that is that some applications (e.g. LibreOffice) will embed the username (not the userID) in metadata, e.g. who created or updated the document, and you may care about that.

You may run into trouble on machines that have multiple users. Unless you take steps to influence it otherwise, users are allocated the next free ID number when they are created. If you add Alice then Bob to one machine, and Bob then Alice to the other machine, you end up with files owned by Alice on one machine appearing to be owned by Bob on the other machine. I always take care to add my family members in the same order every time I install, to ensure they get the same ID on every machine.

When a user copies a file from USB, the file they create locally gets created being owned by whoever did the copy (unless root does the copy) because users are not allowed to create files that appear to be owned by someone else. This means that the above name confusion can often go un-noticed.

In all, I would probably choose to have the same username on all machines just to avoid confusion. It makes no difference to security either way.

The user ID -> name lookup is generally only stored in files in /etc, and I have successfully changed my username (and group name) with a command like this, although with some fear that I might have missed something important. Changing username Alice to Bob for example:
sudo sed -i 's/\bAlice\b/Bob\b/g' /etc/*