Is rsync --delete on some files without write permission possible?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello all,

I have a problem with rsync command.
From a backup server, I use a command like the one below:

rsync -av --delete user@host:/home/user/  /home/backup_user/daily_rotating_backup/

In some folders of the user there are some files on which he has removed his write permission on purpose.
rsync complains about that:

rsync: open(bin/c_script/kohala/sock/RCS/strerror.c,v) failed!!: Permission denied (13)

Of course rsync as root on the user host would resolve the problem, but as I don't like to ssh as root user I was wondering if there would be another solution?

Many thanks for your help and kind regards,

PS: Oh, If you have any best practices reading reference on backup scripts I am very interested!
Thanks in advance!

2

This will not stop anyone from deleting them.

Removal of files inside the directory is controlled by write permission on the directory, not the file.

3

Thanks for the remark Corona, this is very interesting and I had not realised that!
But back to rsync issue:
If I understand well, the problem from rsync point of view is that it cannot open the file without the write permission, but why on earth do you need write permission to compare 2 files, surely read should be enough?
And why does rsync need to open the file?

4

rsync does not need write permission to a file to copy it, it only needs read. I suspect you have a read permission problem.

If you are not executing the command as root, which user is executing the command?
It is safe to say not the owner of the file, since it would had copy it.