Overwrite file and apply file system rights of overwritten files?

Question

I backed up some linux configuration files to a windows machine, so the file system rights were lost. Now I would like to restore my backed up configuration by overwriting the configuration currently present on the linux machine. Is there a command like "overwrite configuration.conf with backup/configuration.conf and apply the file rights of the overwritten configuration.conf to the new configuration.conf" ? Thanks for any hint :-)

Answer 1

You can use chmod to first copy permissions to the backup.

 chmod --reference <reference> <target>

1. Copy backup file to linux system using a different name like file.bak

   cp /mnt/windows/FILE /etc/directory/FILE.bak

2. apply the permissions from the original file

   chmod --reference /etc/directory/FILE /etc/directory/FILE.bak

3. mv backup to target

   mv /etc/directory/FILE.bak /etc/directory/FILE

Put all this in a for-loop. chowncan be used similarly to copy the owner and group from a reference file.