Files deleted after recreating user

[seucolega]

After updating the ownCloud, I had problems to access one administrator's account (admin). So I logged in with another admin's account to delete and create again the admin's account.

I followed the steps:

• Renamed the user's folder 'files' to '_files'
• Excluded the user
• Renamed the folder '_files' to 'files'
• Created the user again and login

I didn't understand why the folder was empty, all files were permanently deleted.

[VicDeo]

@seucolega newly created user always gets an empty dir so 4th step should be 3rd.

[jancborchardt]

@VicDeo so an existing »files« directory is wiped, if there’s data in it? That seems to be the problem here.

[LukasReschke]

@VicDeo so an existing »files« directory is wiped, if there’s data in it? That seems to be the problem here.

This is a security feature.

[VicDeo]

@jancborchardt I think it's cool to be a mighty heir of non-longer existing user due to the name collision. 💰
But @LukasReschke has different opinion.

Newly created user gets an empty directory at his disposal. It's by design.
Think of it this way: new user of a payment system has got the balance of deleted user with the same username. Is that acceptable?

[jancborchardt]

Of course, a new user shouldnt get the files of a previous one with the same name. But as you see from the problem which the original poster had, they should not be completely erased either.

A sane solution here might be to not erase the files if there are some existing ones, but rather move them to a folder called (username)-(some hash). That way at least the admin can recover them.

What do you think? Involuntary data loss is pretty clearly not something which should ever happen with ownCloud.

On 21.03.2013, at 21:32, VicDeo notifications@github.com wrote:

@jancborchardt I think it's cool to be a mighty heir of non-longer existing user due to the name collision.
But @LukasReschke has a different opinion.

Newly created user gets an empty directory in his disposal. It's by design.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[jancborchardt]

The proper resolution to this is not to delete the user, but to change their password.