About file permissions

To perform Backup, Archive, and Restore tasks successfully, you must have certain permissions or access.

Permissions for user-directed operations

To perform a user-directed backup, you must have read permission for the file.
To perform a user-directed archive, you must have read and write permission since the archive operation removes the file from the original source disk.
To restore a file from a user-directed backup or archive, you must have write access to the file (if the file exists). If the file does not exist, you must have write access to the directory.

Permissions for restoring from server-directed backups

The NetBackup administrator configures restore privileges for files from server-directed backups and for other clients:

To restore your own files that were backed up by a server-directed operation (policy), you must have the appropriate restore privileges.
To restore the files that someone else owns, you must have the appropriate restore privileges.

Table: File permissions and restore results describes how NetBackup restores files in various situations, based on privileges.

Table: File permissions and restore results

Restore type attempted	Results
Restore a file that already exists and overwrite the existing file.	If you have restore privileges, NetBackup restores the file and sets the file ownership to the same owner as the backup image. If you do not have restore privileges, NetBackup restores the file only if you have write access to it. For a read-only file where you have write access to the parent directory, NetBackup removes the file. It restores the file with the original owner as the owner.
Restore a file that already exists and do not overwrite the existing file.	NetBackup does not restore the file and writes a message in the progress log file.
Restore a file that does not exist.	NetBackup restores the file and sets the file ownership to the original file owner.
Restore a file when a directory exists with the same name as the file.	The option Overwrite existing files must be enabled (checked). The directory is not replaced and the file is restored using a temporary name. NetBackup writes a message in the progress log file indicating that you must restart the system, and the changes occur after the system restarts. The log file message indicates the temporary file name and the folder where it was written (the parent of the target file). Click File > View Status to view the log file.
Restore a directory when a file exists with the same name as the directory.	The directory is not restored.
Restore a file in a directory that does not exist.	NetBackup creates the directory with the owner set to the account used to start the NetBackup client. The file is then restored in the same manner as one that does not exist.