File	Date	Author	Commit
man	2013-05-20	Xavier	[d3da62] Added email address to man pages.
src	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
AUTHORS	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
COPYING	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
ChangeLog	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
INSTALL	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
Makefile.am	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
Makefile.in	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
NEWS	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
README	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
aclocal.m4	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
chbog.spec.in	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
config.h.in	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
configure	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
configure.in	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
depcomp	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
example-chbog.conf	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
install-sh	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release
missing	2013-05-19	Xavier	[50139c] Initial Release

Read Me

chbog - CHange Bulk Owner Group

chbog is a utlity to implement bulk changes in a filesystem.

Suppose your organization 'acquires' another organization.  Naturally there
occur collisions in the uid:gid space of the two filesystems.  One might
consider it convenient to have a utility which would read in a mapping
of the changes required to assimilate this 'acquired organization' into
the collective.  Thus 'chbog'.

Whatever the reason you may have to make changes to a filesystem; be it
'acquisition', 'merger' or some other 'management inflicted' reason;
it happens, occasionally, that such changes are rather extensive.

The traditional technique of shell and find, perl or python to implement
such changes are more than adequate for (relatively) small scale changes.
However, hundreds of changes can be, shall we say, daunting.  No doubt.

Consider the following two organizations:

  Organization F:

    fred     1000:100
    wilma    1001:100
    pebbles  1002:100
    barney   1003:100
    betty    1004:100
    bambam   1005:100

  Organization J:

    george   1000:500
    jane     1001:501
    judy     1002:502
    elroy    1003:503

The task is to assimilate organization J into organization F.  Appropriate
mapping rules to migrate from organization J's uid:gid space into
organization F's uid:gid space must be prepared.

  Configuration file 'chbog.conf' contents:

    id_map = 1000 : -1 : 1006 : 100 # george
    id_map = 1001 : -1 : 1007 : 100 # jane
    id_map = 1002 : -1 : 1008 : 100 # judy
    id_map = 1003 : -1 : 1009 : 100 # elroy

You make the usual announcements in preparation for the changes.  You identify
the administrative machine within organization J, and verify that you are able
to change ownership of files on the filer.  This is important, because you
could fall victim to some unusual mount options.
During the scheduled maintenance window you log into the administrative
machine within organization J and execute the following:

  # chbog -f -c chbog.conf -p /home

Granted, this is a small example, no doubt.  But it illustrates the idea.