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Overwrite and preserve ownership

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Description

The install-mimic utility copies the specified files to the specified destination (file or directory) similarly to install(1), but it preserves the ownership and access mode of the destination files. This is useful when updating files that have already been installed with locally modified copies that may be owned by the current user and not by the desired owner of the destination file (e.g. root).

Examples:

Overwrite a system file with a local copy:

install-mimic ./install-mimic.pl /usr/bin/install-mimic

Overwrite several files with local copies with the same name:

install-mimic cinder/*.py /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cinder/

Install a new file similar to a system file:

install-mimic -v -r /usr/bin/install-mimic install-none /usr/bin/

Contact

The install-mimic utility was written by Peter Pentchev. It is developed in a GitHub repository. This documentation is hosted at Ringlet with a copy at ReadTheDocs.