[pbs-devel] [PATCH proxmox-backup] fix #3336: api: remove backup group if the last snapshot is removed

[Thomas Lamprecht]

On 14.03.22 12:13, Stefan Sterz wrote:
> how do we move forward on this issue? the changes proposed above sound
> rather far reaching and not really connected to the bug that sparked
> the original patch. it might make sense to break them out into their
> own patch series and either fix the issue at hand (bug #3336) after it
> has been applied. alternatively we could just remove the "owner" file
> in a given group. this should fix the bug too and would not suffer
> from the locking problem (as we would lock its parent directory), but
> would leave empty directories behind. please advise 😄
> 

I reread the actual bug and it seems that if we're Ok with just deleting
the owner with the rather implicit reason of the last snapshot being
deleted, allowing another authid to "snatch up" that backup group ownership,
then just deleting the owner file would be the simplest solution.

I'm not against that, and I definitively agree with the bug report that
doing so is less work, but given how serious we honor the owner in general,
it feels a bit odd to just implicitly do so on a single snapshot deletion.

On the other hand, we also handle creation in a similar implicit matter,
so maybe I'm overthinking it and just removing it would actually be more
consistent/expected for users.

So, if you don't see a problem/issue with that approach and agree with
the last paragraph above feel free to go for deleting the owner file only.