How can I access and backup ~/.gvfs and ~/.cache/dconf?

Question

I am creating backup and after completion I got this..

Could not back up the following files. Please make sure you are able to open them.

    /home/vinay/.cache/dconf
    /home/vinay/.gvfs

I through terminal to open these file using

cd /home/vinay/.cache/dconf

It shows

bash: cd: /home/vinay/.cache/dconf: Permission denied

How can I get access to these files?

Is it fine to get permissions or leave as it is and not creating any backup for these files?

Solution

You don't need to backup your ~/.cache and ~/.gvfs folders since:

~/.cache contains only the cached data and is used only to speed up access

and

~/.gvfs folder is the place where GVFS mounts volumes, it would usually be empty if you have not mounted any folders inside it. (Many a times, this is where mobile systems are mounted).

You could ignore this error while backing up.

However, if you really want to back it up, you could read the data using sudo:

sudo cp ~/.cache/dconf/ <destination> -r
sudo cp ~/.gvfs/ <destination> -r

replacing <destination> with the location where you want to backup to, and then enter your administrative password.

Comments

[Hi-Angel]

Is the ~/.cache/dconf should be accessed only by root? I am launching the browser conkeror, and it is trying to write there something, and I see in logs this «Permission denied». So I wonder: have I change the owner from root to me, or no? Are there something important stored?

[Adam Plocher]

@Hi-Angel I'm wondering the same thing. Just recently GStreamer started complaining about dconf, but it never did before (AFAI recall). So I'm wndering if it's always been like that and I just somehow didn't notice, or did I do something to make that happen, or did a system service do it...