Linux – rsync – failed to set permission – operation not permitted

You can change the permission of the file if you use sudo to preface the command:

sudo chmod 777 /var/log/error.log

You will need to add yourself to the sudoers file as the root user:

visudo

Alternatively you could create a logs group and add yourself to the group then change the group ownership of all your log files to the logs group.

You may want to try --fake-super. From the rsync man page:

--fake-super

When this option is enabled, rsync simulates super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g. the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).

In your case, since you want to use --fake-super on the remote side, you will need to invoke it via --rsync-path, e.g.:

rsync -avz --rsync-path='rsync --fake-super' /source/ backupuser@remote:/dest/

When restoring from your backups, you will also need to ensure that --fake-super is always in force on the system where the backups are stored.