When I move a directory from an ext4 file system to a CIFS v1 file system, I get a diagnostic mv: failed to preserve ownership for '...': Permission denied although the owner and group of the directory after and before the move are the same. So, there is actually nothing to warn about. $ mv --version mv (GNU coreutils) 9.3.147-d553ab Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ... $ mkdir dir1 $ echo foo > dir1/file1 $ ls -ld dir1 drwxrwxr-x 2 bruno bruno 4096 Aug 26 19:38 dir1 $ strace -o /tmp/mv.log mv dir1 /media/nas/bruno/dir1 mv: failed to preserve ownership for '/media/nas/bruno/dir1': Permission denied $ echo $? 0 $ ls -ld /media/nas/bruno/dir1 drwxrwxr-x 2 bruno bruno 0 Aug 26 19:38 /media/nas/bruno/dir1 Find attached the strace log file. The essential line is fchownat(AT_FDCWD, "/media/nas/bruno/dir1", 1000, 1000, AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied) People say that "chown only works for root anyway" [1], but it's certainly safer to try the chown nevertheless, because - the current user might not be root but might have non-standard capabilities. - the target file system may be reporting failure but may do the requested action nevertheless, - the target file system might map uids (think of NFS or CIFS [2]). However, the diagnostic should be omitted if the 'mv' program can verify that the uid and gid of the directory on the target file system is the same as on the source file system. Likewise for the 'cp' program: $ cp --version cp (GNU coreutils) 9.3.147-d553ab ... Written by Torbjorn Granlund, David MacKenzie, and Jim Meyering. $ mkdir dir2 $ echo foo > dir2/file2 $ ls -ld dir2 drwxrwxr-x 2 bruno bruno 4096 Aug 29 20:15 dir2 $ strace -o /tmp/cp.log cp dir2 /media/nas/bruno/dir2 $ strace -o /tmp/cp.log cp -a dir2 /media/nas/bruno/dir2 cp: failed to preserve ownership for '/media/nas/bruno/dir2': Permission denied $ ls -ld /media/nas/bruno/dir2 drwx------ 2 bruno bruno 0 Aug 29 20:15 /media/nas/bruno/dir2 Here, in cp.log, the essential line is: fchownat(AT_FDCWD, "/media/nas/bruno/dir2", 1000, 1000, AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied) Bruno [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-10/msg00094.html [2] https://linux.die.net/man/8/mount.cifs