Preparing for release of 3.0.0pre1

[rsync/rsync.git] / NEWS

NEWS for rsync 3.0.0 (UNRELEASED)
Protocol: 30 (changed)
Changes since 2.6.9:

  NOTABLE CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR:

   - The handling of implied directories when using --relative has changed
     to send them as directories (e.g. no implied dir is ever sent as a
     symlink).  This avoids unexpected behavior and should not adversely
     affect most people.  If you're one of those rare people who relied
     upon having an implied dir be duplicated as a symlink, either specify
     --keep-dirlinks or --no-implied-dirs.

  BUG FIXES:

    - Fixed the output of -ii when combined with one of the --*-dest options:
      it now itemizes all the items, not just the changed ones.

    - Made the output of all file types consistent when using a --*-dest
      option.  Prior versions used to output too many creation events for
      matching items.

    - The code that waits for a child pid now handles being interrupted by a
      signal.  This fixes a problem with the pre-xfer exec function not being
      able to get the exit status from the script.

    - A negated filter rule (with a '!' modifier) no longer loses the negation
      when sending the filter rules to the remote rsync.

    - Fixed a problem with the --out-format (aka --log-format) option %f:  it
      would output superfluous directory information for a non-daemon rsync.

    - Fixed a problem with -vv (double --verbose) and --stats when "pushing"
      files (which includes local copies).  Version 2.6.9 would complete the
      copy, but exit with an error when the receiver output its memory stats.

    - If --password-file is used on a non-daemon transfer, rsync now complains
      and exits.  This should help users figure out that they can't use this
      option to control a remote shell's password prompt.

    - Make sure that directory permissions of a newly-created destination
      directory are handled right when --perms is left off.

    - The itemized output of a newly-created destination directory is now
      output as a creation event, not a change event.

    - Improved --hard-link so that more corner cases are handled correctly
      when combined with options such as --link-dest and/or --ignore-existing.

    - The --append option no longer updates a file that has the same size.

    - Fixed a bug when combining --backup and --backup-dir with --inplace:
      any missing backup directories are now created.

    - Fixed a bug when using --backup and --inplace with --whole-file or
      --read-batch: backup files are actually created now.

    - Starting up an extra copy of an rsync daemon does not delete the pidfile
      for the running daemon -- if the pidfile exists, the extra program will
      exit with an error.

    - The daemon pidfile is checked and created sooner in the startup sequence.

  ENHANCEMENTS:

    - A new incremental-recursion algorithm is now used when rsync is talking
      to another 3.x version.  This starts the transfer going more quickly
      (before all the files have been found), and requires much less memory.
      See the --recursive option in the manpage for some restrictions.

    - Saved memory in the non-incremental-recursion algorithm for typical
      option values (usually saving from 21-29 bytes per file).

    - The default --delete algorithm is now --delete-during when talking to a
      3.x rsync.  This is a faster scan than using --delete-before (which is
      the default when talking to older rsync versions), and is compatible with
      the new incremental recursion mode.

    - Rsync now allows multiple remote-source args to be specified rather than
      having to rely on a special space-splitting side-effect of the remote-
      shell.  Additional remote args must specify the same host or have an
      empty hostname, as seen here:  :file1  ::module/file2.  This means that
      local use of brace expansion now works:  rsync -av host:path/{f1,f2} .

    - Added the --delete-delay option, which is a more efficient way to delete
      files at the end of the transfer without needing a separate delete pass.

    - Added the --acls (-A) option to preserve Access Control Lists.  This is
      an improved version of the prior patch that was available, and it even
      supports OS X ACLs.  (If you need to have backward compatibility with
      old, patched versions of rsync, apply the acls.diff file from the patches
      dir.)

    - Added the --xattrs (-X) option to preserver extended attributes.  This is
      an improved version of the prior patch that was available.  (If you need
      to have backward compatibility with old, patched versions of rsync, apply
      the xattrs.diff file from the patches dir.)

    - Added the --fake-super option that allows a non-super user to preserve
      all attributes of a file by using a special extended-attribute idiom.
      There is also an analogous "fake super" option for an rsync daemon.

    - Added the --iconv option, which allows rsync to convert filenames from
      one character-set to another during the transfer.  The default is to make
      this feature available as long as your system has iconv_open().  If
      compilation fails, specify --disable-iconv to configure, and then
      rebuild.  If you want rsync to perform character-set conversions by
      default, you can specify --enable-iconv=CONVERT_STRING with the default
      value for the --iconv option that you wish to use.  For example,
      --enable-iconv=. is a good choice.  See the rsync manpage for an
      explanation of the --iconv option's settings.

    - Added the --skip-compress=LIST option to override of the default list of
      file suffixes that will not be compressed when using --compress.
      
    - The daemon's default for "dont compress" was extended to include:
	  *.7z *.mp[34] *.mov *.avi *.ogg *.jpg *.jpeg
      The matching routine was also optimized to run more quickly.

    - The --max-delete option now outputs a warning if it skipped any file
      deletions, including a count of how many deletions were skipped.  (Older
      versions just silently stopped deleting things.)

    - You may specify --max-delete=0 to a 3.0.0 client to request that it warn
      about extraneous files without deleting anything.  If you're not sure
      what version the client is, you can use the less-obvious --max-delete=-1,
      as both old and new versions will treat that as the same request (though
      older versions don't warn).

    - The --hard-link option now uses less memory on both the sending and
      receiving side for all protocol versions.  For protocol 30, the use of a
      hashtable on the sending side allows us to more efficiently convey to the
      receiver what files are linked together.  This reduces the amount of data
      sent over the socket by a considerable margin (rather than adding more
      data), and limits the in-memory storage of the device+inode information
      to just the sending side for the new protocol 30, or to the receiving
      side when speaking an older protocol (note that older rsync versions kept
      the device+inode information on both sides).

    - The filter rules now support a perishable ("p") modifier that marks rules
      that should not have an effect in a directory that is being deleted.  e.g.
      -f '-p .svn/' would only affect "live" .svn directories.

    - If we get an error setting the time on a symlink, we don't complain about
      it anymore (since some operating systems don't support that, and it's not
      that important).

    - Protocol 30 now uses MD5 checksums instead of MD4.

    - If a daemon module's "path" value is not an absolute pathname, the code
      now makes it absolute internally (making it work properly).

    - Changed the --append option to not checksum the existing data in the
      destination file, which speeds up file appending.

    - Added the --append-verify option, which works like the older --append
      option (verifying the existing data in the destination file).  For
      compatibility with older rsync versions, any use of --append that is
      talking protocol 29 or older will revert to the --append-verify method.

    - Documented and extended the support for the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG variable
      that can be used to enhance the client side of a daemon connection.

    - Added the --protect-args (-s) option, that tells rsync to send most of
      the command-line args at the start of the transfer rather than as args
      to the remote-shell command.  This protects them from space-splitting,
      and only interprets basic wildcard special shell characters (*?[).

    - Improved the dashes and double-quotes in the nroff manpage output.

    - We now support a lot more --no-OPTION override options.

  INTERNAL:

    - The file-list sorting algorithm now uses a sort that keeps any same-
      named items in the same order as they were specified.  This allows
      rsync to always ensure that the first of the duplicates is the one
      that will be included in the copy.  The new sort was also faster
      than the glibc version of qsort() and mergesort() in my testing.

    - Rsync now supports the transfer of 64-bit timestamps (time_t values).

    - Fixed a build problem with older (2.x) versions of gcc.

    - Added some isType() functions that make dealing with signed characters
      easier without forcing variables via casts.

    - Changed strcat/strcpy/sprintf function calls to use safer versions.

    - Upgraded the included popt version to 1.10.2 and improved its use of
      string-handling functions.

    - Added missing prototypes for compatibility functions from the lib dir.

    - Configure determines if iconv() has a const arg, allowing us to avoid a
      compiler warning.

    - Made the sending of some numbers more efficient for protocol 30.

    - Make sure that a daemon process doesn't mind if the client was weird and
      omitted the --server option.

    - Improved the use of "const" on pointers.

    - Improved J.W.'s pool_alloc routines to add a way of freeing older
      sections of a pool's memory.

  DEVELOPER RELATED:

    - Rsync is now licensed under the GPLv3 or later.

    - When running the tests, we now put our per-test temp dirs into a sub-
      directory named testtmp (which is created, if missing).  This allows
      someone to symlink the testtmp directory to another filesystem (which is
      useful if the build dir's filesystem does not support ACLs and xattrs,
      and another file system does).

    - Rsync now has a way of handling protocol-version changes during the
      development of a new protocol version.  This exchange of sub-version
      info does not interfere with the {MIN,MAX}_PROTOCOL_VERSION checking
      in older versions (since we'd quickly exceed the MAX_PROTOCOL_VERSION
      if we incremented the main PROTOCOL_VERSION value for every minor
      change during development).