Mention latest fixes.
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1NEWS for rsync 2.6.7 (UNRELEASED)
2Protocol: 29 (unchanged)
3Changes since 2.6.6:
4
5 OUTPUT CHANGES:
6
7 - The letter 'D' in the itemized output was being used for both devices
8 (character or block) as well as other special files (such as fifos and
9 named sockets). This has changed to separate non-device special files
10 under the 'S' designation (e.g. "cS+++++++ path/fifo"). See also the
11 "--specials" option, below.
12
13 - The way rsync escapes unreadable characters has changed. First, rsync
14 now has support for recognizing valid multibyte character sequences in
15 your current locale, allowing it to escape fewer characters than before
16 for a locale such as UTF-8. Second, it now uses an escape idiom of
17 "\#123", which is the literal string "\#" followed by exactly 3 octal
18 digits. Rsync no longer doubles a backslash character in a filename
19 (e.g. it used to output "foo\\bar" when copying "foo\bar") -- now it only
20 escapes a backslash that is followed by a hash-sign and 3 digits (0-9)
21 (e.g. it will output "foo\#134#789" when copying "foo\#789"). See also
22 the --8-bit-output (-8) option, mentioned below.
23
24 Script writers: the local rsync is the one that outputs escaped names,
25 so if you need to support unescaping of filenames for older rsyncs, I'd
26 suggest that you parse the output of "rsync --version" and only use the
27 old unescaping rules for 2.6.5 and 2.6.6.
28
29 BUG FIXES:
30
31 - Fixed a really old bug that caused --checksum (-c) to checksum all the
32 files encountered during the delete scan (ouch).
33
34 - Fixed a potential hang in a remote generator: when the receiver gets a
35 read-error on the socket, it now signals the generator about this so that
36 the generator does not try to send any of the terminating error messages
37 to the client (avoiding a potential hang in some setups).
38
39 - Made hard-links work with symlinks and devices again.
40
41 - If the sender gets an early EOF reading a source file, we propagate this
42 error to the receiver so that it can discard the file and try requesting
43 it again (which is the existing behavior for other kinds of read errors).
44
45 - If a device-file/special-file changes permissions, rsync now updates the
46 permissions without recreating the file.
47
48 - If the user specifies a remote-host for both the source and destination,
49 we now output a syntax error rather than trying to open the destination
50 hostspec as a filename.
51
52 - When --inplace creates a new destination file, rsync now creates it with
53 permissions 0600 instead of 0000 -- this makes restarting possible when
54 the transfer gets interrupted in the middle of sending a new file.
55
56 - Reject the combination of --inplace and --sparse since the sparse-output
57 algorithm doesn't work when overwriting existing data.
58
59 - Fixed the directory name in the error that is output when pop_dir()
60 fails.
61
62 - Really fixed the parsing of a "!" entry in .cvsignore files this time.
63
64 - If the generator gets a stat() error on a file, output it (this used to
65 require at least -vv for the error to be seen).
66
67 - If waitpid() fails or the child rsync didn't exit cleanly, we now handle
68 the exit status properly and generate a better error.
69
70 - Fixed some glitches in the double-verbose output when using --copy-dest,
71 --link-dest, or --compare-dest. Also improved how the verbose output
72 handles hard-links (within the transfer) that had an up-to-date alternate
73 "dest" file, and copied files (via --copy-dest).
74
75 - Fixed the matching of the dont-compress items (e.g. *.gz) against files
76 that have a path component containing a slash.
77
78 - If code reading a filter/exclude file an EINTR error, rsync now clears
79 the error flag on the file handle so it can keep on reading.
80
81 - If --relative is active, the sending side cleans up trailing "/" or "/."
82 suffixes to avoid triggering a bug in older rsync versions. Also, we now
83 reject a ".." dir if it would be sent as a relative dir.
84
85 - If a non-directory is in the way of a directory and rsync is run with
86 --dry-run and --delete, rsync no longer complains about not being able
87 to opendir() the not-yet present directory.
88
89 - When --list-only is used and a non-existent local destination dir was
90 also specified as a destination, rsync no longer generates a warning
91 about being unable to create the missing directory.
92
93 - Fixed some problems with --relative --no-implied-dirs when the
94 destination directory did not yet exist: we can now create a symlink or
95 device when it is the first thing in the missing dir, and --fuzzy no
96 longer complains about being unable to open the missing dir.
97
98 - Got rid of the need for --force to be used in some circumstances with
99 --delete-after (making it consistent with --delete-before/-during).
100
101 - Rsync now ignores the SIGXFSZ signal, just in case your OS sends this
102 when a file is too large (rsync handles the write error).
103
104 ENHANCEMENTS:
105
106 - Added the --append option that makes rsync append data onto files that
107 are longer on the source than the destination (this includes new files).
108
109 - Added the --min-size=SIZE option to exclude small files from the
110 transfer.
111
112 - Added the --compress-level option to allow you to set how aggressive
113 rsync's compression should be (this option implies --compress).
114
115 - Enhanced the parsing of the SIZE value for --min-size and --max-size to
116 allow easy entry of multiples of 1000 (instead of just multiples of 1024)
117 and off-by-one values too (e.g. --max-size=8mb-1).
118
119 - Added the --8-bit-output (-8) option, which tells rsync to avoid escaping
120 high-bit characters that it thinks are unreadable in the current locale.
121
122 - The new option --human-readable (-h) changes the output of --progress,
123 --stats, and the end-of-run summary to be easier to read. If repeated,
124 the units become powers of 1024 instead of powers of 1000. (The old
125 meaning of -h, as a shorthand for --help, still works as long as you
126 just use it on its own, as in "rsync -h".)
127
128 - If lutimes() and/or lchmod() are around, use them to allow the
129 preservation of attributes on symlinks.
130
131 - The --link-dest option now affects symlinks and devices (when possible).
132
133 - Added two config items to the rsyncd.conf parsing: "pre-xfer exec" and
134 "post-xfer exec". These allow a command to be specified on a per-module
135 basis that will be run before and/or after a daemon-mode transfer. (See
136 the man page for a list of the environment variables that are set with
137 information about the transfer.)
138
139 - When using the --relative option, you can now insert a dot dir in
140 the source path to indicate where the replication of the source dirs
141 should start. For example, if you specify a source path of
142 rsync://host/module/foo/bar/./baz/dir with -R, rsync will now only
143 replicate the "baz/dir" part of the source path (note: a trailing
144 dot dir is unaffected unless it also has a trailing slash).
145
146 - Added some new --no-FOO options that make it easier to override unwanted
147 implied or default options. For example, "-a --no-o" (aka "--archive
148 --no-owner") can be used to turn off the preservation of file ownership
149 that is implied by -a.
150
151 - Added the --chmod=MODE option that allows the destination permissions to
152 be changed from the source permissions. E.g. --chmod=g+w,o-rwx
153
154 - Added the "incoming chmod" and "outgoing chmod" daemon options that allow
155 a module to specify what permissions changes should be applied to all
156 files copied to and from the daemon.
157
158 - Allow the --temp-dir option to be specified when starting a daemon, which
159 sets the default temporary directory for incoming files.
160
161 - If --delete is combined with --dirs without --recursive, rsync will now
162 delete in any directory whose content is being synchronized.
163
164 - If --backup is combined with --delete without --backup-dir (and without
165 --delete-excluded), we add a "protect" filter-rule to ensure that files
166 with the backup suffix are not deleted.
167
168 - The file-count stats that are output by --progress were improved to
169 better indicate what the numbers mean. For instance, the output:
170 "(xfer#5, to-check=8383/9999)" indicates that this was the fifth file
171 to be transferred, and we still need to check 8383 more files out of
172 a total of 9999.
173
174 - The include/exclude code now allows a dir/*** directive (with 3 trailing
175 stars) to match both the dir itself as well as all the content below the
176 dir (dir/** would not match the dir).
177
178 - Added the --prune-empty-dirs (-m) option that makes the receiving rsync
179 discard empty chains of directories from the file-list. This makes it
180 easier to selectively copy files from a source hierarchy and end up with
181 just the directories needed to hold the resulting files.
182
183 - If the --itemize-changes (-i) option is repeated, rsync now includes
184 unchanged files in the itemized output (similar to -vv, but without all
185 the other verbose messages that can get in the way). Of course, the
186 client must be version 2.6.7 for this to work, but the remote rsync only
187 needs to be 2.6.7 if you're pushing files.
188
189 - Added the --specials option to tell rsync to copy non-device special
190 files (which rsync now attempts even as a normal user). The --devices
191 option now requests the copying of just devices (character and block).
192 The -D option still requests both (e.g. --devices and --specials), -a
193 still implies -D, and non-root users still get a silent downgrade that
194 omits device copying.
195
196 - Added the --super option to make the receiver always attempt super-user
197 activities. This is useful for systems that allow things such as devices
198 to be created or ownership to be set without being UID 0, and is also
199 useful for someone who wants to ensure that errors will be output if the
200 receiving rsync isn't being run as root.
201
202 - Added the --sockopts option for those few who want to customize the TCP
203 options used to contact a daemon rsync.
204
205 - Added a way for the --temp-dir option to be combined with a partial-dir
206 setting that lets rsync avoid non-atomic updates (for those times when
207 --temp-dir is not being used because space is tight).
208
209 - A new support script, files-to-excludes, will transform a list of files
210 into a set of include/exclude directives that will copy those files.
211
212 - A new option, --executability (-E) can be used to preserve just the
213 execute bit on files, for those times when using the --perms option is
214 not desired.
215
216 - The daemon now logs each connection and also each module-list request
217 that it receives.
218
219 - New log-format options: %M (modtime), %U (uid), %G (gid), and %B
220 (permission bits, e.g. "rwxr-xrwt").
221
222 - The --dry-run option no longer forces the enabling of --verbose.
223
224 - The --remove-sent-files option now does a better job of incrementally
225 removing the sent files on the sending side (older versions tended to
226 clump up all the removals at the end).
227
228 - A daemon now supersedes its minimal SIGCHLD handler with the standard
229 PID-remembering version after forking to handle the request. This
230 ensures that the generator can get the child-exit status from the
231 receiver.
232
233 - Use of the --bwlimit option no longer interferes with the remote rsync
234 sending error messages about invalid/refused options.
235
236 - Rsync no longer returns a usage error when used with one local source arg
237 and no destination: this now implies the --list-only option, just like
238 the comparable situation with a remote source arg.
239
240 - Various documentation improvements, including: a better synopsis, some
241 improved examples, a better discussion of the presence and absence of
242 --perms (including how it interacts with the new --executability and
243 --chmod options), an extended discussion of --temp-dir, an improved
244 discussion of --partial-dir, a better description of rsync's pattern
245 matching characters, and the documenting of what the various items in
246 the --stats output mean.
247
248 - Various new and updated diffs in the patches dir, including: acls.diff,
249 xattrs.diff, atimes.diff, detect-renamed.diff, and slp.diff.
250
251 INTERNAL:
252
253 - We now use sigaction() and sigprocmask() if possible, and fall back on
254 signal() if not. Using sigprocmask() ensures that rsync enables all the
255 signals that it needs, just in case it was started in a masked state.
256
257 - Some buffer sizes were expanded a bit, particularly on systems where
258 MAXPATHLEN is overly small (e.g. cygwin).
259
260 - If io_printf() tries to format more data than fits in the buffer, exit
261 with an error instead of transmitting a truncated buffer.
262
263 - If a va_copy macro is defined, lib/snprintf.c will use it when defining
264 the VA_COPY macro.
265
266 - Reduced the amount of stack memory needed for each level of directory
267 recursion by nearly MAXPATHLEN bytes.
268
269 - The wildmatch function was extended to allow an array of strings to be
270 supplied as the string to match. This allows the exclude code to do less
271 string copying.
272
273 - Got rid of the safe_fname() function (and all the myriad calls) and
274 replaced it with a new function in the log.c code that filters all the
275 output going to the terminal.
276
277 - Unified the f_name() and the f_name_to() functions.
278
279 DEVELOPER RELATED:
280
281 - The diffs in the patches dir now require "patch -p1 <DIFF" instead of
282 the previous -p0. Also, the version included in the release tar now
283 affect generated files (e.g. configure, rsync.1, proto.h, etc.), so
284 it is no longer necessary to run autoconf and/or yodl unless you're
285 applying a patch that was checked out from CVS.
286
287 - Several diffs in the patches dir now use the proper --enable-FOO
288 configure option instead of --with-FOO to turn on the inclusion of
289 the newly patched feature.
290
291 - There is a new script, "prepare-source" than can be used to update the
292 various generated files (proto.h, configure, etc.) even before configure
293 has created the Makefile (this is mainly useful when patching the source
294 with a patch that doesn't affect generated files).
295
296 - The testsuite now sets HOME so that it won't be affected by a file such
297 as ~/.popt.