1 NEWS for rsync 3.0.0 (UNRELEASED)
5 NOTABLE CHANGES IN BEHAVIOR:
7 - The handling of implied directories when using --relative has changed to
8 send them as directories (e.g. no implied dir is ever sent as a symlink).
9 This avoids unexpected behavior and should not adversely affect most
10 people. If you're one of those rare individuals who relied upon having
11 an implied dir be duplicated as a symlink, you should specify the
12 transfer of the symlink and the transfer of the referent directory as
13 separate args. (See also --keep-dirlinks and --no-implied-dirs.)
14 Also, exclude rules no longer have a partial effect on implied dirs.
16 - Requesting a remote file list without specifying -r (--recursive) now
17 sends the -d (--dirs) option to the remote rsync rather than sending -r
18 along with an extra exclude of /*/*. If the remote rsync does not
19 understand the -d option (i.e. it is 2.6.3 or older), you will need to
20 either turn off -d (--no-d), or specify -r --exclude='/*/*' manually.
22 - In --dry-run mode, the last line of the verbose summary text is output
23 with a "(DRY RUN)" suffix to help remind you that no updates were made.
25 - A writable rsync daemon with "use chroot" disabled now defaults to a
26 symlink-munging behavior designed to make symlinks safer while also
27 allowing absolute symlinks to be stored and retrieved. This also has
28 the effect of making symlinks unusable while they're in the daemon's
29 hierarchy. See the daemon option "munge symlinks" for full details.
33 - A daemon with "use chroot = no" and excluded items listed in the daemon
34 config file now properly checks an absolute-path arg specified for these
35 options: --compare-dest, --link-dest, --copy-dest, --partial-dir,
36 --backup-dir, --temp-dir, and --files-from.
38 - If a file's data arrived successfully on the receiving side but the
39 rename of the temporary file to the destination file failed AND the
40 --remove-source-files (or the deprecated --remove-sent-files) option
41 was specified, rsync no longer erroneously removes the associated
44 - Fixed the output of -ii when combined with one of the --*-dest options:
45 it now itemizes all the items, not just the changed ones.
47 - Made the output of all file types consistent when using a --*-dest
48 option. Prior versions would output too many creation events for
51 - The code that waits for a child pid now handles being interrupted by a
52 signal. This fixes a problem with the pre-xfer exec function not being
53 able to get the exit status from the script.
55 - A negated filter rule (i.e. with a '!' modifier) no longer loses the
56 negation when sending the filter rules to the remote rsync.
58 - Fixed a problem with the --out-format (aka --log-format) option %f: it
59 no longer outputs superfluous directory info for a non-daemon rsync.
61 - Fixed a problem with -vv (double --verbose) and --stats when "pushing"
62 files (which includes local copies). Version 2.6.9 would complete the
63 copy, but exit with an error when the receiver output its memory stats.
65 - If --password-file is used on a non-daemon transfer, rsync now complains
66 and exits. This should help users figure out that they can't use this
67 option to control a remote shell's password prompt.
69 - Make sure that directory permissions of a newly-created destination
70 directory are handled right when --perms is left off.
72 - The itemized output of a newly-created destination directory is now
73 output as a creation event, not a change event.
75 - Improved --hard-link so that more corner cases are handled correctly
76 when combined with options such as --link-dest and/or --ignore-existing.
78 - The --append option no longer updates a file that has the same size.
80 - Fixed a bug when combining --backup and --backup-dir with --inplace:
81 any missing backup directories are now created.
83 - Fixed a bug when using --backup and --inplace with --whole-file or
84 --read-batch: backup files are actually created now.
86 - Starting up an extra copy of an rsync daemon will not clobber the pidfile
87 for the running daemon -- if the pidfile exists, the new daemon will exit
90 - The daemon pidfile is checked and created sooner in the startup sequence.
92 - If a daemon module's "path" value is not an absolute pathname, the code
93 now makes it absolute internally (making it work properly).
95 - Ensure that a temporary file always has owner-write permission while we
96 are writing to it. This avoids problems with some network filesystems.
98 - Any errors output about password-file reading no longer cause an error at
99 the end of the run about a partial transfer.
101 - The --read-batch option for protocol 30 now ensures that several more
102 options are set correctly for the current batch file: --iconv, --acls,
103 --xattrs, --inplace, --append, and --append-verify.
105 - Using --only-write-batch to a daemon receiver now work properly (older
106 versions would update some files while writing the batch).
110 - A new incremental-recursion algorithm is now used when rsync is talking
111 to another 3.x version. This starts the transfer going more quickly
112 (before all the files have been found), and requires much less memory.
113 See the --recursive option in the manpage for some restrictions.
115 - Lowered memory use in the non-incremental-recursion algorithm for typical
116 option values (usually saving from 21-29 bytes per file).
118 - The default --delete algorithm is now --delete-during when talking to a
119 3.x rsync. This is a faster scan than using --delete-before (which is
120 the default when talking to older rsync versions), and is compatible with
121 the new incremental recursion mode.
123 - Rsync now allows multiple remote-source args to be specified rather than
124 having to rely on a special space-splitting side-effect of the remote-
125 shell. Additional remote args must specify the same host or an empty one
126 (e.g. empty: :file1 or ::module/file2). This means that local use of
127 brace expansion now works: rsync -av host:dir/{f1,f2} .
129 - Added the --protect-args (-s) option, that tells rsync to send most of
130 the command-line args at the start of the transfer rather than as args
131 to the remote-shell command. This protects them from space-splitting,
132 and only interprets basic wildcard special shell characters (*?[).
134 - Added the --delete-delay option, which is a more efficient way to delete
135 files at the end of the transfer without needing a separate delete pass.
137 - Added the --acls (-A) option to preserve Access Control Lists. This is
138 an improved version of the prior patch that was available, and it even
139 supports OS X ACLs. If you need to have backward compatibility with old,
140 ACL-patched versions of rsync, apply the acls.diff file from the patches
143 - Added the --xattrs (-X) option to preserver extended attributes. This is
144 an improved version of the prior patch that was available, and it even
145 supports OS X xattrs (which includes their resource fork data). If you
146 need to have backward compatibility with old, xattr-patched versions of
147 rsync, apply the xattrs.diff file from the patches dir.
149 - Added the --fake-super option that allows a non-super user to preserve
150 all attributes of a file by using a special extended-attribute idiom.
151 It even supports the storing of foreign ACL data on your backup server.
152 There is also an analogous "fake super" option for an rsync daemon.
154 - Added the --iconv option, which allows rsync to convert filenames from
155 one character-set to another during the transfer. The default is to make
156 this feature available as long as your system has iconv_open(). If
157 compilation fails, specify --disable-iconv to configure, and then
158 rebuild. If you want rsync to perform character-set conversions by
159 default, you can specify --enable-iconv=CONVERT_STRING with the default
160 value for the --iconv option that you wish to use. For example,
161 "--enable-iconv=." is a good choice. See the rsync manpage for an
162 explanation of the --iconv option's settings.
164 - Added the --skip-compress=LIST option to override the default list of
165 file suffixes that will not be compressed when using --compress.
167 - The daemon's default for "dont compress" was extended to include:
168 *.7z *.mp[34] *.mov *.avi *.ogg *.jpg *.jpeg
169 The matching routine was also optimized to run more quickly.
171 - The --max-delete option now outputs a warning if it skipped any file
172 deletions, including a count of how many deletions were skipped. (Older
173 versions just silently stopped deleting things.)
175 - You may specify --max-delete=0 to a 3.0.0 client to request that it warn
176 about extraneous files without deleting anything. If you're not sure
177 what version the client is, you can use the less-obvious --max-delete=-1,
178 as both old and new versions will treat that as the same request (though
179 older versions don't warn).
181 - The --hard-link option now uses less memory on both the sending and
182 receiving side for all protocol versions. For protocol 30, the use of a
183 hashtable on the sending side allows us to more efficiently convey to the
184 receiver what files are linked together. This reduces the amount of data
185 sent over the socket by a considerable margin (rather than adding more
186 data), and limits the in-memory storage of the device+inode information
187 to just the sending side for the new protocol 30, or to the receiving
188 side when speaking an older protocol (note that older rsync versions kept
189 the device+inode information on both sides).
191 - The filter rules now support a perishable ("p") modifier that marks rules
192 that should not have an effect in a directory that is being deleted. e.g.
193 -f '-p .svn/' would only affect "live" .svn directories.
195 - Rsync checks all the alternate-destination args for validity (e.g.
196 --link-dest). This lets the user know when they specified a directory
199 - If we get an error setting the time on a symlink, we don't complain about
200 it anymore (since some operating systems don't support that, and it's not
203 - Protocol 30 now uses MD5 checksums instead of MD4.
205 - Changed the --append option to not checksum the existing data in the
206 destination file, which speeds up file appending.
208 - Added the --append-verify option, which works like the older --append
209 option (verifying the existing data in the destination file). For
210 compatibility with older rsync versions, any use of --append that is
211 talking protocol 29 or older will revert to the --append-verify method.
213 - Added the --contimeout=SECONDS option that lets the user specify a
214 connection timeout for rsync daemon access.
216 - Documented and extended the support for the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG variable
217 that can be used to enhance the client side of a daemon connection.
219 - Improved the dashes and double-quotes in the nroff manpage output.
221 - We now support a lot more --no-OPTION override options.
225 - The file-list sorting algorithm now uses a sort that keeps any same-
226 named items in the same order as they were specified. This allows
227 rsync to always ensure that the first of the duplicates is the one
228 that will be included in the copy. The new sort was also faster
229 than the glibc version of qsort() and mergesort() in my testing.
231 - Rsync now supports the transfer of 64-bit timestamps (time_t values).
233 - Fixed a build problem with older (2.x) versions of gcc.
235 - Added some isType() functions that make dealing with signed characters
236 easier without forcing variables via casts.
238 - Changed strcat/strcpy/sprintf function calls to use safer versions.
240 - Upgraded the included popt version to 1.10.2 and improved its use of
241 string-handling functions.
243 - Added missing prototypes for compatibility functions from the lib dir.
245 - Configure determines if iconv() has a const arg, allowing us to avoid a
248 - Made the sending of some numbers more efficient for protocol 30.
250 - Make sure that a daemon process doesn't mind if the client was weird and
251 omitted the --server option.
253 - There are more internal logging categories available in protocol 30 than
254 the age-old FINFO and FERROR, including FERROR_XFER and FWARN. These new
255 categories allow some errors and warnings to go to stderr without causing
256 an erroneous end-of-run warning about some files not being able to be
259 - Improved the use of "const" on pointers.
261 - Improved J.W.'s pool_alloc routines to add a way of freeing older
262 sections of a pool's memory.
264 - The getaddrinfo.c compatibility code in the "lib" dir was replaced with
265 some new code (derived from samba, derived from PostgreSQL) that has a
266 better license than the old code.
270 - Rsync is now licensed under the GPLv3 or later.
272 - Rsync is now being maintained in a "git" repository instead of CVS
273 (though the old CVS repository still exists). Several maintenance
274 scripts were updated to work with git.
276 - Generated files are no longer committed into the source repository. The
277 autoconf and autoheader commands are now automatically run during the
278 normal use of "configure" and "make". The latest dev versions of all
279 generated files can also be copied from the samba.org web site (see the
280 "magic" configure script that now comes with rsync for its location).
282 - The "patches" directory of diff files is now built from branches in the
283 rsync git repository (branch patch/FOO creates file patches/FOO.diff).
285 - The proto.h file is now built using a simple perl script rather than a
286 complex awk script, which proved to be more widely compatible.
288 - When running the tests, we now put our per-test temp dirs into a sub-
289 directory named testtmp (which is created, if missing). This allows
290 someone to symlink the testtmp directory to another filesystem (which is
291 useful if the build dir's filesystem does not support ACLs and xattrs,
292 but another file system does).
294 - Rsync now has a way of handling protocol-version changes during the
295 development of a new protocol version. This causes any out-of-sync
296 versions to speak an older protocol rather than fail in a cryptic manner.
297 This addition makes it safe to deploy a pre-release version that may
298 interact with the public. This new exchange of sub-version info does not
299 interfere with the {MIN,MAX}_PROTOCOL_VERSION checking algorithm (which
300 does not have enough range to allow the main protocol number to be
301 incremented for every minor tweak in that happens during development).
303 - The csprotocol.txt file was updated to mention the daemon protocol change
304 in the 3.0.0 release.