Prevent dereferenced path of symlinked directories from printing on client side log output

wesley wesley at tormail.org
Tue Dec 18 02:13:28 MST 2012


I'm trying to figure out if there is some way to run an rsync daemon 
which makes a mix of "real" and symlinked folders available to a client 
such that all the folders appear as "real" to the client.

I realize the --copy-links and --copy-dirlinks accomplish this when 
invoked from the client side (and that is currently how I am 
accomplishing this). Is there any way to essentially "force" those 
options from the daemon end? So that to a client, a symlinked dir will 
always appear as the referent dir.

If not, then if at all possible, I would like to block the referent dir 
from showing up in the log output on the client side. If the client is 
printing --progress output to the terminal, or is tailing the log 
output, rsync will indicate when a directory is a symlink and print the 
dereferenced directory. Is there any way to prevent rsync from printing 
drreferenced directory info? Printing this info to the client can leak 
potentially sensitive information about the filesystem/usernames/etc on 
the server running rsyncd, which is part of the reason why symlinks are 
being used (to present a consistent "clean" set of read only dirs that 
may be downloaded from). Presenting the referent dir paths leaks 
information that it would be preferable not to leak.

Thanks to anyone that can point me in the right direction (or letting me 
know if it's not possible). If it's not possible, would very much 
appreciate if it could be considered as a feature enhancement to the 
rsyncd because of the privacy implications of leaking referent path data 
to clients.

-- 
Wesley



More information about the rsync mailing list