rsync and extended attributes

[Eric Chen]

Hi,

Right now rsync is unable to preserve extended attributes when copying
files. I want to be able to copy files over from one XFS Linux machine to
another XFS Linux machine over the network and I thought rsync would be
better because it supports incremental backup. Also, rsync supports
symlinks, while file copy using rcp, scp, and smbfs do not. It would also
probably be easier to modify than file copy over NFS.


I was wondering if you could give me some direction on what to do so I can
integrate this kind of support into rsync. What would I need to modify in
the source code so rsync could preserve extended attributes when copying? I
would appreciate any input or suggestions that you might have to help me in
this project.


Thanks,
~Eric