Rsync deletes too much?

[John Van Essen]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, Marco Nicosia <marco at escape.org> wrote:
>
> Hello. I'm having a problem using rsync to copy my root partition to a
> new disk. This disk has a previous copy on it, and rsync seems determined
> to (unnecessarily) delete files from it. Worse, despite the fact that the
> files DO exist on the source, it does not update the destination, leaving
> me with less than I had before?!
> 
> Here's my usage:
> 
> ] server# /usr/local/bin/rsync -naxv --delete --progress --stats --exclude '/dev/' --exclude '/tmp/' --exclude '/usr/var/tmp/' --exclude '/usr/var/run/' / /tmp/bkup/ | grep -c deleting
> ] 105668

You are using -x, which will not include the contents of any mounted
partitions.  105,668 deletes and no update of the destination makes me
think that /usr on the source is a mounted partition, which would
explain both symptoms.
-- 
        John Van Essen  Univ of MN Alumnus  <vanes002 at umn.edu>