HFS+ resource forks: WIP patch included

Gregory Brauer greg at wildbrain.com
Wed Mar 10 20:06:20 GMT 2004


I use rsync to distribute files from a non-OS X server to
OS X clients.  I think using ._ files would clearly be the
best solution for the non-OS X side if you can get the
sorting issue worked out.  That way the files on the non-HFS+
side of the rsync could be accessed directly by the Mac if
mounted via SMB or NFS.


I also wanted to share a little known tool I found through
Googling that is the hack I use to make rsync work for me
currently.  "FixupResourceForks" pushes metadata and resource
forks stored in ._ files back into the filesystem.  For the
record, this is how I currently use rsync to copy files
between OS X machines:

1. Use the Finder (or CpMac, or other utils) to copy my data
    from an HFS partition to a UFS or NFS partition on a server.
2. Use rsync to copy the files from the non-HFS+ partition to
    an HFS+ partition on a Mac
3. On the client OS X machine, run
    /System/Library/CoreServices/FixupResourceForks on the
    root of the synced tree on the HFS+ partition.

The disadvantage to this method is that all resource forks
and metadata (all ._ files) are re-synced every time rsync
runs because FixupResourceForks deletes the ._ files in
the process of pushing the data into the filesystem, but
this is fortunately a small amount of data for me.

Hope this helps someone until the *real* rsync solution is
developed.  (I *do* need type/creator/icon information, so
this patch wouldn't work for me just yet.)

Greg



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