rsync clobbering links?

[John Van Essen]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Mark Fenbers <Mark.Fenbers at noaa.gov> wrote:
> When using rsync -avv to recursively copy a local directory on a
> remote server, and if the remote server has a symbolic link of the
> same name pointing to some other directory, then that remote symlink
> is clobbered in favor of the hard-wired path.  I looked at the man
> page and other rsync documentation about copying links, but not of the
> options seemed to apply in my case.  The closest was --copy-unsafe-
> links, but it seemed to imply that this only referred to links on the
> local server, not the remote one.  What option do I specify so that
> rsync obeys/follows remote links and does not clobber them?

What version of rsync are you using?

Rsync 2.6.3 has a new option that does what you want:

       -K, --keep-dirlinks
              On  the receiving side, if a symlink is pointing to
              a directory, it  will  be  treated  as  matching  a
              directory from the sender.

-- 
        John Van Essen  Univ of MN Alumnus  <vanes002 at umn.edu>