Rsync, solaris 8, and live file systems

[Wayne Davison]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 05:10:56PM -0500, Buddy Ellis wrote:
> rsync will transfer a 'partial' file (which was probably the 'whole' file 
> at the second that rsync examined the file) and transfer that portion of 
> the file and exit as if all is kosher.

Correct.  An if you run rsync later, it will finish the file.

> Is it not possible to use rsync to copy files from an live/in-use 
> filesystem?

You'll have to define what you think rsync should do differently,
because backing up the data that is there and moving on with the rest of
the copy seems like a reasonable behavior to me.  Perhaps you'd prefer
for rsync to notice when a file is growing and to skip it with a
warning?

..wayne..