--link-dest vs. special files and owner/group changes

[Matt McCutchen]

On Sun, 2008-01-20 at 17:03 +0100, "Jürgen Fluk" wrote:
> rsync 2.6.9 --link-dest does
> 
> - not hardlink special files (symlink, device nodes)
>   This doesn't take much space, but it clutters the logfiles
> 
> - change owner/groupship on the hardlink
>   So if I use a hard-linked-tree-per-day, it changes history also

Those behaviors are not the intended ones for rsync 2.6.9.  It is
supposed to hardlink symlinks and devices (assuming the filesystem
supports it and the configure-time test succeeded), and it is never
supposed to mutate --link-dest basis files.  Please provide your rsync
command line and some information about your machine so I can try to
figure out why rsync is working incorrectly for you.

Matt