rsync --link-dest, --delete and hard-link count

[Paul Slootman]

On Fri 05 Feb 2010, grarpamp wrote:

> Beware when using rsync --link-dest, --delete -Haxi !!!
> 
> Files that are present in the previous datedir/hier/run but will
> not be present in the currently to be made datedir/hier/run,
> [because they are no longer present in the source hier],
> DO NOT show up in the output of rsync -i as deletions.

As they shouldn't, as they're not deleted.

> Sure, these no-longer-present source files are not technically unlinked from
> your previous archives in the current run, but it can be MASSIVELY confusing
> and dangerous if you're a log watcher/reviewer looking for what has changed.

Only if you don't understand what's going on.

> You'll never see the deletions from the source and if you nuke your old
> snapshots thinking things are cool because of that, well, they're not.

The whole point of having a rotating system of images is that you can go
back to an old one if you need something that's deleted. Why would you
want to delete an old image manually just because you think nothing's
been deleted? It's not as if that old image is taking up a lot of
valuable space (it's hardlinked, remember).

dirvish can save the list of files in each image, then it becomes a
simple diff (or comm -23) to find what's been deleted.

> There may be cause to print something like
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I don't think we need rsync to print that mailing list footer :-)


Paul