--relative clobbers --delete

[Chuck Wolber]

Hi,

We back up a lot of machines with varying version of rsync installed on 
them. The oldest machine (hopefully soon to be retired) is running rsync 
version 2.5.7 (protocol version 26).

We back this machine up from "/" onwards with a few excludes in there. I 
noticed today that whenever we use the --relative and --delete flags 
together, the --delete flag seems to have no affect. This only happens 
when when we are backing up "/". Backing up other paths like "/tmp" etc, 
appear to work just fine.

I tested the second oldest machine, which is running rsync version 2.6.2 
(protocol version 28), and this issue does not appear. Tests on recent 
versions of rsync (3.0 and greater) also show that the issue does not 
appear there either.

Does anyone remember this issue (google and the rsync bug database do not 
appear to)? If so, do I need to worry about it with any rsync version > 
2.5.7 and < 2.6.2? Does it magically reappear anywhere else??

Thank you,

..Ch:W..

-- 
"An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers." Amanda Bloom