ignore mtime - or any metadata

[Hardy]

Thanks Kevin,

-a implies rlptgoD and I obviously used it by comfort and habit. 
Omitting -t (and perhaps also gop, not really needed) might solve my 
problem? Will give it a try.

Am 25.09.22 um 20:30 schrob Kevin Korb via rsync:
> -a is telling rsync to copy the metadata.  --size-only is telling rsync 
> to skip the contents of files that are the same time.  Without 
> --link-dest rsync would just update the metadata on the target. However, 
> with --link-dest rsync is being told to make the same file with 2 
> different metadatas.  It can only do so by duplicating the file 
> (effectively the same as --copy-dest).
> 
> On 9/25/22 14:26, Hardy via rsync wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> SHORT:
>> rsync shall ignore differences in meta (inode) data, but does not even 
>> with --size-only. -- If in combination with --link-dest.
>> Is there any flag I missed?
>>
>> EXPLANATION:
>> I use
>> rsync -avbuH --size-only --stats --delete-excluded 
>> --link-dest=/path/to/last "user at system:Shared/Data" /path/to/now
>>
>> to sync backup-style and use the --link-dest option to minimize 
>> traffic (and space) and still have a full backup each time. So far 
>> nothing special.
>> Now it happens that at the source side data changes are moderate, but 
>> meta information (like atime, mtime) do change a lot. I didn't find a 
>> solution to make rsync ignore these differences to use a link. 
>> --size-only and -t (implied by -a) work ok with a simple syncs, but 
>> obviously (for me) it does not in combination with --link-dest. I can 
>> understand the motivation behind this: rsync is not allowed to change 
>> meta data of the existing inode, nor can it neglect the change - or 
>> can it?
>>
>> Hardy
>>
>