Per file Log output to understand hard-link decision

[Hardy]

Don't know if this is enough for you, but it may help at least a bit to hunt down your problem. There is a flag -i

 From man rsync
--itemize-changes, -i    output a change-summary for all updates

this gives either a "." for no change, or a letter code for each change in "data, time, size" etc., for any filename it logs.

You will figure most flags. Others you may need to look up somewhere.

Hope this helps (a bit).

Hardy


Am 14.05.23 um 14:38 schrieb c.buhtz--- via rsync:
> Hello,
> 
> I know it is a often discussed topic how rsync decide about using
> hardlinks or copy a file. Even if content is unchanged problems are
> often file permissions and owner ships. I know that.
> 
> Is it possible to configure rsync that way that it logs for each file
> its decision about using a hardlink and if not why exactly it doesn't?
> 
> The background of my question:
> I'm part of maintainer team of "Back In Time" a desktop backup software
> using rsync in the back. For years we have users reporting about the
> hardlink problem. And we are sure that it isn't their fault but ours.
> We can't reproduce the problems for sure but we observe the behavior
> also on our own machines sometimes.
> 
> It would help our investigation if we could better understand the
> hardlink-decision for each file and folder.
> 
> Kind
> Christian
>