rsync/old_versions

Old rsync version archive

Static rsync binaries built from historical release tags. Two uses:

1. Cross-version behaviour checks — confirming whether a behaviour a user reported on an old release is version-specific or option-driven.
2. The version-mixing test suite — runtests.py --rsync-bin2=... runs the current code against one of these as the daemon / remote-shell peer; CI (.github/workflows/ubuntu-version-mix.yml) does this for every binary here against the per-version manifests in testsuite/expect/.

Binaries are statically linked so they run regardless of the host's shared libraries, and named rsync_<version>:

Binary	Version	Protocol	Notes
rsync_2.6.0	2.6.0	27	2004; needs autoconf regen (see below)
rsync_3.0.0	3.0.0	30	2008
rsync_3.1.0	3.1.0	31	2013
rsync_3.1.3	3.1.3	31	Ubuntu 18.04 / Debian buster era (2018)
rsync_3.2.0	3.2.0	31	2020 (zstd/lz4/xxhash negotiation added)
rsync_3.2.7	3.2.7	31	2022
rsync_3.3.0	3.3.0	31	2024
rsync_3.4.0	3.4.0	32	2025
rsync_3.4.1	3.4.1	32	2025

These are every x.y.0 release from 2.6.0 (2004) onward plus a few point releases. 2.6.0 is the practical floor: older tags need progressively more porting to build on a current toolchain.

All built --disable-openssl and with _FORTIFY_SOURCE disabled (see below); xxhash/zstd/lz4 are compiled in where the version supports them.

Adding a version

./build_static.sh 3.2.7            # uses git tag v3.2.7
./build_static.sh 3.0.9 v3.0.9     # explicit tag if naming differs

The script checks out the tag into a throwaway git worktree, applies the minimal patches needed to compile old sources on a modern toolchain, links statically, verifies the result is static and reports the requested version, then installs rsync_<version> here and removes the worktree.

Override the source repo with RSYNC_REPO=/path/to/rsync ./build_static.sh ... (defaults to ../rsync.4).

Why the patches?

Modern GCC (>= 14, C23 default) and glibc reject things old rsync relied on. build_static.sh handles these, each guarded so it's a no-op when not needed:

1. K&R lseek64() redeclaration in syscall.c clashes with glibc's real prototype — removed.

2. gettimeofday() — glibc only has the 2-arg form; configure misdetects the 1-arg form, so HAVE_GETTIMEOFDAY_TZ is forced on in config.h.

3. C23 () == (void) breaks K&R prototypes called with arguments (qsort comparator, pool->bomb, etc.) — built with -std=gnu11.

4. Assorted modern -Werror promotions (incompatible pointer types, implicit declarations) downgraded to warnings; bundled zlib/popt used to keep the static link self-contained.

5. OpenSSL (3.2+) is disabled with --disable-openssl: linking libcrypto.a statically drags in jitterentropy (jent_*) and zlib's uncompress (OpenSSL's COMP module), which don't resolve here. OpenSSL only provided optional MD4/MD5, which rsync implements natively, so checksum behaviour is unaffected.

6. _FORTIFY_SOURCE disabled (-U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0): modern Ubuntu defaults it to =3, whose stricter object-size checks turn latent (historically benign) over-reads in OLD rsync into hard *** buffer overflow detected *** aborts when the binary runs as a server/daemon — which made e.g. 3.1.3 and 3.2.7 unusable as peers. Disabling it makes the archival binaries behave as the released versions did.

7. Pre-3.0 tags (e.g. 2.6.0) ship configure.in, not a generated configure. The script runs autoheader/autoconf to generate it, after neutralizing the AC_CHECK_FUNCS(fn,,AC_LIBOBJ(lib/...)) fallbacks for inet_ntop/inet_pton/getaddrinfo/getnameinfo — modern autoconf emits broken shell for those never-taken branches (the funcs exist in glibc). It also generates proto.h (no make rule in that era) and stubs the vendored lib/addrinfo.h the tag dropped (modern glibc supplies struct addrinfo). All guarded so they no-op on 3.x.

Newer versions may need fewer or different tweaks; if a build fails, the script prints the first compiler errors from its log.