rsync/NEWS

NEWS for rsync 2.6.4 (UNRELEASED)
Protocol: 29 (changed)
Changes since 2.6.3:

  OUTPUT CHANGES:

    - When rsync deletes a directory and outputs a verbose message about
      it, it now appends a trailing slash to the name instead of (only
      sometimes) outputting a preceding "directory " string.

    - The --stats output will contain file-list time-statistics if both
      sides are 2.6.4, or if the local side is 2.6.4 and the files are
      being pushed (since the stats come from the sending side).
      (Requires protocol 29.)
  
  BUG FIXES:

    - Restore the list-clearing behavior of "!" in a .cvsignore file (2.6.3
      was only treating it as a special token in an rsync include/exclude
      file).

    - The combination of --verbose and --dry-run now mentions changes in
      directories and it now includes the full update information that
      would be output without --dry-run at higher levels of verbosity.

    - Avoid a mkdir warning when removing a directory in the destination
      that already exists in the --backup-dir.

    - An OS that has a binary mode for its files (such as cygwin0 needed
      setmode(fd, O_BINARY) called on the temp-file we opened with
      mkstemp().  (Fix derived from the cygwin's rsync package.)

    - Fixed a potential hang when verbosity is high, the client side is
      the sender, and the file-list is large.

    - We now check if the OS doesn't support using mknod() for creating
      FIFOs and sockets, and compile-in using mkfifo() and socket() when
      necessary.

    - Fixed an off-by-one error in the handling of --max-delete=N.

    - One place in the code wasn't checking if fork() failed.

    - The "ignore nonreadable" daemon parameter no longer affects symlinks
      that are being copied, even if they point nowhere.

    - If the OS does not have lchown() and its chown() tries to set the
      referent of a symlink (as it should), we no longer try to set the
      user and group of a symlink.

    - The generator now properly runs the hard-link loop and the dir-time
      rewriting loop after we're sure that the redo phase is complete.

    - When --backup was specified with --partial-dir=DIR (where DIR is a
      relative path), the backup code was erroneously trying to backup a
      file that was put into the partial-dir.

    - One call to flush_write_file() was not being checked for an error.

    - The --no-relative option was not being sent from the client to a
      server sender.

    - If an rsync daemon specified "dont compress = ..." for a file and the
      client tried to specify --compress, the libz code was not handling a
      compression level of 0 properly.  This could cause a transfer failure
      if the block-size for a file was large enough (i.e. rsync might have
      exited with an error for large files).

    - If a daemon can't open the specified log file (i.e. syslog is not
      being used), die without crashing.  We also try to output an error
      about the failure (which will only be seen if --no-detach was
      specified).

    - A local transfer no longer duplicates all its include/exclude options
      by sending the forked process a copy of the list it already has.

  ENHANCEMENTS:

    - Rsync now supports popt's option aliases, which means that you can
      use /etc/popt and/or ~/.popt to create your own option aliases.

    - Added the --delete-during (--del) option which will delete files
      from on the receiving side incrementally as each directory in the
      transfer is being processed (which makes it more efficient than the
      default, before-the-transfer behavior of --delete).  Note that the
      --del option is implemented as an internally-defined popt alias, so
      an rsync daemon that refuses "delete" (which, for safety's sake,
      really matches "delete*") will still refuse all delete options.  The
      default --delete behavior is also explicitly selectable via
      --delete-before.

    - All the --delete-WHEN options are now more memory efficient:
      Previously an entire duplicate set of file-list objects was created
      on the receiving side for the entire destination hierarchy.  The new
      algorithm only creates one directory of objects at a time.

    - Added the --copy-dest option, which works like --link-dest except
      that it includes copies of identical files.

    - Added support for specifying multiple --compare-dest, --copy-dest, or
      --link-dest options, but only of a single type. (Promoted from the
      patches dir and enhanced.)

    - Added the --max-size option. (Promoted from the patches dir.)

    - The daemon-mode options were separated from the normal rsync options
      so that they can't be mixed together.  This makes it impossible to
      start a daemon that had improper default option values that could
      cause problems (such as a hang or an abort) when a client connects.

    - The --bwlimit option may now be used in combination with --daemon
      to specify both a default value for the daemon side and a value
      that cannot be exceeded by a user-specified --bwlimit option.

    - Added the "port" parameter to the rsyncd.conf file. (Promoted from
      the patches dir.)  Also added "address".  A command-line option
      will take precedence over a config-file option, as expected.

    - In _exit_cleanup(): when we are exiting with a partially-received
      file, we now flush any data in the write-cache before closing the
      partial file.

    - The --inplace support was enhanced to work with --compare-dest,
      --link-dest, and (the new) --copy-dest options. (Requires protocol
      29.)

    - Added the --dirs (-d) option for an easier way to copy directories
      without recursion.

    - Added the --list-only option which is mainly a way for the client to
      put the server into listing mode without needing to resort to any
      option kluges (e.g. the age-old use of "-r --exclude="/*/*" for a
      non-recursive listing).  This option is used automatically when a
      modern rsync speaks to a modern daemon, but may also be specified
      manually if you want to force the use of the --list-only option over
      a remote-shell connection.

    - Added the --omit-dir-times (-O) option which will avoid updating the
      modified time for directories when --times was specified.  This
      option will avoid an extra pass through the file-list at the end of
      the transfer (to tweak all the directory times), which can result in
      an appreciable speedup for a really large transfer. (Promoted from
      the patches dir.)

    - Added the --filter (-f) option and its helper option, -F.  Filter
      rules are an extension to the existing include/exclude handling
      that also supports nested filter files as well as per-directory
      filter files (like .cvsignore, but with full filter-rule parsing).
      This new option was chosen in order to ensure that all existing
      include/exclude processing remained 100% compatible with older
      versions.  Protocol 29 is needed for full filter-rule support, but
      backward-compatible rules work with earlier protocol versions.
      (Promoted from the patches dir.)

    - Added the --delay-updates option that puts all updated files into
      a temporary directory (by default ".~tmp~", but settable via the
      --partial-dir=DIR option) until the end of the transfer.  This
      makes the updates a little more atomic for a large transfer.

    - If rsync is put into the background, any output from --progress is
      reduced.

    - Documented the "max verbosity" setting for rsyncd.conf.  (This
      setting was added a couple releases ago, but left undocumented.)

    - The sender and the generator now double-check the file-list index
      they are given, and refuse to operate on a directory index (since
      that would indicate that something had gone very wrong).

    - Added the --itemize-changes (-i) option that is a way to output the
      list of files that got transferred and/or changed in any way, and how
      they changed.  The effect is the same as specifying a --log-format of
      "%i %n%L" (see the rsyncd.conf manpage).  Works with --dry-run too.

    - Added the --fuzzy option, which attempts to find a basis file for a
      file that is being created from scratch.  The current algorithm
      only looks in the destination directory for the created file, but
      it does attempt to find a match based on size/mod-time (in case the
      file was renamed with no other changes) as well as based on a fuzzy
      name-matching algorithm.  This option requires protocol 29 because
      it needs the new file-sorting order.  (Promoted from patches dir
      and enhanced.)

  SUPPORT FILES:

    - Added support/atomic-rsync -- a perl script that will transfer some
      files using rsync, and then move the updated files into place all at
      once at the end of the transfer.  Only works when pulling, and uses
      --link-dest and a parallel hierarchy of files to effect its update.

    - Added support/mnt-excl that takes the /proc/mounts file and
      translates it into a set of excludes that will exclude all mount
      points (even mapped mounts to the same disk).  The excludes are made
      relative to the specified source dir and properly anchored.

    - Added support/savetransfer.c -- a C program that can make a copy of
      all the data that flows over the wire.  This lets you test for data
      corruption (by saving the data on both the sending side and the
      receiving side) or provides a way to help debug a protocol error.

    - Added support/rrsync -- my version of Joe Smith's restricted rsync
      perl script.  This helps to ensure that only certain rsync commands
      can be run by an ssh invocation.

    - Improved the option descriptions in the --help text.

  INTERNAL:

    - Added better checking of the checksum-header values that come over
      the socket.

    - Merged the various delete-file functions into a single function so
      that it is easier to maintain.

    - Improved the type of some variables (particularly blocksize vars) for
      consistency and proper size.

    - Got rid of the uint64 type (which we didn't need).

    - Use a slightly more compatible set of core #include directives.

    - Defined int32 in a way that ensures that the build dies if we can't
      find a variable with at least 32 bits.

    - The daemon's "read only" config item now sets an internal read_only
      variable that makes extra sure that no write/delete calls on the
      read-only side can succeed.

  PROTOCOL DIFFERENCES FOR VERSION 29:

    - A 16-bit flag-word is transmitted after every file-list index.  This
      indicates what is changing between the sender and the receiver.  The
      generator now transmits an index and a flag-word to indicate when
      dirs and symlinks have changed (only outputting local change messages
      for older protocols).

    - If --inplace is specified, the generator sends an extra byte after
      the flag-word indicating what kind of basis file is being used for
      the transfer (see the FNAMECMP_* defines).

    - The sending of exclude names is done using filter-rule syntax.  This
      means that all names have a prefixed rule indicator, even excludes
      (which used to be sent as a bare pattern, when possible).  The -C
      option will include the per-dir .cvsignore merge file in the list of
      filter rules so it is positioned correctly (unlike in some older
      transfer scenarios).

    - Rsync sorts the filename list in a different way:  it sorts the
      subdir names after the non-subdir names for each dir's contents, and
      it always puts a dir's contents immediately after the dir's name in
      the list.  (Previously an item named "foo.txt" would sort in between
      directory "foo/" and "foo/bar".)

    - When talking to a protocol 29 rsync daemon, a list-only request
      is able to note this before the options are sent over the wire, and
      the new --list-only option is enabled.

    - When the --stats bytes are sent over the wire (or stored in a batch),
      they now include two elapsed-time values: one for how long it took to
      build the file-list, and one for how long it took to send it over the
      wire (each expressed in thousandths of a second).

    - When --delete-excluded is specified with some filter rules (AKA
      excludes), a client sender will still initiate a send of the filter
      rules to the receiver, but it only includes those rules that are
      receiver-specific.  Older protocols used to omit the sending of
      excludes in this situation (since there were no receiver-specific
      rules that survived --delete-excluded back then).

    - A protocol-29 batch file includes a bit for the setting of the --dirs
      option.  Also, the shell script created by --write-batch will use the
      --filter option instead of --exclude-from to capture any filter rules.

  BUILD CHANGES:

    - Handle an operating system that use mkdev() in place of makedev().

    - Improved configure to better handle cross-compiling.