path: root/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 for a pull.)

    - The "%o" (operation) log-format escape now has a third value (besides
      "send" and "recv"):  "del." (with trailing dot to make it 4 chars).
      This changes the way deletions are logged in the daemon's log file.

    - When the --log-format option is combined with --verbose, rsync now
      avoids outputting the name of the file twice in most circumstances.
      As long as the --log-format item does not refer to any post-transfer
      items (such as %b or %c), the --log-format message is output prior to
      the transfer with --verbose being the equivalent of a --log-format of
      '%n%L' (which outputs the name and any symlink info).  If the log
      output must occur after the transfer to be complete, the only time
      the name is also output prior to the transfer is when --progress was
      specified (so that the name will precede the progress stats, and the
      full --log-format output will come after).
  
  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 the full list
      of changes that would be output without --dry-run.

    - 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 cygwin) needed
      setmode(fd, O_BINARY) called on the temp-file we opened with
      mkstemp().  (Fix derived from the cygwin's 2.6.3 rsync package.)

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

    - Fixed a potential protocol-corrupting bug where the generator could
      merge a message from the receiver into the middle of a multiplexed
      packet of data if only part of that data was written out to the
      socket when we got the message from the generator.

    - 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 used to erroneously affect
      symlinks that pointed to a non-existent file.  This has been fixed.

    - If the OS does not have lchown() and a chown() of a symlink will
      affect 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.

    - If a file gets resent in a single transfer and the --backup option is
      enabled along with --inplace, rsync no longer performs a duplicate
      backup (it used to overwrite the first backup with the failed file).

    - 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 (e.g. rsync might have
      exited with an error for large files).

    - Fixed a bug that would sometimes surface when using --compress and
      sending a file with a block-size larger than 64K (either manually
      specified, or computed due to the file being really large).  Prior
      versions of rsync would sometimes fail to decompress the data
      properly, and thus the transferred file would fail its verification.

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

    - A local transfer no longer duplicates all its include/exclude options
      (since the forked process already has a copy of the exclude list,
      there's no need to send them a set of duplicates).

    - When --progress is specified, the output of items that the generator
      is creating (e.g. dirs, symlinks) is now integrated into the progress
      output without overlapping it.  (Requires protocol 29.)

    - When --timeout is specified, lulls that occur in the transfer while
      the generator is doing work that does not generate socket traffic
      (looking for changed files, deleting files, doing directory-time
      touch-ups, etc.) will cause a new keep-alive packet to be sent that
      should keep the transfer going as long as the generator continues to
      make progress.  (Requires protocol 29.)

    - The stat size of a device is not added to the total file size of the
      items in the transfer since the size might be undefined on some OSes.

    - Fixed a problem with refused-option messages sometimes not making it
      back to the client side when a remote --files-from was in effect and
      the daemon was the receiver.

    - The --compare-dest option was not updating a file that differred in
      (the preserved) attributes from the version in the compare-dest DIR.

    - When rsync is copying files into a write-protected directory, fixed
      the change-report output for the directory so that we don't report
      an identical directory as changed.

  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 the receiving side incrementally as each directory in the
      transfer is being processed.  This makes it more efficient than the
      default, before-the-transfer behavior, which is now available as
      --delete-before (and is still the default --delete-WHEN option that
      will be chosen if --delete or --delete-excluded is specified without
      a --delete-WHEN choice).  All the --del* options infer --delete, so
      an rsync daemon that refuses "delete" will still refuse to allow any
      file-deleting options.

    - 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 (for files
      inside the transfer).

    - Added the --copy-dest option, which works like --link-dest except
      that it copies identical files instead of hard-linking them.

    - 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.) (Requires protocol 29.)

    - 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 when a client connects (e.g. a hang or an abort).

    - 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
      internal option kluges (e.g. the age-old use of "-r --exclude="/*/*"
      for a non-recursive listing).  This option is used automatically
      (behind the scenes) 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 and enhanced.)

    - 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 try to do a file transfer on a
      non-file index (since that would indicate that something had gone
      very wrong).

    - Added the --itemize-changes (-i) option, which is a way to output a
      more detailed list of what files 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.) (Requires protocol 29.)

    - Added the --remove-sent-files option, which lets you move files
      between systems.

    - The hostname in HOST:PATH or HOST::PATH may now be an IPv6 literal
      enclosed in '[' and ']' (e.g. "[::1]").  (We already allowed IPv6
      literals in the rsync://HOST:PORT/PATH format.)

    - When rsync recurses to build the file list, it no longer keeps open
      the directory handles of all the parent dirs inside the transfer.

    - When building under windows, the default for --daemon is now to
      avoid detaching, requiring the new --detach option to force rsync
      to detach.

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

  SUPPORT FILES:

    - Added atomic-rsync to the support dir: 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 mnt-excl to the support dir: a perl script 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 savetransfer.c to the support dir: 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 rrsync to the support dir: this is 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.

  INTERNAL:

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

    - Merged a variety of file-deleting 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 (instead of producing a message),
      which makes the outputting of the information more consistent and
      less prone to screen corruption (because either the receiver or the
      sender is now outputting all the file-change info).

    - If a file is being hard-linked, the appropriate bit is enabled in
      the flag-word and the name of the file that was linked immediately
      follows in vstring format (see below).

    - If a file is being transferred with an alternate-basis file, the
      appropriate bit is enabled in the flag-word and a single-byte
      follows, indicating what type of basis file was chosen.  If that
      indicates that a fuzzy-match was selected, the name of the match
      immediately follows in vstring format.  A vstring is a variable
      length string that has its size written prior to the string, and
      no terminating null.  If the string is from 1-127 bytes, the length
      is a single byte.  If it is from 128-32767 bytes, the length is
      written as ((len >> 8) | 0x80) followed by (len % 0x100).

    - 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 included in the options.

    - 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 excludes, a
      client sender will now initiate a send of the filter rules to the
      receiver (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).  Note that, as with all the
      filter-list sending, only items that are significant to the other
      side will actually be sent over the wire, so the filter-rule list
      is often empty in this scenario.

    - 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.

    - An index equal to the file-list count is sent as a keep-alive packet
      from the generator to the sender, which then forwards it on to the
      receiver.  This normally invalid index is only a valid keep-alive
      packet if the 16-bit flag-word that follows it contains a single bit
      (ITEM_IS_NEW, which is normally an illegal flag to appear alone).

  BUILD CHANGES:

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

    - Improved configure to better handle cross-compiling.