Hello there! I am trying to synchronize files between a laptop running either Windows XP or Debian and a Debian file server. I have tried rsync and unison on the Linux install of the laptop and rsync (under Cygwin) on the Windows install, but both were unable to transfer files with special characters (here: German umlauts) correctly.
The situation is as follows: the file server also runs a samba server. Files with umlauts that are created under Windows can be transferred to the file server without problems. When the share on the server is viewed with the Windows Explorer, these files have all the umlauts intact. Example (I hope you can read these at all!): LOCAL FILE (Windows) REMOTE FILE (Debian, viewed from Windows) test-äöü-from-win.txt test-äöü-from-win.txt When viewed locally on the file server, the umlauts are missing: file-server:~$ ls test-* test-???-from-win.txt They cannot be made visible by appending "--show-control-chars" file-server:~$ ls --show-control-chars tes* test- -from-win.txt Note the line-break! When the file is created on the Debian install on the laptop and then transferred to the Debian server via unison or rsync, it gets corrupted, too. The situation is different from above when looking at the file from Windows or locally (i.e. on the server) LOCAL (Debian laptop) REMOTE (Debian server, viewed from Windows) test-äöü-from-linux.txt test-õ÷³-from-linux.txt On the server the situation is different again: file-server:~$ ls tes* test-???-from-linux.txt file-server:~$ ls --show-control-chars tes* test-äöü-from-linux.txt Question: What causes this behaviour and is there a solution? It seems like everything is fine as long one only works with samba and shares, but gets corrupted when Linux tools come into play. BTW, I have also tried this with rsync under Cygwin on the Windows side: the effect is the same! Thus it seems to be linked to rsync/unison maybe. Tank you very much for any answers!!! Stefan Gößling-Reisemann (debian @ goessling . de)