All of the rsync pages say that "rsync -a --delete src dest" will do a full mirror but it just isn't so for us.
I've only found one Google item similar: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/rsync-doesnt-seem-to-delete-599985/ We have around 9200 directories in 250G in /home on a Sun 4500 with Solaris 8 and rsync 2.6.5 - which we are trying to mirror on Sun and Linux. Around 1,200 directories were removed from /home but they were not removed from the mirrors after rsync ran. We have tried: 1) rsync, via rsh, to a second similar machine rsync -az -e rsh --delete /home Solaris_box_2:/home2 2) rsync, via ssh and via port 873 to a Centos 5.0 box with rsync 2.6.9 rsync -a -e ssh --delete Solaris_box:/ /home ssh Solaris_box "cd /home;rsync -az --force --delete * Centos_Box::remote_mach" ssh Solaris_box "rsync -az --force --delete /home Centos_Box::remote_mach" In all cases rsyncing the original file system copies all files; but files and directories removed are not reliably removed from the rsync mirror. It takes around 4 hours to build a file list - blech! On Centos_Box (rsync Solaris NFS mount to local mirror) rsync -azv --delete /Solaris_NFS_mount/* /home [EMAIL PROTECTED] ls /home | wc; ls /Solaris_NFS_mount | wc 9338 9338 72420 7168 7168 55792 Try Solaris to Solaris: rsync -az -e rsh --delete /home Solaris_box_2:/home2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ls /home2 | wc; ls /home | wc 8925 8925 78292 7168 7168 62960 Yea they're all in various stages of dirtyness. Does anyone have a clue what's up? Is this an issue with the amount of data (250G) or the number of files aprox 750,000) we have? Thanks, - Eric -- To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html