Hi, I've already asked in IRC, but i somehow can't belive this isn't possible.
I have the folowing testcase (local, on an ext3 fs, no xattr): . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target and what i want after using 'rsync <some options> dir1 target' is: . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target └── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt Now i did some tries: "rsync -rvt dir1 target" throw an error message: mkstemp "../target/dir1/.text.txt.AQGaMg" failed: Permission denied And that's what rsync did so far: . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target └── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 What i'm confused about is, after i did the exatcly same command again: . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target └── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt And no error message was thrown. The only possible way to sync such a folder without any error message was to change the permissions by hand with '--chmod=u+w' and '--perms'. The disadvantage: All previous file permissions are 'lost' in the copy. So i tried after the first sync a second sync where only the file permissions shall be synced. Thus after the latter command i have: . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target └── [drwxr-xr-x] dir1 └── [-rw-r--r--] text.txt But after "rsync --perms -r -v dir1 target" i've got an error message again: mkstemp "../target/dir1/.text.txt.AP4sMs" failed: Permission denied And the filetree: . ├── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 │ └── [-r--r--r--] text.txt └── [drwxr-xr-x] target └── [dr-xr-xr-x] dir1 <-- correct └── [-rw-r--r--] text.txt <-- wrong Ok. So my final question is: Is it even possible what i want to do with rsync? The real situation is seriously far more complex (dir1 is in fact much bigger) and i realy want somehow to preserve the file permissions in the copy. Meanwhile thanks for any advise. -- Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list. To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html