Detect renamed files and handle by renaming instead of delete/re-send

[Javier López]

There has been a report in rsync[0] about this issue since 2005, some patches has been developed detect-renamed[1] and detect-renamed-lax[2] to target the issue, I think it would be great if Ubuntu could patch itself rsync to provide such feature.

I've updated those[3] patches[4] to apply to the latest rsync package (3.1.1) and they're working great in my own setup, I also put them in a ppa[5] for further testing. The patches aren't intrusive, they provide some extra flags (--detect-renamed, --detec-moved and --detect-renamed-lax) so I think it shouldn't be disastrous for those who won't use the extra features.

[0] https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2294
[1] https://bugzilla.samba.org/attachment.cgi?id=7435
[2] http://gitweb.samba.org/?p=rsync-patches.git;a=blob;f=detect-renamed-lax.diff;h=4cd23bd4524662f1d0db0bcc90336a77d0bb61c9;hb=HEAD
[3] https://github.com/chilicuil/learn/blob/master/patches/rsync-3.1.1-trusty-detect-renamed.diff
[4] https://github.com/chilicuil/learn/blob/master/patches/rsync-3.1.1-trusty-detect-renamed-lax.diff
[5] https://launchpad.net/~minos-archive/+archive/ubuntu/main/+packages

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Brian (thwaller)]

I found this report while searching, but noticed it is quite old and appears to be unresolved. Am I correct in the assumption that this has not been done or integrated in rsync in any form(s) at this time?

[Robie Basak (racb)]

It looks like this bug has gathered quite a bit of attention since it was first filed, so let me set some expectations here.

The trouble with patching Ubuntu is that then we're on the hook for maintaining those patches indefinitely. This can cause a great deal of pain if future upstream refactorings mean that the patches need substantial rework, or if upstream decide to implement something very similar but with subtly different semantics.

I suggest that to make progress you petition upstream to get this feature landed upstream directly.

> Am I correct in the assumption that this has not been done or integrated in rsync in any form(s) at this time?

I've not looked, sorry. Someone will have to dig through sources and commit logs and/or release notes and manpages to determine that.