this works: rsync --delete --progress --force -va /dir1 rsync://alpha@terra/backup while this one does not delete files on the destination: rsync --delete --progress --force -vaR /dir1 rsync://alpha@terra/backup
I can't duplicate this. Is the version of rsync that the daemon is running old? Are the command-lines you cited modified at all from what failed?
here are some more details: client: root@peta:/usr/local/sbin/ > rsync --version rsync version 2.6.6 protocol version 29 Copyright (C) 1996-2005 by Andrew Tridgell and others <http://rsync.samba.org/> Capabilities: 64-bit files, no socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles, inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU General Public Licence for details. root@peta:/usr/local/sbin/ > uname -a Linux peta 2.4.22-xfs #1 Sun Jun 12 21:17:17 PDT 2005 armv5b unknown unknown GNU/Linux root@peta:/usr/local/sbin/ > server: terra:/home/backup-data/test# rsync --version rsync version 2.6.4 protocol version 29 Copyright (C) 1996-2005 by Andrew Tridgell and others <http://rsync.samba.org/> Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles, inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU General Public Licence for details. terra:/home/backup-data/test# uname -a Linux terra 2.6.8-2-386 #1 Thu May 19 17:40:50 JST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux terra:/home/backup-data/test# script on client: #!/bin/sh # dz 2003 07 23 export RSYNC_PASSWORD=topsecrect BACKUPTARGET="rsync://peta@10.2.13.2/backup-data/test" BACKUPCMD="rsync --delete -avR --progress" $BACKUPCMD /public/data/test1/ $BACKUPTARGET --- It was in the eary morning when I posted the bug, so set up a test again today, but again the same problem: 1) rsync of some arbitrary data => all files are transfered to the server 2) remove some date on the client 3) rsync again => no files are transfered/deleted I googled around and found some discussions about it. The server is a x86-machine running debian3.1 (sarge) The client is an arm NSLU2 running unslung4
(In reply to comment #2) > client: [...] rsync version 2.6.6 protocol version 29 > server: [...] rsync version 2.6.4 protocol version 29 > [...] $BACKUPCMD /public/data/test1/ $BACKUPTARGET There are some very significant details there: the server is 2.6.4, and 2.6.4 has a bug in it when someone uses --relative with a source path that ends in a slash (there's a bug-fix mentioned in the OLDNEWS file under the 2.6.5 release that mentiones this fix). The simplest work-around is to drop the trailing slash at the end of "/public/data/test1/".