Re: ignore mtime - or any metadata

-a is telling rsync to copy the metadata.  --size-only is telling rsync 
to skip the contents of files that are the same time.  Without 
--link-dest rsync would just update the metadata on the target. 
However, with --link-dest rsync is being told to make the same file with 
2 different metadatas.  It can only do so by duplicating the file 
(effectively the same as --copy-dest).

On 9/25/22 14:26, Hardy via rsync wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> SHORT:
> rsync shall ignore differences in meta (inode) data, but does not even 
> with --size-only. -- If in combination with --link-dest.
> Is there any flag I missed?
> 
> EXPLANATION:
> I use
> rsync -avbuH --size-only --stats --delete-excluded 
> --link-dest=/path/to/last "user@system:Shared/Data" /path/to/now
> 
> to sync backup-style and use the --link-dest option to minimize traffic 
> (and space) and still have a full backup each time. So far nothing special.
> Now it happens that at the source side data changes are moderate, but 
> meta information (like atime, mtime) do change a lot. I didn't find a 
> solution to make rsync ignore these differences to use a link. 
> --size-only and -t (implied by -a) work ok with a simple syncs, but 
> obviously (for me) it does not in combination with --link-dest. I can 
> understand the motivation behind this: rsync is not allowed to change 
> meta data of the existing inode, nor can it neglect the change - or can it?
> 
> Hardy
> 

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