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the_isz

Member

Registered: 2009-04-14

Posts: 280

Incremental rsync over FTP: Can it be done?

Hi all,

I've got a large USB stick on my router (a Fritz!Box). The stick is formatted
with ext2 and the router lets me access the data via FTP (I mount it with
curlftpfs).

I want to put my music database on the stick so that all computers at home can
access it. Regularly, I want to update the database on the stick from my desktop
computer.

Now, the problem is that when I use rsync (-a) to update the stick via FTP, it
always copies all files, although they haven't actually changed. I assume that
rsync looks at the user/group and timestamps of the files to determine if they
have changed, but it seems that these pieces of information can't be updated
through FTP.

So my question is: Is there a way around this or is it just impossible?

Thanks in advance!

drhill1

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 31

Re: Incremental rsync over FTP: Can it be done?

If the problem is down to file attributes then they can be ignored easily enough.  From the man page for rsync, -a is the same as -rlptgoD.  So if you drop the permissions (p), timestamps (t), group (g) and owner (o), leaving you with -rlD then it should be happy.  To be honest, you probably only need -r as the other two are unlikely to be necessary either.

the_isz

Member

Registered: 2009-04-14

Posts: 280

Re: Incremental rsync over FTP: Can it be done?

Hi drhill1,

using just -r was my first idea, too, but unfortunately, it rsync still copies
everything.

I assume it's not the question of what file attributes can't be set when using
FTP, it's more a question of what rsync uses to decide whether it should copy a
file or not

Kind regards