[Csync2] csync2 not syncing symlinks?!

[Vincent Régnard]

Wolfram Schlich a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> it seems that csync2 is just not syncing symlinks.
> Is that true?
> If yes, why the heck...?! :)
>
> Scenario:
> - /etc/csync2/csync2.cfg: include /usr/lib/something;
> - /usr/lib is a symlink to /usr/lib64
> - csync2 does not sync /usr/lib/something
>
> csync2 does this:
> --8<--
> pollux csync2-1.34 # csync2 -vvvvvxr 2>&1 | grep /usr
> Checking /usr/* ..
> Don't check at all: /usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
> Don't check at all: /usr/tmp
> Don't check at all: /usr/src
> Don't check at all: /usr/share
> Don't check at all: /usr/sbin
> Don't check at all: /usr/portage
> Don't check at all: /usr/local
> Don't check at all: /usr/libexec
> Don't check at all: /usr/lib64
> Don't check at all: /usr/lib32
> Don't check at all: /usr/include
> Don't check at all: /usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu
> Don't check at all: /usr/bin
> --8<--
>
> When I change csync2.cfg to 'include /usr/lib64/something;',
> it *does* sync that file.
>
> The observed behaviour really sucks... :(
> Are there plans to change this?
>
> Thanks.
>   
Hi,

This is a very general and common problem. I would say, it depends on 
the way you "think" symlinks !
IMHO, there are 2 kinds of people, those who understand symlinks as 
references, and those who create symlinks and forget them very soon after.
Because there are different people, I think there should certainly be an 
option (dereference symlinks, default to false) to tell csync to 
derefrence symlinks in some paths when needed.
The main disadvantage of dereferencing symlinks is that it will often 
result in multiplying the synchronized content (and the size on disk and 
traffic) which is hard to revert and is exactly why symlinks are 
usefull. In some cases (eg. clustered environnement) it can also reveal 
irrelevant and very problematic.

Symlinks are symlinks, so, it is IMHO, normal to save symlinks as 
symlinks at least as default behaviour.

NB: I have no real proof of it, but I think there are actually strange 
behaviours with symlinks. I will find some time to make some more checks 
and let you know with more detail. If I remember well, if you sync2 /etc 
and /etc/directory is a symlink, when you do csync2 -x 
/etc/directory/subdiredctory/file, i remember that was strange. We have 
already experienced that situation in another domain (our backup 
solution) and we had to first identify all symlinks in the given paths 
to exclude them when not dereferencing symlinks, not sure csync2 is 
doing it that way.

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