net/rsync --crtimes, -N: preserve creation/birth time is not supported

[ghost]

@WayneD

Based on this report in FreeBSD Bugzilla.

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=254354

Here you can see that FreeBSD generally supports crtime/btime see the stat command.

stat -f "Access (atime): %Sa%nModify (mtime): %Sm%nChange (ctime): %Sc%nBirth (crtime/btime): %SB" /video.mkv

Access (atime): Nov 22 16:07:46 2018
Modify (mtime): Nov 22 16:07:46 2018
Change (ctime): Nov 22 16:07:46 2018
Birth (crtime/btime): Nov 01 01:19:02 2016

If the user uses rsync (3.2.3) to preserve the crtimes with --crtimes or -N for directories and files, it does not work. It says in the terminal that it is not supported.

I can also reproduce this problem on other BSD systems, such as OpenBSD (6.8) and NetBSD (9.1).

It is generally known that all BSD family and other Unix systems have supported Birth time (btime) for files + directories for ages.

This means that a patch in rsync should add that it generally fixes this problem. So that all BSD systems and other Unix systems can use it immediately.

[WayneD]

BSD doesn't have support for setting the birth value to an arbitrary value on an existing file, so it's not supported in rsync.

[jtommi]

@WayneD I get the same on Debian and Fedora, rsync 3.2.3

[Yetoo1]

@WayneD Please reopen this, I also experience this issue with rsync 3.2.3 on Debian and Fedora. It looks like someone made a patch for this a while ago https://github.com/Homebrew/formula-patches/blob/master/rsync/patch-crtimes.diff in case anybody is looking for it (Source: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1132995.html?sid=76442243e17d281bfb58008fbb8746db).

[WayneD]

This issue is about crtimes on FreeBSD, which doesn't have full crtimes support (it only sets crtime at file creation and when the mtime moves prior to the creation time). The patch you cited is for OS X, which rsync already supports just fine without any patches. Linux doesn't support crtimes in general, but if someone has a portable extension patch feel free to submit it.

[githubmyname]

Has anyone solved this problem? Keep creation time in linux

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/50177/birth-is-empty-on-ext4

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/how-do-i-preserve-crtime-creation-birth-time-when-copying-from-windows-ntfs-to-linux-ext4-4175625229/