Back up xattrs?

[cjwatson]

After restoring my laptop's root filesystem from backup, I noticed that (e.g.) mtr didn't work because it didn't have the required capabilities. I had to grep for setcap in /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.postinst and reapply all the capabilities there, and of course that leaves me unsure whether I missed anything.

Could rsbackup perhaps start backing up xattrs, using rsync --xattrs, and maybe also --acls? That would imply also adjusting the restore instructions in rsbackup(1).

[ewxrjk]

Yes, I think it's just a bug that it doesn't do so.

[ewxrjk]

I'm reopening this issue out of dissatisfaction with the approach taken on macOS. At present macOS users silently lose ACLs from their files, and if they install an rsync from this decade it won't work.

My preferred strategy is a config option (or options) allowing fine-grained control over the rsync options used (with the usual global/host/volume inheritance logic). The defaults would reflect a fully accurate backup with a modern rsync, with an explicit manual page and tutorial section on what to do on macOS.