Needs to document what metadata is preserved

[jgoerzen]

I cannot find any information on what metadata is preserved by syncany. This is critical for uses as backups, but in many other situations as weel. Examples of what I'd like to see:

• symlinks
• hard links
• POSIX uid, gid of owner
• POSIX permission bits
• ACLs from various platforms
• Resource forks / extended attributes / alternate data streams
• mtime/atime/ctime (last modified time, etc.)

At the moment, it looks like symlinks are preserved, but I can't find as clear information on the rest.

[binwiederhier]

You can see for yourself by running sy init --no-encryption --no-compression and then looking at the database-* files. In a nutshell:

Yes:

• Symlinks are stored as such
• POSIX permissions are stored
• Last modified time is stored

No:

• Hardlinks are NOT stored/detected (not efficient), but data is not stored twice
• POSIX uid/gid are NOT stored
• ACLs are NOT stored
• Extended attributes are NOT stored (see OSX Missing Extended Attributes for synced repository #392)
• Access time and create time are NOT stored

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<database version="1">
    <databaseVersions>
        <databaseVersion>
            <header>
                <time value="1431192455473"/>
                <client name="QTRcguLkUsCJGejtvSRI"/>
                <vectorClock>
                    <client name="QTRcguLkUsCJGejtvSRI" value="2"/>
                </vectorClock>
            </header>
            <chunks>
                <chunk checksum="476b8cacca1f156cf33e1127384c73f1fafbdb5f" size="14"/>
            </chunks>
            <multiChunks>
                <multiChunk id="28d35a0e46ee63a8cdb93604c4c71a31df652289" size="14">
                    <chunkRefs>
                        <chunkRef ref="476b8cacca1f156cf33e1127384c73f1fafbdb5f"/>
                    </chunkRefs>
                </multiChunk>
            </multiChunks>
            <fileContents>
                <fileContent checksum="476b8cacca1f156cf33e1127384c73f1fafbdb5f" size="14">
                    <chunkRefs>
                        <chunkRef ref="476b8cacca1f156cf33e1127384c73f1fafbdb5f"/>
                    </chunkRefs>
                </fileContent>
            </fileContents>
            <fileHistories>
                <fileHistory id="4c131e6860973b2b3f652013cd04914dda9710fb">
                    <fileVersions>
                        <fileVersion version="1" type="SYMLINK" status="NEW" path="link.txt" size="9" lastModified="1431192442000" linkTarget="hello.txt" updated="1431192455455" dosattrs="--a-" posixperms="rwxrwxrwx"/>
                    </fileVersions>
                </fileHistory>
                <fileHistory id="0273166cee3c39aa9d574b13cd81ae7ef85b30f3">
                    <fileVersions>
                        <fileVersion version="2" type="FILE" status="CHANGED" path="hello.txt" size="14" lastModified="1431192450000" updated="1431192455461" checksum="476b8cacca1f156cf33e1127384c73f1fafbdb5f" dosattrs="--a-" posixperms="rw-r--r--"/>
                    </fileVersions>
                </fileHistory>
            </fileHistories>
        </databaseVersion>
    </databaseVersions>
</database>

[binwiederhier]

I guess we should add that as information to the User Guide somewhere

• Add ^^ to user guide

[binwiederhier]

@jgoerzen Does that answer your question?

[jgoerzen]

Yes, that is PERFECT and it would be great if that info were added to the User Guide. Thanks!

[binwiederhier]

Documented in http://syncany.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html#what-file-meta-data-permissions-access-time-etc-are-preserved-in-the-sync