there's an unsupported, it-works-for-us patch that's seen a bit of testing on Solaris 2.6/8 and rudimentary testing on Linux with Andre- as G's ACL implementation. most of the code is ripped straight out of the samba 2.2.5 source tree; the rest of it is stuff that i don't expect anybody to ever seriously consider merging into the rsync tree and which i wouldn't defend against claims that it could wreck your machine, your career, your life, your mojo etc. http://www.lpmd.org/rsync-2.5.5-acl.diff.gz or ftp://ftp.lpmd.org/pub/rsync-2.5.5-acl.diff.gz (thanks, JMC, for hosting) to apply to a 2.5.5 tree, % cd wherever/rsync-2.5.5 % gunzip < whereverelse/rsync-2.5.5-acl.diff.gz | patch -p0 \ && ./configure --with-acl-support=yes ... \ && make clean all to use, throw in a `-A' option. if it doesn't work, make sure both your local and remote (if different) rsync's have been patched: % rsync --version | grep acl Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, acls, symlinks, batchfiles, % ssh remote rsync --version \| grep acl Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, acls, symlinks, batchfiles, aside from that, the failure modes are largely unexplored i encourage anybody who has the hacking muse and the inclination to fix or proffer a better patch and maybe even to see about getting something merged into the project. i think, at any rate, purloining the samba guys' work is a decent basis for such an endeavor. anyway, my only commitment to ongoing maintenance is to update for 2.5.6, since that release seems imminent, and then whatever releases we keep in step with at my work