rsync - Sep 2015 - [Bug 11523] New: Request: Add option to unlink hard links when permissions change

https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11523

            Bug ID: 11523
           Summary: Request: Add option to unlink hard links when
                    permissions change
           Product: rsync
           Version: 3.1.2
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P5
         Component: core
          Assignee: wayned at samba.org
          Reporter: bugs at stupidkitties.com
        QA Contact: rsync-qa at samba.org

rsync has a very useful behaviour where, if it detects that a change has
occurred in a file which is a hard link on the destination side, the
destination file is unlinked during the transfer so as not to over-write all of
the other files with the same inode.

This works really well, but (please correct me if i'm wrong) rsync has no
similar mechanism for attribute changes. This means that if your file changes
ownerships or permissions (or times, though i don't personally care about
those), rsync will update those attributes on the destination hard link, which
will in turn replace all of the attributes for all of the other files with that
inode.

I was wondering if it'd be feasible to add an option (or multiple options,
depending on the desired granularity) to cause rsync to treat changes in file
attributes the same way it treats changes to the file's contents when it
encounters hard links at the destination. Maybe something like --relink-p or
something?

Hope this makes sense. Thanks for rsync!

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