rsync - Mar 2008 - using rsync for mirroring: deleted files from source and kept in dest, better handling?

Hello,
I'm starting to explore rsync to mirror some
directories from a disk to another locally.

If I understand it right, if I don't include any
--delete* parameter, when updating the copy, if some
files have been deleted from the source directory
they're not deleted from the destination directory.

That's exactly what I need, but I'd like those files
be treated differently, I haven't decided how yet, but
at least I'd like to know they've been deleted in the
source folder.

Is there any option I'm missing for that? Any plugin
or extension that I'm failing to find on the net or
anything?


Thanks in advance
M.


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On Sun, 2008-03-02 at 15:24 +0100, Rsync user 123 wrote:
> I'm starting to explore rsync to mirror some
> directories from a disk to another locally.
> 
> If I understand it right, if I don't include any
> --delete* parameter, when updating the copy, if some
> files have been deleted from the source directory
> they're not deleted from the destination directory.
> 
> That's exactly what I need, but I'd like those files
> be treated differently, I haven't decided how yet, but
> at least I'd like to know they've been deleted in the
> source folder.
> 
> Is there any option I'm missing for that? Any plugin
> or extension that I'm failing to find on the net or
> anything?
Two approaches you might consider:

- After your main rsync run, do an additional run with --dry-run and a
--delete* option to make a list of destination files that have been
deleted from the source, and save this list for future reference.

- Use --backup with a --backup-dir to have rsync move the extraneous
destination files to a parallel directory tree instead of deleting them.
That way, the destination faithfully represents the source, but you can
retrieve the deleted files if necessary.  (Note: overwritten destination
files will be backed up just like deleted files.)

Matt