rsync - Aug 2009 - Backups & Directory Timestamps Not Preserved

Hello,

I've been testing out using rsync for nightly incremental backups
through the '--backup' & '--backup-dir' options. So far,
I've noticed
two issues.

1) First, if an empty directory is removed from the source, rsync will
remove it from the destination but not create the directory in the
backup-dir location.

  $ mkdir -p /tmp/src/foo
  $ rsync -a /tmp/src/ /tmp/dest/
  $ rmdir /tmp/src/foo
  $ rsync -a --delete -P -b --backup-dir=/tmp/desti/ /tmp/src/ /tmp/dest/

2) Second, when the contents of a non-empty directory is modified, the
original timestamp is not preserved in the backup-dir location.

  $ mkdir -p /tmp/src/foo
  $ touch -t 200904011200 /tmp/src/foo/bar /tmp/src/foo /tmp/src
  $ rsync -a /tmp/src/ /tmp/dest/
  $ rm -rf /tmp/src/foo/bar
  $ rsync -a --delete -P -b --backup-dir=/tmp/desti/ /tmp/src/ /tmp/dest/
  $ ls -ald /tmp/desti/foo /tmp/desti/foo/bar

I'm using version 3.0.6. I've played around with various options but did
not find a combination where this worked. I scanned through the source,
and it appears as though rsync only creates directories as required by
files when they are moved over and doesn't update the timestamps after
the directory's contents are processed. Is this accurate or is there
some combination which will allow this to work?

-Rob

Backup options are concered with files from what I can see after some 
tests. Extra directory (--backup-dir) is an addition to keep things more 
tidy. I guess the idea was to have some sort of protection against 
careless rsync invocation, etc. - not as a solution for incremental 
backups. I don't really know for sure if it's intended or not though.

As for incremental backup, --link-dest is generally used for that 
purpose, and saves a lot of space due to hardlink usage. You will likely 
need to make some shell script for automation's sake (or you can look 
for premade ones - e.g. rsnapshot is often quoted).