Verifying backups

Ronald F. Guilmette
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 23:22:12 -0000

In message <560C660F.5000202 at sanitarium.net>,
Kevin Korb <kmk at sanitarium.net> wrote:

>Just add --itemize-changes and --checksum to what you were doing
>before and know that it will take a long time.

I'm still not getting to where I need to be.  Maybe you can explain
what has gone wrong in this very simple example:

% mkdir one two
% echo hello > one/hello
% ln one/hello two/hello
% echo different0 > one/foo
% echo different1 > two/foo
% rsync -n -v --itemize-changes -checksum -a one two

Here is the output generated by that last command:

sending incremental file list
cd+++++++++ one/
>f+++++++++ one/foo
>f+++++++++ one/hello


I fail to see how this helps me to know that in this case the files
one/hello and two/hello are byte-for-byte identical AND also that
the contents of the files one/foo and two/foo are in fact different.

Where is the clear sign of a difference between the two "foo" files?