[Bug 1785302] [NEW] rsync -a should imply -X

[Steve Langasek]

Public bug reported:

As discussed at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
devel/2018-August/040407.html ff, as of Ubuntu 18.04 an Ubuntu root
filesystem uses xattrs for storing filesystem capabilities. We should
therefore have defaults for our rsync that preserve these attributes
without needing to pass additional commandline options.

Currently the rsync -a ("archive") option is documented as preserving
symlinks (-l), permissions (-p), modification times (-t), groups (-g),
owners (-u), and special files (-D); but not hardlinks (-H), acls (-A),
or xattrs (-X).  I haven't looked into the reasoning, but I expect it's
because the first set of options can be assumed supported on a target
POSIX-ish filesystem, and the latter are not guaranteed to be supported
on all POSIX-ish filesystems (although POSIX does require hardlink
support).  On Ubuntu, and on modern Linux generally, it should be safe
to assume that any POSIX filesystem currently in use that supports Unix
permissions and special files also supports acls and xattrs.  (Linux
filesystems known to support them: ext4, xfs, jfs, zfs, btrfs.)

Without having looked closely at the implementation, I think a sensible
approach on Ubuntu would be:

 - rsync when sending should interpret '-a' to include '-A' and '-X' and send acls and xattrs as part of the stream.
   - if sending to a remote server that doesn't negotiate a protocol high enough to handle acls and xattrs, do not consider this an error.
 - rsync when receiving xattrs and acls appears to already ignore failures to set them, so no changes would be required for compatibility.

** Affects: rsync (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1785302

Title:
  rsync -a should imply -X

Status in rsync package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  As discussed at https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
  devel/2018-August/040407.html ff, as of Ubuntu 18.04 an Ubuntu root
  filesystem uses xattrs for storing filesystem capabilities. We should
  therefore have defaults for our rsync that preserve these attributes
  without needing to pass additional commandline options.

  Currently the rsync -a ("archive") option is documented as preserving
  symlinks (-l), permissions (-p), modification times (-t), groups (-g),
  owners (-u), and special files (-D); but not hardlinks (-H), acls
  (-A), or xattrs (-X).  I haven't looked into the reasoning, but I
  expect it's because the first set of options can be assumed supported
  on a target POSIX-ish filesystem, and the latter are not guaranteed to
  be supported on all POSIX-ish filesystems (although POSIX does require
  hardlink support).  On Ubuntu, and on modern Linux generally, it
  should be safe to assume that any POSIX filesystem currently in use
  that supports Unix permissions and special files also supports acls
  and xattrs.  (Linux filesystems known to support them: ext4, xfs, jfs,
  zfs, btrfs.)

  Without having looked closely at the implementation, I think a
  sensible approach on Ubuntu would be:

   - rsync when sending should interpret '-a' to include '-A' and '-X' and send acls and xattrs as part of the stream.
     - if sending to a remote server that doesn't negotiate a protocol high enough to handle acls and xattrs, do not consider this an error.
   - rsync when receiving xattrs and acls appears to already ignore failures to set them, so no changes would be required for compatibility.

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