[Bug 1965076] Re: rsync --update incorrectly reports file "is newer" than itself

[Ian! D. Allen]

I'm not familiar with your SRU process, debdiff, dput, the "General
Requirements" document, the "security policy document", or your upload
process, and I'm not into learning about all that and filling out your
special form and making your special upload when there is no guarantee
that Ubuntu will actually fix the problem.

If all the info you need for your SRU process isn't already in this bug
report (or in the bug report upstream linked above), I don't know what
else to say.  I certainly don't have the experience to answer "Where
problems could occur" in a Ubuntu package management context, other than
to say the obvious "people may have already written scripts that depend
on the buggy behaviour".

You're already running a fixed version of rsync in Kinetic, so at some
level someone at Ubuntu already approved of a much more modern rsync
(3.2.5 was released August 14 2022) -- please use it.

I've documented the bug; someone else found the upstream fix; your
Ubuntu internals of adopting the fix are more reading than I want to do.
I will download the current source and update my own rsync -- I know how
to do that and I know it will solve the problem for me.  I hope Ubuntu
solves the problem for everyone else.

-- 
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1965076

Title:
  rsync --update incorrectly reports file "is newer" than itself

Status in rsync package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  rsync 3.2.3 has a broken "--update" option.    See the examples below.
  The "--update" option incorrectly makes rsync say a file is newer than itself.
  Remove the "--update" option, and rsync correctly says the file is "uptodate".
  The right output should of course be "is uptodate" in all cases.
  This bug also shows up between machines if the source rsync is 3.1.3 and the destination is 3.2.3.
  The bug does not show up if the source rsync is 3.2.3 and the destination is 3.1.3.

  $ touch foo
  $ rsync -avv --update foo .
  delta-transmission disabled for local transfer or --whole-file
  foo is newer                 <=== THIS IS NOT CORRECT - A file can't be newer than itself.
  total: matches=0  hash_hits=0  false_alarms=0 data=0
  sent 38 bytes  received 96 bytes  268.00 bytes/sec
  total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

  $ rsync -avv foo .
  delta-transmission disabled for local transfer or --whole-file
  foo is uptodate              <=== THIS IS CORRECT
  total: matches=0  hash_hits=0  false_alarms=0 data=0
  sent 41 bytes  received 106 bytes  294.00 bytes/sec
  total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
  Package: rsync 3.2.3-4ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.13.0-35.40-generic 5.13.19
  Uname: Linux 5.13.0-35-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu71
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Tue Mar 15 22:47:44 2022
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-03-16 (0 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" - Release amd64 (20211012)
  SourcePackage: rsync
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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