Content-type: text/html Manpage of mirdir

mirdir

Section: (1)
Updated: 15 Dec 2004
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NAME

mirdir - a tool for syncronization of two UNIX directory trees.

SYNOPSIS

mirdir [OPTION]... -e exceptionfile|none SOURCE/ DEST/

DESCRIPTION

Synchronizes the destination directory tree structure (DEST) with that of the source directory tree (SOURCE), trying to reproduce time stamps and file ownership for files, directories and symbolic links whenever this is possible.

Any of the target files that are to appear in the destination directory and are already present there will not be copied. Any file/directory that is present in the destination directory and is absent in the source directory will be removed (unless mirdir was not explicitly instructed to preserve them with the help of "-e" directive).

OPTIONS

-h: Print short help and exit.
-V: Output version information of the program and exit.
-v: Verbose mode. Print all the source/target differences and explain what is being done.
-q: Quiet mode, don't print the actions to be done.
-i: Inspect mode. Suppress actions execution (but not their printing).
-t count: Counter of bytes to be compared in files which look equal.
-s: Compare the full content of files, ignoring -t option if present.
-o: No attempts to check/change/keep file ownership (no chown's)
-a: Always keep old file access bits for target files.
-l: Limit check/change/keep of access bits to rwx bits only. Ignore bits like s,S,t.
-d: Don't check/set file change date/time.
-e exception file: Name of the file containing the list of exceptions. Strictly speaking, it is not an option, as it must always be present. If you don't need an exception file use -e none. If used, allows to preserve files/directories in the destination tree and/or to avoid copying of some files/directories present in the source tree.

EXCEPTION FILE FORMAT

The exception file contains the list of files/directories in the *destination* tree indicating those that won't be copied or modified.

The lines in exception file starting with '#' symbol are treated as comments. All the other lines must have the format:

file_name [options].

file_name: must be the full pathname of the file in *destination* directory tree. This file becomes protected, it will not be changed/deleted/created by mirdir. If the file is a directory, all its files and subdirectories will be protected. If some other options are present, they may limit that protection effect.

Possible options (blank or comma delimited) are
dir: This option has no effect if the file is not a directory. If it is a directory, mirdir can change the files inside it, but cannot change the list of the files. So if the destination directory contained the files file1,file2 before the mirroring, it will still contain exactly these two files after it, though the files themselves may change. Files and subdirectories in the directory are not protected by this option.
owner: This option will force mirdir to try to keep the old ownership of the file. File itself (if it existed before mirroring) may be changed.
access: This option will force mirdir to try to keep the old access bits of the file. File itself (if it existed before mirroring) may be changed.
Combinations like dir,owner or dir,access,owner: have the same effect as dir.

NOTES: Files with the name .../core are never copied to target directory.

EXIT VALUES

rc = 0: The trees are already synchronised, no copy operations were needed.
rc = 1: The trees were successfully synchronised.
VALUE < 0 - Error

rc = -1: Error when getting the information about a file.
rc = -2: Special file was encountered (not a regular file, not a named pipe, not a symbolic link, not a directory)
rc = -3: Error when deleting a directory.
rc = -4: Error when deletting a file.
rc = -5: Error when creating a FIFO special file.
rc = -6: Error when doing "do_time", "do_chmod", "do_chown".
rc = -7: Error when reading the link.
rc = -8: Error when creating a symbolic link.
rc = -9: Error when opening or reading from the file in the source.
rc = -10: Error when opening or writing from the file in the target.
rc = -11: Error when scanning directory.
rc = -12: Error when creating directory.

AUTHOR

mirdir was written by Ruten Gurin and prepared for the public release: by Carolina Roldan.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS

Timestamp for symbolic links may not always be preserved.

Report bugs to <mirdir@caspur.it>.

COPYRIGHT

mirdir is distributed as an OSI Certified Open Source Software. OSI Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative. This is a free software. See GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE version 2 for copying conditions and further information.

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Time: 07:22:25 GMT, January 07, 2006