A couple of platform issues with rsync

I’ve been writing scripts the past couple of days for synching things up between a few servers. I’ve wasted too much time already with 2 issues:

1. When using rsync anywhere near mounted Windows shares, always include the option -modify-window=1. This will prevent rsync from trying to copy nearly every file each time. It has something to do with the differences in how Windows stores modification times.

2. The latest OS X update to Tiger broke the –delete option. Target deletion simply doesn’t work any more. As a workaround, I’ve installed the [DarwinPorts]¹ version instead.  Then I moved the broken binary out of the way and symlinked the ports version in its place. Something like this (assuming you already have DarwinPorts)…

sudo port install rsync

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/rsync /usr/local/bin/rsync-tiger

sudo ln -s /opt/local/bin/rsync /usr/local/bin/rsync

¹: http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/