Terry Hancock on Nostr: #AskFedi #Rsync Hmm. How does rsync *know* that a file has "changed"? Relative to ...

#AskFedi #Rsync

Hmm.

How does rsync *know* that a file has "changed"?

Relative to what?

Does it keep track of when it was last run?

Is there some kind of hidden file that it's using? Is it marking the files somehow?

Or does "changed" just mean "relative to the destination"?

And if it's that, then why is there an "update" option?

The man page is kind of vague on this.

Just want to make sure I'm not going to accidentally destroy important data.