Copy symlink as symlink or at worst as .rclonelink

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

rclone duplicates fields as it follows symlink even with -l param

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.62.2

  • os/version: rocky 8.8 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 4.18.0-477.13.1.el8_8.x86_64 (x86_64)
  • os/type: linux
  • os/arch: amd64
  • go/version: go1.20.2
  • go/linking: static
  • go/tags: none

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

both sides are Linux box

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone -l sync dws:/web/shared/roundcube/ /data/tmp/roundcube/

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

[dws]
type = sftp
host = 172.16.5.215
user = xxxxx
port = 2222
key_file = xxxxx/.ssh/id_rsa
md5sum_command = md5sum
sha1sum_command = sha1sum
shell_type = unix

Read the doc, find this post but :

dws:/web/shared/roundcube/public_html/plugins is a symlink ../plugins
after sync /data/tmp/roundcube/public_html/plugins is a directory containig all files

so source contains 2450 files and destination 4074.

2

I think it is by design. -l/-L flags only apply to local filesystem

on local filesystem:

$ rclone tree .
2023/06/21 17:35:38 NOTICE: link: Can't follow symlink without -L/--copy-links
/
└── test.txt

$ rclone tree . -L
/
├── link
│   ├── test1.txt
│   └── test2.txt
└── test.txt

rclone tree . -l
/
├── link.rclonelink
└── test.txt

the same folder over sftp:

$ rclone tree sftp:temp
/
├── link
│   ├── test1.txt
│   └── test2.txt
└── test.txt

$ rclone tree sftp:temp -l
/
├── link
│   ├── test1.txt
│   └── test2.txt
└── test.txt

 rclone tree sftp:temp -L
/
├── link
│   ├── test1.txt
│   └── test2.txt
└── test.txt

if you could push instead of pulling data you will get what you want. From local to sftp

3

In theory it could work with SFTP or FTP but it is not implemented at the moment.

PR to make it work definitely will be welcomed.

4

Thanks for quick answer @ kapitainsky...

Well due to several attacks I'am building a strong-box that can't be accessed by other nodes, so I prefer not to push from source to destination.

Thanks again.

5

Yeah - unfortunately it is the state of business as of today:) I think it comes from initial concept that cloud remotes do not have idea of link. Then SFTP/FTP was added but nobody thought about implementing these flags - as it is a bit of exception.

Maybe one day somebody can do it:)

6

One more comment - I think that right tool for the job here is rsync - linux box to linux box over ssh does not require "cloud" oriented program like rclone

7

I used to work with rsync and unison from a long time, and I discovered rclone recently as we plan to use S3 Object Storage in the future.

I found a feature of rclone very usefull => sync remote to local crypted...

So I was interested to use a unique tool for all my syncs.

Really great tool, don't know GO :smiling_face_with_tear:

1 Like
8

rsync IMHO is far superior to rclone for local jobs - with rclone these are not links you will lose over sftp - also many files attributes etc.

for cloud rclone is the best:)

9

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