ncopy doesn't preserve date/time or owner

BroX · 05-02-2007, 04:38 AM

Hi all,

I intend to make a daily backup of data on my laptop on the university novel server. First I tried to do this with rsync, but this resulted in loads of error messages. Then I discovered ncopy, which, according to the man pages, should preserve time and owner.
My share on the server is mounted on /mnt/ which has a link in my home dir:

Code:

leon@shpritsz:~$ ll ~/ |grep mnt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    57 May  2 11:20 H -> /mnt/OES-CL1_VVH_P2_SERVER/HOME/Home/Personal/crc/myusername

However, I get the following:

Code:

root@shpritsz:~$ ncopy -uvppr /tmp/testdir/ /home/leon/H/
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir2/file1 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir2/file1 0
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir2/file2 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir2/file2 0
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir2/file3 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir2/file3 0
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir3/file1 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir3/file1 0
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir3/file2 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir3/file2 0
ncopy: Unable to open source file: Inappropriate ioctl for device
NetWare copy: /tmp/testdir//dir3/file3 -> /home/leon/H//testdir//dir3/file3 0

The files do get copied, but not with preservation of time and owner:

Code:

root@shpritsz:~$ ls -l /tmp/testdir/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 leon users  48 2007-05-01 12:59 dir1/
drwxr-xr-x 2 leon users 120 2007-05-01 13:00 dir2/
drwxr-xr-x 2 leon users 120 2007-05-01 13:00 dir3/
root@shpritsz:~$ ls -l /home/leon/H/testdir/
total 2
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 512 2007-05-02 11:29 dir1/
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 512 2007-05-02 11:29 dir2/
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 512 2007-05-02 11:29 dir3/
root@shpritsz:~$

Does anyone know what is wrong? I have no idea what those messages mean (Inappropriate ioctl etc).

Cheers, Leon.

MensaWater · 05-03-2007, 03:54 PM

"rsync -avz" preserves times, ownership etc...

"man rsync" will explain what the -a flag does (as well as all the other flags -a mentions).

You abandoned rsync due to errors but don't mind troubleshooting them in ncopy....

BroX · 05-03-2007, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlightner

"rsync -avz" preserves times, ownership etc...

"man rsync" will explain what the -a flag does (as well as all the other flags -a mentions).

You abandoned rsync due to errors but don't mind troubleshooting them in ncopy....

Yes... I expected that ncopy would be more suited to make backups on ncpfs... Am I wrong in thinking that?
Anyway, I could nevertheless give rsync another try. It worked well for me before when I made backups on a vfat filesystem, eventhough it didn't preserve permissions.

Cheers, Leon.

MensaWater · 05-04-2007, 08:34 AM

Sorry - missed that you were doing Novell. Haven't used ncopy and haven't done rsync for Novell filesystems so don't know that it works any better there than ncopy.