I've already copied terabytes of files with rsync but I forgot to use --archive to preserve files' special attributes.
I tried executing rsync again this time with --archive but it was way slower than what I expected. Is there any easy way to do this faster by just copying metadata recursively?
Ok, you can copy owner, group, permission and timestamps using the --reference parameter to chown, chmod, touch. Here is a script to do so
#!/bin/bash
# Filename: cp-metadata
myecho=echo
src_path="$1"
dst_path="$2"
find "$src_path" |
while read src_file; do
dst_file="$dst_path${src_file#$src_path}"
$myecho chmod --reference="$src_file" "$dst_file"
$myecho chown --reference="$src_file" "$dst_file"
$myecho touch --reference="$src_file" "$dst_file"
done
You should run it with sudo (to allow chown) and with two parameters: source and destination directory. The script only echo what it would do. If satisfied change the line myecho=echo with myecho=.
