mjhjmtu

I need to "install" a bunch of files to another directory keeping the directory structure of the source files intact. For example, if I have ./foo/bar/baz.txt going to /var/www/localhost/webroot/ I want the result to be /var/www/localhost/webroot/foo/bar/baz.txt. rsync has this capability in --relative, but when I did this I discovered it wasn't friendly to symlinks:

$ ls -ald /var/www/localhost/webroot/ | grep ^l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 www-data www-data 15 2014-01-03 13:45 media -> ../static/media
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2014-02-24 13:47 var -> ../static/var
$ rsync -qrR . /var/www/localhost/webroot/
$ ls -ald /var/www/localhost/webroot/ | grep var
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2014-02-24 13:52 /var/www/localhost/webroot/var

So you see the symlink is no longer a symlink – the files were copied to the wrong place!

rsync also has the --no-implied-dirs option, that superficially seems to do what I want, but it only works as I intend when not doing a recursive rsync, so I have to:

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0I rsync -R --no-implied-dirs /var/www/localhost/webroot/

Is there any more direct way to accomplish this mirroring of files without wiping out intermediate symlink directories (with or without rsync)?

Use rsync's option -K (--keep-dirlinks). From the manpage:

 -K, --keep-dirlinks
 This option causes the receiving side to treat a
 symlink to a directory as though it were a real
 directory, but only if it matches a real directory from
 the sender. Without this option, the receiver’s
 symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real
 directory.

 For example, suppose you transfer a directory foo that
 contains a file file, but foo is a symlink to directory
 bar on the receiver. Without --keep-dirlinks, the
 receiver deletes symlink foo, recreates it as a
 directory, and receives the file into the new
 directory. With --keep-dirlinks, the receiver keeps
 the symlink and file ends up in bar.

 One note of caution: if you use --keep-dirlinks, you
 must trust all the symlinks in the copy! If it is
 possible for an untrusted user to create their own
 symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real
 directory and affect the content of whatever directory
 the symlink references. For backup copies, you are
 better off using something like a bind mount instead of
 a symlink to modify your receiving hierarchy.

 See also --copy-dirlinks for an analogous option for
 the sending side.

I wanted to preserve my symlinks as symlinks. For that you can use the -l option.

 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks

Since I was copying frameworks on OS X, I found this helpful.

As a non-rsync answer, the tar utility can perform this task. Use two instances of tar on either side of a pipe, the first to consume a directory structure and the second to extract it elsewhere. File ownership of the copy will likely change, while the permission modes will likely remain unchanged.

Many examples exist and I found the suggestions in this answer relatively quickly: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/59108/34251.

Edit

A second (more succinct?) example: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/19824/34251.

Please use -a, as it implies -l as was supposed above. But it also contains other important options if you want a complete copy of the source.

Also: As I understand the man page, -K is meant for symlinks on the receiver side. I don't think this should be the correct answer here.