Questions[timestamp](server)

Having to move several very large files (VHDs) between two servers, I launched the file copy operation using Windows Explorer in a Remote Desktop session, and then closed the session without logging off, leaving the file copy to work; the next day, I logged in back and the file copy seems to have completed... but all the timestamps on the files (created, last accessed, last modified) refer to the time when I launched the copy, and I know for sure the copy operation needed several hours.

I would have expected at least the "last accessed" or "last modified" timestamps to refer to the actual time when the file copy operation ended, but looks like this isn't how it works.

How can I check (if I can at all) if the copy completed succesfully, and when?

The file size is not an indicator, as the files always get allocated the full size, even if a copy operation is interrupted.

Currently I have two directories A/ and B/ which are identical in every respect, with the exception of the timestamps. Therefore if I run the command :

rsync --dry-run -crvv A/ B/

then all files are marked "uptodate", whereas the command :

rsync --dry-run -rvv A/ B/

shows that all files are to be copied over from A/ to B/.

My question is this : given that I know the files are identical (in respect to contents), then is there any way (via rsync or otherwise) to set the timestamps for files in B/ to be identical to the timestamps of the files in A/, without copying over all the files from A/ to B/ ?

Thanks

I have a directory that multiple users have access to. They change, upload, and delete files in the directory. They all belong to the same user group. The files in the directory have access rights of 660.

The problem is that the users cannot set the modification time of files if they're not the owner of that file.

For example user AAA uploads a file 'EXAMPLE.jpg', user BBB downloads it, modifies it and uploads it again. The file's 'last modified' timestamp will be of the time BBB uploaded it, not when it was really last modified. I tried setting the file's permissions to 777, but it didn't help.

The problem shows in sftp-logs as:

Dec  5 16:37:08 servername sftp-server[695]: open "/shared_directory/EXAMPLE.jpg" flags WRITE,CREATE,TRUNCATE mode 0666
Dec  5 16:37:08 servername sftp-server[695]: close "/shared_directory/EXAMPLE.jpg" bytes read 0 written 42765
Dec  5 16:37:08 servername sftp-server[695]: set "/shared_directory/EXAMPLE.jpg" modtime 20111205-15:53:31
Dec  5 16:37:08 servername sftp-server[695]: sent status Permission denied

Winscp will complain at the situation as Upload of file 'example.jpg' was successful, but error occurred while setting the permissions and/or timestamp. If the problem persists, turn on 'ignore permission errors'. The warning can easily be ignored, but what if I want to allow my users to "preserve" the timestamps by editing them after file upload?

There is already a similar question than this, but has gone unanswered :(.

I thought that I could easily check the timestamp of particular files. Then I realized that it wouldn't be so easy when I saw timestamps like 1991.

I'm trying to back up a file via the command

scp /tmp/backup.tar.gz hostname:/home/user/backup.tar.gz

When I run it, the scp progress bar shows up and it looks like its transferring the file, however when I log into the destination server to check the file, the timestamp and filesize haven't changed from the older version, so it looks like scp didn't overwrite the old file at all. It only sees to work when I manually delete the file from the destination server.

I'm running ubuntu, and this is happening on two servers: one cygwin ssh, and one fedora core 3.

Anyone have any idea why this is happening? I thought scp would ONLY overwrite existing files..

Thanks