I just stumbled upon the fact that rsync doesn't preserve at least the ext3 "immutable" flag - while it should do so when using -a, IMHO. Quick test case:
# touch testfile
# chattr +i testfile
# rsync -a testfile testfile2
# lsattr testfile*
----i---------- testfile
--------------- testfile2
The man page of rsync tells about the -a switch:
The files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the transfer.
Can somebody please shed some light on this: What's meant by "attributes" here if not the attributes of the underlying filesystem? If it really means something other: Is there a possibility to sync ext3 attributes as well?