As I understand, Sync now synchronizes symlinks opaquely between Linux systems, which is great.
But this feature works differently in Windows. Windows symlinks are followed and their contents are synchronized instead. I was wondering whether this is a bug?
I have to point out that Junction Points / Mount Points in Windows are different to Symbolic Links. I would presume Symbolic Links would get synchronized across platforms (not the contents), so that in Linux I would also get a Windows link recreated. Of course it would probably not resolve, as it's a different device, but that's not the point - if I want to use Sync for the purpose of backup, then I would like it to sync Windows symlinks too.
For debugging/testing - symlinks can be created from Windows command line with admin privileges as follows (eg. for directories):
mklink /D C:\target D:\sourceDir
Therefore in Linux the symlink should also point to D:\sourceDir, even though in linux that's an invalid path.
This should work also the other way around - at the moment linux symlinks don't get copied to Windows at all.
The only problem I see with (re)creating symlinks in Windows is it requires elevated privileges, but I am sure for users who want to use that feature it won't be a problem (syncing of those could be delayed until the user confirmins the action).
Symbolic Links in Windows
in Sync General Discussion
Posted
Hi all,
As I understand, Sync now synchronizes symlinks opaquely between Linux systems, which is great.
But this feature works differently in Windows. Windows symlinks are followed and their contents are synchronized instead. I was wondering whether this is a bug?
I have to point out that Junction Points / Mount Points in Windows are different to Symbolic Links. I would presume Symbolic Links would get synchronized across platforms (not the contents), so that in Linux I would also get a Windows link recreated. Of course it would probably not resolve, as it's a different device, but that's not the point - if I want to use Sync for the purpose of backup, then I would like it to sync Windows symlinks too.
For debugging/testing - symlinks can be created from Windows command line with admin privileges as follows (eg. for directories):
mklink /D C:\target D:\sourceDir
Therefore in Linux the symlink should also point to D:\sourceDir, even though in linux that's an invalid path.
This should work also the other way around - at the moment linux symlinks don't get copied to Windows at all.
The only problem I see with (re)creating symlinks in Windows is it requires elevated privileges, but I am sure for users who want to use that feature it won't be a problem (syncing of those could be delayed until the user confirmins the action).
Thanks for a great product!
All the best