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Symlink Update

As of version 202400428.0, a semi-breaking change was introduced to how symlinks are handled. Most notably, dfb now matches rclone's behavior for how it handles symlinks. That is, if the destination is local, it will make the link. Otherwise, will make the <name>.rclonelink file. Previous versions of dfb always wrote a <name>.rclonelink file. Furthermore, setting links in the config is deprecated. Instead, the flag should be set in rclone_flags

Previous Link Setting New rclone_flags item Behavior
links = 'link' '--links' Make symlink if dst is local otherwise make <name>.rclonelink file
links = 'copy' '--copy-links' Copy the referent
links = 'skip' '--skip-links' Skip all together

Because prior versions always wrote <name>.rclonelink files even if the destination was local, this is a breaking change.

Update the repository

The follow Python snippet will update the destination appropriately.

DEST = "<SPECIFY DEST>"

from pathlib import Path

files = Path(DEST).rglob('*.rclonelink')

for file in files:
    ref = file.read_text()
    new = file.parent / file.name.removesuffix('.rclonelink')
    new.symlink_to(ref)
    file.unlink() # Optional

Why make this change

There are a few reasons. The biggest is Issue #1 where dfb couldn't read the symlinks in wrapper remotes and was then compounded by rclone's behavior when you try to write .rclonelink files from the rc interface on local.

Also, the resulting behavior now matches rclone's. And the limiting rclone bug #6855 has long been fixed.

DEPRECATED Below

Symlink Restore on prior versions

For local sources, you can configure how to handle links. Due to an rclone bug #6855, dfb handles symlinks on its own for backups. This works for both the regular and --shell-script modes. However, dfb does not support restore of symlinks. After restore, there will be .rclonelink files that used to be symlinks. These can be manually (or simply Python script) fixed later:

from pathlib import Path

RESTORE_DIR = "."

links = Path(RESTORE_DIR).rglob("*.rclonelink")
for link in links:
    dst = str(link).removesuffix(".rclonelink")
    src = link.read_text()
    Path(dst).symlink_to(src)
    # link.unlink()  # OPTIONAL

Note that this will fail if for some reason there are files called .rclonelink that aren't intended to be links