Description of problem: P2V conversion of a F14 installation: used rsync -aHAXx to duplicate file systems from hysical to virtual host. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rsync-3.0.8-1.fc14.x86_64 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: Physical-2-Virtual conversion of a F14 installation: used rsync -aHAXx to duplicate file systems from physical to virtual host. Actual results: on source: lrwxrwxrwx. root root system_u:object_r:lib_t:s0 /lib64/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.13.so on target: lrwxrwxrwx. root root unconfined_u:object_r:file_t:s0 /lib64/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.13.so These changed security contexts for symlinks cause the boot of the newly created VM to fail unless boot parameter selinux=0 is used. Expected results: Newly created VM bots nicely Additional info: Reproducer: mkdir SRC touch SRC/file ln -s file SRC/link chcon -h system_u:object_r:lib_t:s0 SRC/* ls -Z SRC -rw-r--r--. root root system_u:object_r:lib_t:s0 file lrwxrwxrwx. root root system_u:object_r:lib_t:s0 link -> file mkdir TGT rsync -aHAXx SRC/ TGT ls -Z TGT -rw-r--r--. root root system_u:object_r:lib_t:s0 file lrwxrwxrwx. root root unconfined_u:object_r:user_tmp_t:s0 link -> file This seems to have been a deliberate change in rsync: https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5458 https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7109 The reason given for this change was a reference to the attr(5) man page: "For this reason, extended user attributes are only allowed for regular files and directories, ...". However, that section applies to *user* attributes only. The changes made so rsync affect all attribute name spaces, commit 9d6fe1a6f0233c7567dfb114835751aff85a578b Author: Wayne Davison <wayned> Date: Mon Jan 3 11:07:47 2011 -0800 Avoid reading ACL/xattr info on filetypes not being copied. Make Linux avoid xattr access on symlinks. Make OS X avoid xattr access on device/special files. Fixes bug 5458. M acls.c M configure.ac M flist.c M xattrs.c
Opened upstream bug https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8201.
After fixing the security attributes of all symlinks with a small script, my VM now boots nicely.
The upstream bug has been fixed. The commit ID is e2c1e482e004b8f992156bf436d4bf34cee1ee1d. It seems to contain another change as well though.
My bad, e2c1e482e004b8f992156bf436d4bf34cee1ee1d is clean. I request its inclusion in Fedora's rsync release. http://gitweb.samba.org/?p=rsync.git;a=commitdiff;h=e2c1e482e004b8f992156bf436d4bf34cee1ee1d
You can find updated fedora-15 and fedora-16 rsync package in testing.