Re: Metadata and checkin file date

[Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>]

Gerhard Wiesinger <lists@wiesinger.com> writes:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm new to git and I'm looking for the following features:
> 1.) Metadata for
>    a.) directory versioning (e.g. add/rm, mv)
>    b.) rights (basic: chmod, chow, chgrp, extended: extended
> attributes like ACLs and selinux), necessary for versioning e.g. /etc
> 2.) Original file dates (checkin date) on clone and pull (and not
> checkout date)
> 
> Is this possible? Any plans if missing?

Git is distributed version control system (DVCS), not a backup system.
It is used mainly for distributed development of programs.  Therefore
it supports natively only those parts of metadata that make sense for
VCS, namely symlinks (with workaround for filesystems that do not have
support for symbolic links) and the executable permission for files.

File ownership does not make sense for VCS, as other people that clone
your repository do not have the same set of users that you have, and
might not have the same set of groups that you have.  Neverthemind that
their filesystem might not support notion of file ownership, not only
do not have support for extended attributes and the like.

If you really, really need this, you can use additional tools to
preserve metadata, like Metastore or git-cache-meta, or even ready
tools that use Git as bckend like IsiSetup or bup (well, bup use
git package format, not git itself...), see this Git Wiki page:
https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools

HTH (Hope That Helps)
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland