NAME
metastore - stores and restores filesystem metadata
SYNOPSIS
metastore ACTION [OPTION...] [PATH...]
DESCRIPTION
Stores or restores metadata (owner, group, permissions, xattrs and
optionally mtime) for a filesystem tree. This can be used to preserve
the metadata in situations where it is usually not stored (git and tar
for example) or as a tripwire like mechanism to detect any changes to
metadata. Note that e.g. SELinux stores its labels in xattrs so care
should be taken when applying stored metadata to make sure that system
security is not compromised.
ACTIONS
-c, --compare
Shows the difference between the stored and real metadata.
-s, --save
Saves the current metadata to ./.metadata or to the specified
file (see --file option below).
-a, --apply
Attempts to apply the stored metadata to the file system.
-h, --help
Prints a help message and exits.
OPTIONS
-v, --verbose
Causes metastore to print more verbose messages. Can be repeated
more than once for even more verbosity.
-q, --quiet
Causes metastore to print less verbose messages. Can be repeated
more than once for even less verbosity.
-m, --mtime
Causes metastore to also take mtime into account for the compare
or apply actions.
-e, --empty-dirs
Also attempts to recreate missing empty directories. May be
useful where empty directories are not tracked (e.g. by git or
cvs). Only works in combination with the apply option. This is
currently an experimental feature.
-f <file>, --file <file>
Causes the metadata to be saved, read from the specified file
rather than ./.metadata.
PATHS
If no path is specified, metastore will use the current directory as
the basis for the actions. This is the recommended way of executing
metastore. Alternatively, one or more paths can be specified and they
will each be examined. Later invocations should be made using the exact
same paths to ensure that the stored metadata is interpreted correctly.
AUTHOR
Written by David Härdeman <david@hardeman.nu>
May 2007 metastore(1)