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.

       -d, --dump
              Dumps stored (if no PATH is given) or real metadata (if PATH is present,  e.g.  ./)
              in human-readable form.

              This action is meant only as a helpful debugging facility or merge conflict helper.
              Do not ever compare its output generated using different metastore version. Do  not
              rely  on current output format (especially in batch scripts), because it may change
              in future without prior notice.

       -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.

       -E, --remove-empty-dirs
              Also attempts to remove empty directories missing from the metadata. May be  useful
              where  empty  directories  are  not  tracked  (e.g.  by git or cvs).  Only works in
              combination with the apply option.

       -g, --git
              Prevents metastore from omitting .git directories.

       -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.

AUTHORS

       metastore was created by David Härdeman in 2007-2008.  Now it is maintained by  Przemysław
       Pawełczyk.  All source code contributors are listed in the AUTHORS file.

                                           January 2016                              metastore(1)