Preserve ACLs with rsync

Question

Sorry, but I can find no solution to this apparent simple problem searching online and this forum.

I have a simple need: copy a directory and its contents to another local location, preserving ACLs and xAttr. This should be quite straight forward per the man page by use of -A and -X options:

rsync -aAX /source/directory /destination/directory

But this fails to preserve them. A simple use of 'cp' works though.

cp -a /source/directory /destination/directory

I have tried various other combinations, even as sudo without success...

sudo rsync -rA /source/directory /destination/directory

I am using Ubuntu 14.04LTS; I am sure that I have ACLs, as I have set the ACLs using 'setfacl' and 'getfacl'

setfacl -R -m "g:gp2:rw" MyDirectoryOfInterest

where getfacl reveals ACLs are in use:

>>getfacl /source/DirectoryOfInterest
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names

# file: source/DirectoryOfInterest
# owner: myusername
# group: myusername
user::rwx
user:usr1:rwx
user:usr2:rw-
user:usr3:r--
group::rwx
group:gp1:r--
group:gp2:rw-
group:gp3:rwx
mask::rwx
other::rwx

Note: both source and destination directories are on the same drive, and even in the same directory, with the destination directory simply appending the number '2'. e.g. /home/username/Car and /home/username/Car2.

Note: rsync will run, but will not assign any ACLs and xAttr

>>getfacl /home/myusername/test123/Cars2
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: home/myusername/test123/Cars2
# owner: myusername
# group: myusername
user::rwx
group::rwx
other::r-x

I need to use rsync, as eventually I wish to utilize this with a NAS that requires use of rsync for my needs. Any help would be appreciated.

Solution

I will partially answer my own question.

I installed Lubuntu for my children's use on an older PC. I decided to see if Lubuntu's version of rsync would function properly. The version of rsync on Lubuntu 16.04.1LTS is 3.1.1 protocol version 31.

rsync -aAX /source/filename /destination/
rsync -aAX /source/filename /destination/filename
rsync -aAX /source/filename /destination/newfilename

all work fine in Lubuntu.

Either the version of rsync on Ubuntu 14.04LTS (3.0.1 if I recall properly) has a bug, or somewhere along the way I messed up a configuration file or similar.

As I will be installing Ubuntu 16.04.1LTS in place of Ubuntu 14.04LTS, I will not spend any further time attempting to resolve the problem.

Regards.

Comments

[Byte Commander]

Did you try sudo rsync -aAX ...? I only see sudo rsync -rA ... in your question.

[user2175064]

Yes, I did try 'sudo rsync -aAX ...' and numerous others such as '-AX', '-a', '-rptgoAX', '-A' all with and without sudo. They all generate results similar to the 'getfacl' output above, with the difference only being the owner & group are 'root' when sudo is used.