.TH metastore "1" "January 2016"
.\"
.SH NAME
metastore \- stores and restores filesystem metadata
.\"
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBmetastore\fR \fIACTION\fR [\fIOPTION...\fR] [\fIPATH...\fR]
.\"
.SH 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.
.\"
.SH ACTIONS
.TP
.B \-c, \-\-compare
Shows the difference between the stored and real metadata.
.TP
.B \-s, \-\-save
Saves the current metadata to ./.metadata or to the specified file
(see \-\-file option below).
.TP
.B \-a, \-\-apply
Attempts to apply the stored metadata to the file system.
.TP
.B \-d, \-\-dump
Dumps stored (if no \fIPATH\fR is given) or real metadata (if \fIPATH\fR is
present, e.g. \fB./\fR) 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.
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help
Prints a help message and exits.
.\"
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-v, \-\-verbose
Causes metastore to print more verbose messages. Can be repeated more than
once for even more verbosity.
.TP
.B \-q, \-\-quiet
Causes metastore to print less verbose messages. Can be repeated more than
once for even less verbosity.
.TP
.B \-m, \-\-mtime
Causes metastore to also take mtime into account for the compare or apply actions.
.TP
.B \-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 \fBapply\fR option.
.TP
.B -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 \fBapply\fR option.
.TP
.B \-g, \-\-git
Prevents metastore from omitting .git directories.
.TP
.B \-f <file>, \-\-file <file>
Causes the metadata to be saved, read from the specified file rather
than ./.metadata.
.\"
.SH 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.
.\"
.SH 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.