From jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 14:03:19 2026 From: jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk (Jonathan Buzzard) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 14:03:19 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time Message-ID: Is it possible to change the creation time on a file in GPFS? I have a gut feeling the answer is no and I can't see a mechanism to do so but thought I might as well ask. The use case would be syncing in data from an external file system and preserving all those creation times, that stretch back many years rather than have them all batted down to the date of the sync. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG From michael.neumayer at univie.ac.at Thu Oct 1 14:18:15 2026 From: michael.neumayer at univie.ac.at (Michael Neumayer) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 13:18:15 +0000 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you can use rsync (Linux) or robocopy (Windows) for the sync, preserving dates can be configured via the available options of these and similar tools. You may as well have a look at rclone (https://rclone.org/). I haven't used it a lot so far, but a colleague of mine did some large migrations with it, and was quite happy about it. I've never tried, but if you still have the external file system available, you could probably use the mentioned tools just to update dates to their value on the source file system without transferring them again, in case you've already finished the sync. Best, Michael ________________________________________________________________________ Michael Neumayer CUBE - Division of Computational Systems Biology Centre f. Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science University of Vienna Djerassiplatz 1 1030 Vienna, Austria https://cube.univie.ac.at/ Life Science Compute Cluster https://lisc.univie.ac.at/ -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: gpfsug-discuss Im Auftrag von Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss Gesendet: Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 2026 15:03 An: gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org Cc: Jonathan Buzzard Betreff: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time Is it possible to change the creation time on a file in GPFS? I have a gut feeling the answer is no and I can't see a mechanism to do so but thought I might as well ask. The use case would be syncing in data from an external file system and preserving all those creation times, that stretch back many years rather than have them all batted down to the date of the sync. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG _______________________________________________ gpfsug-discuss mailing list gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org From michael.neumayer at univie.ac.at Thu Oct 1 14:18:15 2026 From: michael.neumayer at univie.ac.at (Michael Neumayer) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 13:18:15 +0000 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you can use rsync (Linux) or robocopy (Windows) for the sync, preserving dates can be configured via the available options of these and similar tools. You may as well have a look at rclone (https://rclone.org/). I haven't used it a lot so far, but a colleague of mine did some large migrations with it, and was quite happy about it. I've never tried, but if you still have the external file system available, you could probably use the mentioned tools just to update dates to their value on the source file system without transferring them again, in case you've already finished the sync. Best, Michael ________________________________________________________________________ Michael Neumayer CUBE - Division of Computational Systems Biology Centre f. Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science University of Vienna Djerassiplatz 1 1030 Vienna, Austria https://cube.univie.ac.at/ Life Science Compute Cluster https://lisc.univie.ac.at/ -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: gpfsug-discuss Im Auftrag von Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss Gesendet: Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 2026 15:03 An: gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org Cc: Jonathan Buzzard Betreff: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time Is it possible to change the creation time on a file in GPFS? I have a gut feeling the answer is no and I can't see a mechanism to do so but thought I might as well ask. The use case would be syncing in data from an external file system and preserving all those creation times, that stretch back many years rather than have them all batted down to the date of the sync. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG _______________________________________________ gpfsug-discuss mailing list gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org From aelmazaty at ebi.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 14:22:52 2026 From: aelmazaty at ebi.ac.uk (Ahmed Essam Mahrous Gaber Elmazaty) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 14:22:52 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In addition to rsync, we have migrated to GPFS using AFM and it preserves all the metadata including modification timestamps Best regards, Ahmed > On 1 Oct 2026, at 14:18, Michael Neumayer via gpfsug-discuss wrote: > > If you can use rsync (Linux) or robocopy (Windows) for the sync, preserving dates can be configured via the available options of these and similar tools. You may as well have a look at rclone (https://rclone.org/). I haven't used it a lot so far, but a colleague of mine did some large migrations with it, and was quite happy about it. > > I've never tried, but if you still have the external file system available, you could probably use the mentioned tools just to update dates to their value on the source file system without transferring them again, in case you've already finished the sync. > > Best, > Michael > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > Michael Neumayer > CUBE - Division of Computational Systems Biology > Centre f. Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science > University of Vienna > Djerassiplatz 1 > 1030 Vienna, Austria > https://cube.univie.ac.at/ > > Life Science Compute Cluster > https://lisc.univie.ac.at/ > > > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: gpfsug-discuss Im Auftrag von Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 2026 15:03 > An: gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org > Cc: Jonathan Buzzard > Betreff: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time > > > Is it possible to change the creation time on a file in GPFS? I have a gut feeling the answer is no and I can't see a mechanism to do so but thought I might as well ask. > > The use case would be syncing in data from an external file system and preserving all those creation times, that stretch back many years rather than have them all batted down to the date of the sync. > > JAB. > > -- > Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 > HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. > University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG > > > _______________________________________________ > gpfsug-discuss mailing list > gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org > http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org > _______________________________________________ > gpfsug-discuss mailing list > gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org > http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org From aelmazaty at ebi.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 14:22:52 2026 From: aelmazaty at ebi.ac.uk (Ahmed Essam Mahrous Gaber Elmazaty) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 14:22:52 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In addition to rsync, we have migrated to GPFS using AFM and it preserves all the metadata including modification timestamps Best regards, Ahmed > On 1 Oct 2026, at 14:18, Michael Neumayer via gpfsug-discuss wrote: > > If you can use rsync (Linux) or robocopy (Windows) for the sync, preserving dates can be configured via the available options of these and similar tools. You may as well have a look at rclone (https://rclone.org/). I haven't used it a lot so far, but a colleague of mine did some large migrations with it, and was quite happy about it. > > I've never tried, but if you still have the external file system available, you could probably use the mentioned tools just to update dates to their value on the source file system without transferring them again, in case you've already finished the sync. > > Best, > Michael > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > Michael Neumayer > CUBE - Division of Computational Systems Biology > Centre f. Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science > University of Vienna > Djerassiplatz 1 > 1030 Vienna, Austria > https://cube.univie.ac.at/ > > Life Science Compute Cluster > https://lisc.univie.ac.at/ > > > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: gpfsug-discuss Im Auftrag von Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 2026 15:03 > An: gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org > Cc: Jonathan Buzzard > Betreff: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time > > > Is it possible to change the creation time on a file in GPFS? I have a gut feeling the answer is no and I can't see a mechanism to do so but thought I might as well ask. > > The use case would be syncing in data from an external file system and preserving all those creation times, that stretch back many years rather than have them all batted down to the date of the sync. > > JAB. > > -- > Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 > HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. > University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG > > > _______________________________________________ > gpfsug-discuss mailing list > gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org > http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org > _______________________________________________ > gpfsug-discuss mailing list > gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org > http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org From jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 14:24:00 2026 From: jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk (Jonathan Buzzard) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 14:24:00 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ba255e0-76f0-4fa3-bf15-b10327eb71b6@strath.ac.uk> On 01/10/2026 14:18, Michael Neumayer wrote: > > If you can use rsync (Linux) or robocopy (Windows) for the sync, > preserving dates can be configured via the available options of > these and similar tools. You may as well have a look at rclone > (https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/? > url=https%3A%2F%2Frclone.org%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cjonathan.buzzard%40strath.ac.uk%7Cbb8b6aa3d2c645bf361d08df1fbe756c%7C631e0763153347eba5cd0457bee5944e%7C0%7C0%7C639264575017981990%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Q2HB649QLcXoqVnqSy8v1Qv76sYR7st8rtAZhKveK4k%3D&reserved=0). > I haven't used it a lot so far, but a colleague of mine did some > large migrations with it, and was quite happy about it. > > I've never tried, but if you still have the external file system > available, you could probably use the mentioned tools just to update > dates to their value on the source file system without transferring > them again, in case you've already finished the sync. > rsync notably does *not* preserve creation/birth time. Notably because there is no consistent API for doing so. Some file systems (aka XFS at a minimum) won't let you change the creation time for "forensic" reasons. Though one presumes you could start messing with the system clock a lot to fudge the issue :-) The standard atime,mtime,ctime is not an issue, though doing any sort of sync jiggers your atimes if you take multiple passes. Note ctime is *not* creation/birth time but last time you changed permissions. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG From jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 14:34:01 2026 From: jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk (Jonathan Buzzard) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 14:34:01 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 01/10/2026 14:22, Ahmed Essam Mahrous Gaber Elmazaty via gpfsug- discuss wrote: > > In addition to rsync, we have migrated to GPFS using AFM and it > preserves all the metadata including modification timestamps Best > regards, If it does then a GPFS API must exist even if undocumented for modifying it. However I don't think it does. Note that creation/birth time is not POSIX and GPFS only acquired it in version 3.2 from memory, at the same time as MS-DOS attributes were added. Presumably added as part of being able to mount GPFS on Windows, with the fun fact you needed a GPFS file system created under 3.2 or later to do so. It is a common misconception that ctime is a creation time, it is in fact the time you last changed permissions. I am talking about the "Creation Time" as reported by mmlsattr -L or on XFS the Birth time you see on when stating the file. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG From klbuter at sandia.gov Thu Oct 1 14:51:39 2026 From: klbuter at sandia.gov (Buterbaugh, Kevin Lynn) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 13:51:39 +0000 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] [EXTERNAL] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <484B50FE-2AC8-4F02-BC11-E7693EF13BAA@sandia.gov> Hi all, One minor correction to the below … while JAB is correct that it is a common misconception that ctime is file creation time, it is also more than “the time you last changed permissions.” The man page for ls on a RHEL 8 system describes it as “time of last modification of file status information.” I.e., it’s the time _any_ file metadata was updated … so any update to a files’ inode updates ctime. Thanks… Kevin B. — Kevin Buterbaugh Sandia National Laboratories - HPC Development (9328) Office: (505)284-1470, Work iPhone: (505)288-1959 my_email = "@".join(["klbuter", ".".join(["sandia", "gov"])]) On Oct 1, 2026, at 7:34 AM, Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss wrote: On 01/10/2026 14:22, Ahmed Essam Mahrous Gaber Elmazaty via gpfsug- discuss wrote: In addition to rsync, we have migrated to GPFS using AFM and it preserves all the metadata including modification timestamps Best regards, If it does then a GPFS API must exist even if undocumented for modifying it. However I don't think it does. Note that creation/birth time is not POSIX and GPFS only acquired it in version 3.2 from memory, at the same time as MS-DOS attributes were added. Presumably added as part of being able to mount GPFS on Windows, with the fun fact you needed a GPFS file system created under 3.2 or later to do so. It is a common misconception that ctime is a creation time, it is in fact the time you last changed permissions. I am talking about the "Creation Time" as reported by mmlsattr -L or on XFS the Birth time you see on when stating the file. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG _______________________________________________ gpfsug-discuss mailing list gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgpfsug.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fgpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org&data=05%7C02%7Cklbuter%40sandia.gov%7C71fac9c90644464abdc508df1fc0dc8e%7C7ccb5a20a303498cb0c129007381b574%7C1%7C0%7C639264585387670749%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xLDEL9zqMzF6o%2FHn7UABQYNCvkELf48dpmqVCYh%2FM8w%3D&reserved=0 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jtucker at pixitmedia.com Thu Oct 1 14:56:33 2026 From: jtucker at pixitmedia.com (Jez Tucker) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 13:56:33 +0000 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Allo See gpfs_set_times_path() in gpfs.h Best, Jez On 01/10/2026 14:34, Jonathan Buzzard via gpfsug-discuss wrote: CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. On 01/10/2026 14:22, Ahmed Essam Mahrous Gaber Elmazaty via gpfsug- discuss wrote: In addition to rsync, we have migrated to GPFS using AFM and it preserves all the metadata including modification timestamps Best regards, If it does then a GPFS API must exist even if undocumented for modifying it. However I don't think it does. Note that creation/birth time is not POSIX and GPFS only acquired it in version 3.2 from memory, at the same time as MS-DOS attributes were added. Presumably added as part of being able to mount GPFS on Windows, with the fun fact you needed a GPFS file system created under 3.2 or later to do so. It is a common misconception that ctime is a creation time, it is in fact the time you last changed permissions. I am talking about the "Creation Time" as reported by mmlsattr -L or on XFS the Birth time you see on when stating the file. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG _______________________________________________ gpfsug-discuss mailing list gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss_gpfsug.org -- Jez Tucker VP Product Development +44 (0776) 419 3820 jtucker at pixitmedia.com [Pixitmedia] www.pixitmedia.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From salvet at ics.muni.cz Thu Oct 1 15:47:50 2026 From: salvet at ics.muni.cz (Zdenek Salvet) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 16:47:50 +0200 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Oct 01, 2026 at 01:56:33PM +0000, Jez Tucker via gpfsug-discuss wrote: > See gpfs_set_times_path() in gpfs.h Hello, depending on the exact use case, it may be be better to leave true creation time unmodified and store the value from original filesystem in an extended attribute... Regards, Zdenek Salvet salvet at ics.muni.cz Institute of Computer Science of Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic and CESNET, z.s.p.o., Prague, Czech Republic Phone: ++420-549 49 6534 Fax: ++420-541 212 747 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. From jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk Thu Oct 1 16:19:07 2026 From: jonathan.buzzard at strath.ac.uk (Jonathan Buzzard) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 16:19:07 +0100 Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] Creation time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 01/10/2026 15:47, Zdenek Salvet via gpfsug-discuss wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 01, 2026 at 01:56:33PM +0000, Jez Tucker via gpfsug-discuss wrote: >> See gpfs_set_times_path() in gpfs.h > > Hello, > depending on the exact use case, it may be be better to leave true creation > time unmodified and store the value from original filesystem in an extended attribute... > That is an option, but just keeping the original value is probably the best choice for us. JAB. -- Jonathan A. Buzzard Tel: +44141-5483420 HPC System Administrator, ARCHIE-WeSt. University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Building, Glasgow. G4 0NG