FISH to OpenWrt, file modification time randomized

[opty]

When copying normal files using FISH to a router using OpenWrt? 19.07.7, it doesn't preserve mtime (modification time) and even uses seemingly random mtime, possibly cached somewhere?

[zaytsev]

Is it only OpenWRT or FISH in general?

[opty]

Only OpenWrt?. I use FISH often so I'd most probably notice.

[andrew_b]

Probably related topic: ​touch command with option -d.

[opty]

So FISH uses touch in /usr/libexec/mc/fish/utime to preserve the timestamps.

touch -d works*:

root@tplink:~# date && touch -m -a -d '2022-02-22 00:00' /tmp/testfile && ls -l /tmp/testfile && ls -lu /tmp/testfile && ls -lc /tmp/testfile
Sun Apr  4 23:18:30 CEST 2021
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Feb 22  2022 /tmp/testfile
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Feb 22  2022 /tmp/testfile
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root             0 Apr  4 23:18 /tmp/testfile

---

*Although touch pretends that it doesn't support atime (access time):

root@tplink:~# touch
BusyBox v1.30.1 () multi-call binary.

Usage: touch [-c] [-d DATE] [-t DATE] [-r FILE] FILE...

Update the last-modified date on the given FILE[s]

        -c      Don't create files
        -d DT   Date/time to use
        -t DT   Date/time to use
        -r FILE Use FILE's date/time

[opty]

Got it! BusyBox?'s touch updates both mtime and atime with the same value so when FISH tries to preserve atime after mtime, it actually updates already preserved mtime with atime.

I guess this will get closed as wontfix?

[opty]

Not sure if BusyBox?'s touch would get updating the times separately implemented as that would make it bigger but what about modifying FISH to preserve atime before mtime so on OpenWrt? it could preserve at least mtime? OpenWrt? uses noatime for / anyway and other systems using coreutils' touch shouldn't even notice any difference.

[opty]

Fortunately, too pesimistic me, WIP now: ​touch: adding -a and -m

[andrew_b]

Thanks for the investigation!