Feature Request: Add option to keep file & folder modification time when copying

[batagy]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I tested latest cloudcmd v19.3.7 on OpenMediaVault 8.1.0 (Debian 13). When I copy a folder from oone path to another (on EXT4 filesystem in this case), the copied folders and files modification time will be refreshed to current time, as opposed to keep the original time.

It has the same default behaviour we when use "cp" command on linux.

If we move files instead of copy, the modification times will be kept.

Describe the solution you'd like
I'd like to see a feature, when I copy files or folders, the file and folder modification timestamp should be kept. This would correspond to "cp -p" command in linux.

I did not test the behaviour on Windows.

This option should be configurable, both from command line, and from docker enviroment variable.

Additionally, a different feature, but also owner and file permissions could be kept as well, when copying. This should be another configurable parameter.

Thanks in advance
György

[coderaiser]

Sounds good! Here the module https://github.com/coderaiser/node-copymitter for copying. Are you willing to contribute?

[batagy]

Thanks for feedback. I'm not a code developer, rather I'm a Devops engineer. But I could contribute with help of AI.
Do you prefer if I'd contribute?

[coderaiser]

I don't mind, let's try it, I just migrated to ESM, from CommonJS, so codebase fully prepared

[coderaiser]

Most likely what we need is:
https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fspromiseslutimespath-atime-mtime

And we also need to add change to redzip since copying supported not only for local files, but for files from zip archives also.
It works with streams, somethibg like unic pipes: cat 1.txt > 2.txt, so we need to add to functions to redzip to read file modification date and to write it.

Actually, we already have readStat, but it returns only crating date.

Could you please tell me why do you need modification date?

[batagy]

Could you please tell me why do you need modification date?

It is just a general usage when copying files, to keep original timestamp. Many other copy tool supports it.
There can be many reasons why someone wants that.

In my case , let's say on my NAS I have some downloaded files/folders, and then I copy them from NAS to USB disk. And I'd like to keep the modification times to see when something was downloaded. This is important for me.

Another case if we for example sync two folders , and the timestamp is a mandatory decision point to know for syncing app to decide what needs update.

[coderaiser]

I see that for zip files we can use mtime https://github.com/thejoshwolfe/yazl.

Is it common name? mtime for modification, ctime for creating? any other type of time neaded?

[batagy]

In Linux, there are 3 timestamps for any file:

• Modified timestamp (mtime): which is the last time a file's contents were modified.
• Change timestamp (ctime): which refers to the last time some metadata related to the file was changed. This is NOT creation time, but when permissions or ownership changed.
• Access timestamp (atime): which indicates the last time a file was accessed

For this feature we only to care about mtime!
ctime and atime don't matter, and they don't need to be restored for a copied file.

See more info here