-s Suppresses the check of each client file’s status against
what is recorded in the list file. [B]Instead, the list file is
assumed to be accurate.[/B] This option greatly reduces the
amount of disk activity and results in faster updates with
less load on the client host. However it should only be used
if client’s files are never modified locally in any way.
Mirror sites may find this option beneficial to reduce the
disk load on their systems. For safety, even mirror sites
should run csup occasionally (perhaps once a day) without the
-s option.
Without the -s option, csup performs a stat(2) call on each
file and verifies that its attributes match those recorded in
the list file. This ensures that any file changes made outâ€
side of csup are detected and corrected.
If the -s option is used when one or more files have been
modified locally, the results are undefined. Local file damâ€
age may remain uncorrected, updates may be missed, or csup
may abort prematurely.