Update bundled rsync from 3.0.7 to a modern supported release (3.2.x)

Feature Request
1

QNAP systems currently ship with:

rsync version 3.0.7 protocol version 30

This version was released in 2009 and lacks many important usability, compatibility, performance, and security improvements available in modern rsync releases.

Request

Please update the bundled rsync package to a current stable upstream version (preferably 3.2.x).

Key Justifications

  1. Better progress stats
    One of the most significant usability limitations is the absence of:--info=progress2

Modern rsync versions provide a single overall transfer progress indicator, which is essential for:

  • Monitoring long-running backups

  • Estimating remaining transfer time

  • Observing total throughput across many files

  • Improving scripting and automation visibility

Without this feature, users only get per-file progress (--progress), which becomes nearly useless when transferring large datasets containing many small files.

Example:
Modern rsync:
rsync -ah --info=progress2 source/ dest/

This provides:

  • overall percentage complete

  • aggregate transfer speed

  • estimated remaining time

  • total bytes transferred

These are now considered standard operational features.

  1. Security and maintenance concerns
    rsync 3.0.7 is extremely old and no longer reflects modern security expectations.

Newer versions include:

  • security fixes

  • protocol hardening

  • improved checksum handling

  • safer daemon behaviour

  • improved compatibility with modern Linux/macOS systems

  1. Performance improvements
    Newer rsync releases provide:

  • faster file-list generation

  • improved incremental recursion

  • better memory handling

  • optional xxhash/zstd compression support

  • improved sparse-file handling

These improvements matter significantly for NAS workloads involving millions of files.

  1. Modern feature support missing from 3.0.7
    Examples of missing or limited functionality include:

  • --info=progress2

  • modern checksum/compression options

  • enhanced partial-transfer handling

  • improved ACL/xattr support

  • newer protocol optimizations

  • better IPv6 handling

  • improved logging/debugging controls

3

Thanks for the suggestion! We plan to update the rsync version in a future release, primarily as part of the QTS/QuTS hero 6 update.

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