All Agents with Read-Write permissions in a job, even TSS ones, can upload the local file changes to remote Agents. This also means that if a file is deleted from an RW Agent, it will also be deleted and placed to Archive on other Agents in the job.
Starting with Resilio Connect 3.7.0 is possible to configure an Agent in a way that prevents local file deletions from being synced to other Agents.
To disable the synchronization of deletions, add custom parameter sync_deletions:false to Job profile. It works only for Synchronization jobs.
Additionally enable parameter "Read file ID from disk" in the Agent profile.
It's highly advisable to use it before creating the job, otherwise Agent restart will be required.
This parameter applies only to Read-Write Agents in the job. This parameter does not apply to
- Read-Only Agents in the job
- Reference Agent
- Read-Write Agents in TSS mode, both Windows and macOS
- the Read-Write Agents that are defined as priority_peers in the Agent or Job profile.
these mentioned Agents will propagate file deletion to others regardless of the sync_deletions parameter.
The basic idea of the non-deleting Agent is that the file is only deleted locally. With non-deleting Agent in a job the following changes in Agent behavior and MC reporting will be observed.
The non-deleting Agent will report fewer local files than others. In the example below, win_3 agent deleted 50 files out of 400 in the job. The deleted files actually remain in the folder tree. Other Agents in the job will keep the files on their drives.
Folder icon in the Agent UI will change for such a job.
The non-deleting Agent reports the event about file deletion not being synced. Such files' status on MC is "Non-synced deleted", meaning that it was removed from non-deleting Agent.
However, the non-deleting Agent will report it got RW access to the job in the event log, which is actually true.
If a new Agent appears in the job, it will download the file from the Agents that still have it. Read-Only Agents can seed the file as well, provided the files didn't change locally, otherwise the file will be invalidated.
The non-deleting Agent ceases receiving any updates from remote Agents for the locally deleted files.
If a new file, even with same name as deleted one, is added to folder on non-deleting Agent, this will be considered as new file in the job and will be synced to others.
Enabling and disabling synchronization of deletions for a running job
While it's advisable to change this parameter before creating the job, it might be needed to revert it back and actually sync deletions for an already configured job. In this case, Agent process restart will be required. If some files were deleted before enabling the synchronization of deletions, the former non-deleting Agent will download the deleted files, provided there by other online Agents that have this file.