incremental backup of folder in linux whilst retaining attributes/ownership

Question

I'm trying to backup a folder (e.g) /web/sites to /backups/websites and retain attributes, etc.

cp -Rp retains the information, yet isn't incremental

rsync -va seems to be great for incremental yet doesnt retain the attr/owner

Is it possible to tar, and pipe it through and untar whilst retaining attr/owner, if so, how can I do this? or is there a better solution?

Answer 1

cp -pur seems to do the trick!

Answer 2

Going further than just an incremental copy, there's glastree (website/github): "the poor mans daily snapshot".