diff --git a/promoteUtils/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh b/promoteUtils/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh
index c909f63..7c1cb98 100755
--- a/promoteUtils/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh
+++ b/promoteUtils/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
 echo "Editing artifacts.xml..."
 
 # edit values and write new xml file (replace double quotes with single quotes)
-"${xmlstarlet_bin}" ed -u "//repository/@name" -v "${p2ArtifactRepositoryName}" \
+${xmlstarlet_bin} ed -u "//repository/@name" -v "${p2ArtifactRepositoryName}" \
               -u "//repository/@version" -v "1.0.0" \
               -u "//repository/properties/@size" -v "5" \
               -u "//repository/properties/property[@name='p2.timestamp']/@value" -v "${timestamp}" \
diff --git a/promoteUtils/promoteToReleases2.sh b/promoteUtils/promoteToReleases2.sh
index d63c8fd..e6e6261 100755
--- a/promoteUtils/promoteToReleases2.sh
+++ b/promoteUtils/promoteToReleases2.sh
@@ -46,8 +46,7 @@
 
 # Create ../releases/<release>/<dirdate> dir if it does not exist yet
 ssh "${SSH_REMOTE}" mkdir -p "${releaseSubDir}"
-#TODO: use rsync instead of cp
-ssh "${SSH_REMOTE}" cp -rp "${stagingDirectory}/*" "${releaseSubDir}/"
+ssh "${SSH_REMOTE}" rsync -ahr "${stagingDirectory}/*" "${releaseSubDir}/"
 
 scp "${BUILD_TOOLS_DIR}/promoteUtils/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh" "${SSH_REMOTE}:~/"
 ssh "${SSH_REMOTE}" "~/addRepoProperties-release_bash.sh" "${release}" "${dirdate}"