Dear Maintainer, This doesn't work in bookworm but works in bullseye: $ mkdir /tmp/newdir $ cp -p --parent /etc/passwd /tmp/newdir cp: ‘etc’: No such file or directory /tmp/newdir/etc gets created but with wrong permission and also the error message above. $ ls -ald /tmp/newdir/etc drwx------ 2 gb gb 60 Oct 17 14:54 /tmp/newdir/etc Should be: drwxr-xr-x 2 gb gb 60 Oct 17 11:09 /tmp/newdir/etc Could be the same as: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/coreutils/+bug/2017414