User Commands rsync(1)
NAME
rsync - faster, flexible replacement for rcp
SYNOPSIS
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]...
rsync:/[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... rsync:/[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
DESCRIPTION
rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that
rcp does, but has many more options and uses the rsync
remote-update protocol to greatly speed up file transfers
when the destination file is being updated.
The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer
just the differences between two sets of files across the
network connection, using an efficient checksum-search algo-
rithm described in the technical report that accompanies
this package.
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
o support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and
permissions
o exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
o a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS
would ignore
o can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or
rsh
o does not require super-user privileges
o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons
(ideal for mirroring)
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GENERAL
Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or
locally on the current host (it does not support copying
files between two remote hosts).
There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote
system: using a remote-shell program as the transport (such
as ssh or rsh) or contacting an rsync daemon directly via
TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever the source
or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator
after a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon
directly happens when the source or destination path con-
tains a double colon (::) separator after a host specifica-
tion, OR when an rsync:/ URL is specified (see also the
"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHEL CONECTION"
section for an exception to this latter rule).
As a special case, if a single source arg is specified
without a destination, the files are listed in an output
format similar to "ls -l".
As expected, if neither the source or destination path
specify a remote host, the copy occurs locally (see also the
--list-only option).
SETUP
See the file README for installation instructions.
Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you
can access via a remote shell (as well as some that you can
access using the rsync daemon-mode protocol). For remote
transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh for its communications,
but it may have been configured to use a different remote
shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by
using the -e command line option, or by setting the
RSYNCRSH environment variable.
Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and
destination machines.
USAGE
You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify
a source and a destination, one of which may be remote.
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some
examples:
rsync -t *.c foo:src/
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This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from
the current directory to the directory src on the machine
foo. If any of the files already exist on the remote system
then the rsync remote-update protocol is used to update the
file by sending only the differences. See the tech report
for details.
rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp
This would recursively transfer all files from the directory
src/bar on the machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory
on the local machine. The files are transferred in "archive"
mode, which ensures that symbolic links, devices, attri-
butes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the
transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce
the size of data portions of the transfer.
rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp
A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to
avoid creating an additional directory level at the destina-
tion. You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning
"copy the contents of this directory" as opposed to "copy
the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of
the containing directory are transferred to the containing
directory on the destination. In other words, each of the
following commands copies the files in the same way, includ-
ing their setting of the attributes of /dest/foo:
rsync -av /src/foo /dest
rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo
Note also that host and module references don't require a
trailing slash to copy the contents of the default direc-
tory. For example, both of these copy the remote
directory's contents into "/dest":
rsync -av host: /dest
rsync -av host::module /dest
You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the
source and destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this
case it behaves like an improved copy command.
Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available
from a particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module
name:
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rsync somehost.mydomain.com::
See the following section for more details.
ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host
involves using quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2'
/dest
This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync
daemon. Each additional arg must include the same "mod-
name/" prefix as the first one, and must be preceded by a
single space. All other spaces are assumed to be a part of
the filenames.
rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest
This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote
shell. This word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so
if it doesn't work it means that the remote shell isn't con-
figured to split its args based on whitespace (a very rare
setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer a
filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either
escape the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will
understand, or use wildcards in place of the spaces. Two
examples of this are:
rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest
rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest
This latter example assumes that your shell passes through
unmatched wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put
the name in quotes.
CONECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as
the transport. In this case you will directly connect to a
remote rsync daemon, typically using TCP port 873. (This
obviously requires the daemon to be running on the remote
system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACEPT
CONECTIONS section below for information on that.)
Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a
remote shell except that:
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o you either use a double colon :: instead of a single
colon to separate the hostname from the path, or you
use an rsync:/ URL.
o the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
o the remote daemon may print a message of the day when
you connect.
o if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then
the list of accessible paths on the daemon will be
shown.
o if you specify no local destination then a listing of
the specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
o you must not specify the --rsh (-e) option.
An example that copies all the files in a remote module
named "src":
rsync -av host::src /dest
Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentica-
tion. If so, you will receive a password prompt when you
connect. You can avoid the password prompt by setting the
environment variable RSYNCPASWORD to the password you want
to use or using the --password-file option. This may be use-
ful when scripting rsync.
WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible
to all users. On those systems using --password-file is
recommended.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting
the environment variable RSYNCPROXY to a hostname:port pair
pointing to your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's con-
figuration must support proxy connections to port 873.
USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHEL CONECTION
It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync
daemon (such as named modules) without actually allowing any
new socket connections into a system (other than what is
already required to allow remote-shell access). Rsync sup-
ports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then
spawning a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read
its config file in the home dir of the remote user. This
can be useful if you want to encrypt a daemon-style
transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as
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chroot or change the uid used by the daemon. (For another
way to encrypt a daemon transfer, consider using ssh to tun-
nel a local port to a remote machine and configure a normal
rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow connections
from "localhost".)
From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a
remote-shell connection uses nearly the same command-line
syntax as a normal rsync-daemon transfer, with the only
exception being that you must explicitly set the remote
shell program on the command-line with the --rsh=COMAND
option. (Setting the RSYNCRSH in the environment will not
turn on this functionality.) For example:
rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest
If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep
in mind that the user@ prefix in front of the host is speci-
fying the rsync-user value (for a module that requires
user-based authentication). This means that you must give
the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-
shell, as in this example that uses the short version of the
--rsh option:
rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest
The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-
user" will be used to log-in to the "module".
STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACEPT CONECTIONS
In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system
needs to have a daemon already running (or it needs to have
configured something like inetd to spawn an rsync daemon for
incoming connections on a particular port). For full infor-
mation on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that
is the config file for the daemon, and it contains the full
details for how to run the daemon (including stand-alone and
inetd configurations).
If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the
transfer, there is no need to manually start an rsync dae-
mon.
EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large
MS Word files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
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rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup
each night over a P connection to a duplicate directory on
my machine "arvidsjaur".
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following
Makefile targets:
get:
rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
put:
rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
sync: get put
this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end
of the connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote
machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote CVS proto-
col isn't very efficient.
I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites
with the command:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba
nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"
This is launched from cron every few hours.
OPTIONS SUMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync.
Please refer to the detailed description below for a com-
plete description.
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
--no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
-a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
--no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place
--append append data onto shorter files
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
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--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
-k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-E, --executability preserve executability
--chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
-g, --group preserve group
--devices preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials preserve special files
-D same as --devices --specials
-t, --times preserve times
-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
--super receiver attempts super-user activities
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
-W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
--existing skip creating new files on receiver
--ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
--min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
-m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
--size-only skip files that match in size
--modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
-T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
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--compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
--exclude=PATERN exclude files matching PATERN
--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATERN don't exclude files matching PATERN
--include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
--files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
-0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
--address=ADRES bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--stats give some file-transfer stats
-8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
-h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
--out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
--log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
--log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
--password-file=FILE read password from FILE
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
--only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
--version print version number
(-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment)
Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the follow-
ing options are accepted:
--daemon run as an rsync daemon
--address=ADRES bind to the specified address
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
--no-detach do not detach from the parent
--port=PORT listen on alternate port number
--log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
--log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
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-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
-h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon)
OPTIONS
rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command
line options have two variants, one short and one long.
These are shown below, separated by commas. Some options
only have a long variant. The '=' for options that take a
parameter is optional; whitespace can be used instead.
--help
Print a short help page describing the options avail-
able in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility
with older versions of rsync, the help will also be
output if you use the -h option without any other args.
--version
print the rsync version number and exit.
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information you are
given during the transfer. By default, rsync works
silently. A single -v will give you information about
what files are being transferred and a brief summary at
the end. Two -v flags will give you information on what
files are being skipped and slightly more information
at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used
if you are debugging rsync.
Note that the names of the transferred files that are
output are done using a default --out-format of "%n%L",
which tells you just the name of the file and, if the
item is a link, where it points. At the single -v
level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file
gets its attributes changed. If you ask for an item-
ized list of changed attributes (either
--itemize-changes or adding "%i" to the --out-format
setting), the output (on the client) increases to men-
tion all items that are changed in any way. See the
--out-format option for more details.
-q, --quiet
This option decreases the amount of information you are
given during the transfer, notably suppressing informa-
tion messages from the remote server. This flag is
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useful when invoking rsync from cron.
--no-motd
This option affects the information that is output by
the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This
suppresses the message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it
also affects the list of modules that the daemon sends
in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to a
limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option
if you want to request the list of modules from the
deamon.
-I, --ignore-times
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the
same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
This option turns off this "quick check" behavior,
causing all files to be updated.
--size-only
Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
already the same size and have the same modification
time-stamp. With the --size-only option, files will not
be transferred if they have the same size, regardless
of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
after using another mirroring system which may not
preserve timestamps exactly.
--modify-window
When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the times-
tamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the
modify-window value. This is normally 0 (for an exact
match), but you may find it useful to set this to a
larger value in some situations. In particular, when
transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem
(which represents times with a 2-second resolution),
--modify-window=1 is useful (allowing times to differ
by up to 1 second).
-c, --checksum
This forces the sender to checksum every regular file
using a 128-bit MD4 checksum. It does this during the
initial file-system scan as it builds the list of all
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available files. The receiver then checksums its ver-
sion of each file (if it exists and it has the same
size as its sender-side counterpart) in order to decide
which files need to be updated: files with either a
changed size or a changed checksum are selected for
transfer. Since this whole-file checksumming of all
files on both sides of the connection occurs in addi-
tion to the automatic checksum verifications that occur
during a file's transfer, this option can be quite
slow.
Note that rsync always verifies that each transferred
file was correctly reconstructed on the receiving side
by checking its whole-file checksum, but that automatic
after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with
this option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need
to be updated?" check.
-a, --archive
This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way of
saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
everything (with -H being a notable omission). The
only exception to the above equivalence is when
--files-from is specified, in which case -r is not
implied.
Note that -a does not preserve hardlinks, because find-
ing multiply-linked files is expensive. You must
separately specify -H.
--no-OPTION
You may turn off one or more implied options by prefix-
ing the option name with "no-". Not all options may be
prefixed with a "no-": only options that are implied
by other options (e.g. --no-D, --no-perms) or have dif-
ferent defaults in various circumstances (e.g.
--no-whole-file, --no-blocking-io, --no-dirs). You may
specify either the short or the long option name after
the "no-" prefix (e.g. --no-R is the same as
--no-relative).
For example: if you want to use -a (--archive) but
don't want -o (--owner), instead of converting -a into
-rlptgD, you could specify -a --no-o (or -a
--no-owner).
The order of the options is important: if you specify
--no-r -a, the -r option would end up being turned on,
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the opposite of -a --no-r. Note also that the side-
effects of the --files-from option are NOT positional,
as it affects the default state of several options and
slightly changes the meaning of -a (see the
--files-from option for more details).
-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See
also --dirs (-d).
-R, --relative
Use relative paths. This means that the full path names
specified on the command line are sent to the server
rather than just the last parts of the filenames. This
is particularly useful when you want to send several
different directories at the same time. For example, if
you used this command:
rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on
the remote machine. If instead you used
rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created
on the remote machine -- the full path name is
preserved. To limit the amount of path information
that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With a
modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with
2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into the
source path, like this:
rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine.
(Note that the dot must be followed by a slash, so
"/foo/." would not be abbreviated.) (2) For older
rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit
the source path. For example, when pushing files:
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(cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
(Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-
shell, so that the "cd" command doesn't remain in
effect for future commands.) If you're pulling files,
use this idiom (which doesn't work with an rsync dae-
mon):
rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \
remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/
--no-implied-dirs
This option affects the default behavior of the --rela-
tive option. When it is specified, the attributes of
the implied directories from the source names are not
included in the transfer. This means that the
corresponding path elements on the destination system
are left unchanged if they exist, and any missing
implied directories are created with default attri-
butes. This even allows these implied path elements to
have big differences, such as being a symlink to a
directory on one side of the transfer, and a real
directory on the other side.
For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from
entry told rsync to transfer the file "path/foo/file",
the directories "path" and "path/foo" are implied when
--relative is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
"bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync
would ordinarily delete "path/foo", recreate it as a
directory, and receive the file into the new directory.
With --no-implied-dirs, the receiving rsync updates
"path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which
means that the file ends up being created in
"path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
preservation is to use the --keep-dirlinks option
(which will also affect symlinks to directories in the
rest of the transfer).
In a similar but opposite scenario, if the transfer of
"path/foo/file" is requested and "path/foo" is a sym-
link on the sending side, running without
--no-implied-dirs would cause rsync to transform
"path/foo" on the receiving side into an identical sym-
link, and then attempt to transfer "path/foo/file",
which might fail if the duplicated symlink did not
point to a directory on the receiving side. Another
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way to avoid this sending of a symlink as an implied
directory is to use --copy-unsafe-links, or
--copy-dirlinks (both of which also affect symlinks in
the rest of the transfer -- see their descriptions for
full details).
-b, --backup
With this option, preexisting destination files are
renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You
can control where the backup file goes and what (if
any) suffix gets appended using the --backup-dir and
--suffix options.
Note that if you don't specify --backup-dir, (1) the
--omit-dir-times option will be implied, and (2) if
--delete is also in effect (without --delete-excluded),
rsync will add a "protect" filter-rule for the backup
suffix to the end of all your existing excludes (e.g.
-f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up
files from being deleted. Note that if you are supply-
ing your own filter rules, you may need to manually
insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher
up in the list so that it has a high enough priority to
be effective (e.g., if your rules specify a trailing
inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added rule would
never be reached).
--backup-dir=DIR
In combination with the --backup option, this tells
rsync to store all backups in the specified directory
on the receiving side. This can be used for incremen-
tal backups. You can additionally specify a backup
suffix using the --suffix option (otherwise the files
backed up in the specified directory will keep their
original filenames).
--suffix=SUFIX
This option allows you to override the default backup
suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default
suffix is a ~ if no --backup-dir was specified, other-
wise it is an empty string.
-u, --update
This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the
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destination and have a modified time that is newer than
the source file. (If an existing destination file has
a modify time equal to the source file's, it will be
updated if the sizes are different.)
In the current implementation of --update, a difference
of file format between the sender and receiver is
always considered to be important enough for an update,
no matter what date is on the objects. In other words,
if the source has a directory or a symlink where the
destination has a file, the transfer would occur
regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the
future (feel free to comment on this on the mailing
list if you have an opinion).
--inplace
This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
and then move it into place. Instead rsync will
overwrite the existing file, meaning that the rsync
algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of network
reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does
not yet try to sort data matches). One exception to
this is if you combine the option with --backup, since
rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
basis file for the transfer.
This option is useful for transfer of large files with
block-based changes or appended data, and also on sys-
tems that are disk bound, not network bound.
The option implies --partial (since an interrupted
transfer does not delete the file), but conflicts with
--partial-dir and --delay-updates. Prior to rsync
2.6.4 --inplace was also incompatible with
--compare-dest and --link-dest.
WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent
state during the transfer (and possibly afterward if
the transfer gets interrupted), so you should not use
this option to update files that are in use. Also note
that rsync will be unable to update a file in-place
that is not writable by the receiving user.
--append
This causes rsync to update a file by appending data
onto the end of the file, which presumes that the data
that already exists on the receiving side is identical
with the start of the file on the sending side. If
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that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test,
and the resend will do a normal --inplace update to
correct the mismatched data. Only files on the receiv-
ing side that are shorter than the corresponding file
on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
Implies --inplace, but does not conflict with --sparse
(though the --sparse option will be auto-disabled if a
resend of the already-existing data is required).
-d, --dirs
Tell the sending side to include any directories that
are encountered. Unlike --recursive, a directory's
contents are not copied unless the directory name
specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash (e.g.
".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or
the --recursive option, rsync will skip all directories
it encounters (and output a message to that effect for
each one). If you specify both --dirs and --recursive,
--recursive takes precedence.
-l, --links
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on
the destination.
-L, --copy-links
When symlinks are encountered, the item that they point
to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink.
In older versions of rsync, this option also had the
side-effect of telling the receiving side to follow
symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a modern
rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify
--keep-dirlinks (-K) to get this extra behavior. The
only exception is when sending files to an rsync that
is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L
option will still have the side-effect of -K on that
older receiving rsync.
--copy-unsafe-links
This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic links
that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any
symlinks in the source path itself when --relative is
used. This option has no additional effect if
--copy-links was also specified.
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--safe-links
This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which
point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks
are also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with
--relative may give unexpected results.
-K, --copy-dirlinks
This option causes the sending side to treat a symlink
to a directory as though it were a real directory.
This is useful if you don't want symlinks to non-
directories to be affected, as they would be using
--copy-links.
Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a
directory with a symlink to a directory, the receiving
side will delete anything that is in the way of the new
symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
--force or --delete is in effect).
See also --keep-dirlinks for an analogous option for
the receiving side.
-K, --keep-dirlinks
This option causes the receiving side to treat a sym-
link to a directory as though it were a real directory,
but only if it matches a real directory from the
sender. Without this option, the receiver's symlink
would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo"
that contains a file "file", but "foo" is a symlink to
directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
--keep-dirlinks, the receiver deletes symlink "foo",
recreates it as a directory, and receives the file into
the new directory. With --keep-dirlinks, the receiver
keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in "bar".
See also --copy-dirlinks for an analogous option for
the sending side.
-H, --hard-links
This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in the
transfer and link together the corresponding files on
the receiving side. Without this option, hard-linked
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files in the transfer are treated as though they were
separate files.
Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both
parts of the link are in the list of files being sent.
-p, --perms
This option causes the receiving rsync to set the des-
tination permissions to be the same as the source per-
missions. (See also the --chmod option for a way to
modify what rsync considers to be the source permis-
sions.)
When this option is off, permissions are set as fol-
lows:
o Existing files (including updated files) retain
their existing permissions, though the --executa-
bility option might change just the execute per-
mission for the file.
o New files get their "normal" permission bits set
to the source file's permissions masked with the
receiving end's umask setting, and their special
permission bits disabled except in the case where
a new directory inherits a setgid bit from its
parent directory.
Thus, when --perms and --executability are both dis-
abled, rsync's behavior is the same as that of other
file-copy utilities, such as cp(1) and tar(1).
In summary: to give destination files (both old and
new) the source permissions, use --perms. To give new
files the destination-default permissions (while leav-
ing existing files unchanged), make sure that the
--perms option is off and use --chmod=ugo=rwX (which
ensures that all non-masked bits get enabled). If
you'd care to make this latter behavior easier to type,
you could define a popt alias for it, such as putting
this line in the file ~/.popt (this defines the -s
option, and includes --no-g to use the default group of
the destination dir):
rsync alias -s --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX
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You could then use this new option in a command such as
this one:
rsync -asv src/ dest/
(Caveat: make sure that -a does not follow -s, or it
will re-enable the "--no-*" options.)
The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on
newly-created directories when --perms is off was added
in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync versions erroneously
preserved the three special permission bits for newly-
created files when --perms was off, while overriding
the destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created
directory. (Keep in mind that it is the version of the
receiving rsync that affects this behavior.)
-E, --executability
This option causes rsync to preserve the executability
(or non-executability) of regular files when --perms is
not enabled. A regular file is considered to be exe-
cutable if at least one 'x' is turned on in its permis-
sions. When an existing destination file's executabil-
ity differs from that of the corresponding source file,
rsync modifies the destination file's permissions as
follows:
o To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all
its 'x' permissions.
o To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x'
permission that has a corresponding 'r' permission
enabled.
If --perms is enabled, this option is ignored.
--chmod
This option tells rsync to apply one or more comma-
separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the
files in the transfer. The resulting value is treated
as though it was the permissions that the sending side
supplied for the file, which means that this option can
seem to have no effect on existing files if --perms is
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not enabled.
In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in
the chmod(1) manpage, you can specify an item that
should only apply to a directory by prefixing it with a
'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
--chmod=Dg]s,ug]w,Fo-w,]X
It is also legal to specify multiple --chmod options,
as each additional option is just appended to the list
of changes to make.
See the --perms and --executability options for how the
resulting permission value can be applied to the files
in the transfer.
-o, --owner
This option causes rsync to set the owner of the desti-
nation file to be the same as the source file, but only
if the receiving rsync is being run as the super-user
(see also the --super option to force rsync to attempt
super-user activities). Without this option, the owner
is set to the invoking user on the receiving side.
The preservation of ownership will associate matching
names by default, but may fall back to using the ID
number in some circumstances (see also the
--numeric-ids option for a full discussion).
-g, --group
This option causes rsync to set the group of the desti-
nation file to be the same as the source file. If the
receiving program is not running as the super-user (or
if --no-super was specified), only groups that the
invoking user on the receiving side is a member of will
be preserved. Without this option, the group is set to
the default group of the invoking user on the receiving
side.
The preservation of group information will associate
matching names by default, but may fall back to using
the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
--numeric-ids option for a full discussion).
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--devices
This option causes rsync to transfer character and
block device files to the remote system to recreate
these devices. This option has no effect if the
receiving rsync is not run as the super-user and
--super is not specified.
--specials
This option causes rsync to transfer special files such
as named sockets and fifos.
-D The -D option is equivalent to --devices --specials.
-t, --times
This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
with the files and update them on the remote system.
Note that if this option is not used, the optimization
that excludes files that have not been modified cannot
be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I,
causing all files to be updated (though the rsync algo-
rithm will make the update fairly efficient if the
files haven't actually changed, you're much better off
using -t).
-O, --omit-dir-times
This tells rsync to omit directories when it is
preserving modification times (see --times). If NFS is
sharing the directories on the receiving side, it is a
good idea to use -O. This option is inferred if you
use --backup without --backup-dir.
--super
This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by
the super-user. These activities include: preserving
users via the --owner option, preserving all groups
(not just the current user's groups) via the --groups
option, and copying devices via the --devices option.
This is useful for systems that allow such activities
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without being the super-user, and also for ensuring
that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
being running as the super-user. To turn off super-
user activities, the super-user can use --no-super.
-S, --sparse
Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up
less space on the destination. Conflicts with
--inplace because it's not possible to overwrite data
in a sparse fashion.
NOTE: This option has no effect if the destination is a
Solaris "tmpfs" filesystem. The files won't be sparse.
-n, --dry-run
This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, instead
it will just report the actions it would have taken.
-W, --whole-file
With this option the incremental rsync algorithm is not
used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The
transfer may be faster if this option is used when the
bandwidth between the source and destination machines
is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when
the "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This
is the default when both the source and destination are
specified as local paths.
-x, --one-file-system
This tells rsync to avoid crossing a filesystem boun-
dary when recursing. This does not limit the user's
ability to specify items to copy from multiple filesys-
tems, just rsync's recursion through the hierarchy of
each directory that the user specified, and also the
analogous recursion on the receiving side during dele-
tion. Also keep in mind that rsync treats a "bind"
mount to the same device as being on the same filesys-
tem.
If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point
directories from the copy. Otherwise, it includes an
empty directory at each mount-point it encounters
(using the attributes of the mounted directory because
those of the underlying mount-point directory are
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inaccessible).
If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via
--copy-links or --copy-unsafe-links), a symlink to a
directory on another device is treated like a mount-
point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected by
this option.
--existing, --ignore-non-existing
This tells rsync to skip creating files (including
directories) that do not exist yet on the destination.
If this option is combined with the --ignore-existing
option, no files will be updated (which can be useful
if all you want to do is to delete extraneous files).
--ignore-existing
This tells rsync to skip updating files that already
exist on the destination (this does not ignore existing
directores, or nothing would get done). See also
--existing.
--remove-source-files
This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the
files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the
transfer and have been successfully duplicated on the
receiving side.
--delete
This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side),
but only for the directories that are being synchron-
ized. You must have asked rsync to send the whole
directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wild-
card for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since
the wildcard is expanded by the shell and rsync thus
gets a request to transfer individual files, not the
files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from
transfer are also excluded from being deleted unless
you use the --delete-excluded option or mark the rules
as only matching on the sending side (see the
include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect
unless --recursive was in effect. Beginning with
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2.6.7, deletions will also occur when --dirs (-d) is in
effect, but only for directories whose contents are
being copied.
This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It
is a very good idea to run first using the --dry-run
option (-n) to see what files would be deleted to make
sure important files aren't listed.
If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the
deletion of any files at the destination will be
automatically disabled. This is to prevent temporary
filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the sending
side causing a massive deletion of files on the desti-
nation. You can override this with the --ignore-errors
option.
The --delete option may be combined with one of the
--delete-WHEN options without conflict, as well as
--delete-excluded. However, if none of the
--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will
currently choose the --delete-before algorithm. A
future version may change this to choose the
--delete-during algorithm. See also --delete-after.
--delete-before
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side
be done before the transfer starts. This is the
default if --delete or --delete-excluded is specified
without one of the --delete-WHEN options. See --delete
(which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesys-
tem is tight for space and removing extraneous files
would help to make the transfer possible. However, it
does introduce a delay before the start of the
transfer, and this delay might cause the transfer to
timeout (if --timeout was specified).
--delete-during, --del
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side
be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
a faster method than choosing the before- or after-
transfer algorithm, but it is only supported beginning
with rsync version 2.6.4. See --delete (which is
implied) for more details on file-deletion.
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--delete-after
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side
be done after the transfer has completed. This is use-
ful if you are sending new per-directory merge files as
a part of the transfer and you want their exclusions to
take effect for the delete phase of the current
transfer. See --delete (which is implied) for more
details on file-deletion.
--delete-excluded
In addition to deleting the files on the receiving side
that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to
also delete any files on the receiving side that are
excluded (see --exclude). See the FILTER RULES section
for a way to make individual exclusions behave this way
on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
--delete-excluded. See --delete (which is implied) for
more details on file-deletion.
--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even when
there are I/O errors.
--force
This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is
only relevant if deletions are not active (see --delete
for details).
Note for older rsync versions: --force used to still be
required when using --delete-after, and it used to be
non-functional unless the --recursive option was also
enabled.
--max-delete=NUM
This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or
directories (NUM must be non-zero). This is useful
when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
--max-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is
larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
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suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier,
and may be a fractional value (e.g. "--max-size=1.5m").
The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibi-
byte (1024), "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024),
and "G" (or "GiB") is a gibibyte (1024*1024*1024). If
you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use
"KB", "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also
accepted for all values.) Finally, if the suffix ends
in either "]1" or "-1", the value will be offset by one
byte in the indicated direction.
Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and
--max-size=2g]1 is 2147483649 bytes.
--min-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is
smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
transferring small, junk files. See the --max-size
option for a description of SIZE.
-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE
This forces the block size used in the rsync algorithm
to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on the
size of each file being updated. See the technical
report for details.
-e, --rsh=COMAND
This option allows you to choose an alternative remote
shell program to use for communication between the
local and remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is
configured to use ssh by default, but you may prefer to
use rsh on a local network.
If this option is used with [user@]host::module/path,
then the remote shell COMAND will be used to run an
rsync daemon on the remote host, and all data will be
transmitted through that remote shell connection,
rather than through a direct socket connection to a
running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the sec-
tion "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHEL
CONECTION" above.
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMAND pro-
vided that COMAND is presented to rsync as a single
argument. You must use spaces (not tabs or other
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whitespace) to separate the command and args from each
other, and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to
preserve spaces in an argument (but not backslashes).
Note that doubling a single-quote inside a single-
quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to
which quotes your shell is parsing and which quotes
rsync is parsing). Some examples:
-e 'ssh -p 2234'
-e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1
%h %p"'
(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-
specific connect options in their .ssh/config file.)
You can also choose the remote shell program using the
RSYNCRSH environment variable, which accepts the same
range of values as -e.
See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by
this option.
--rsync-path=PROGRAM
Use this to specify what program is to be run on the
remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when
rsync is not in the default remote-shell's path (e.g.
--rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM
is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any pro-
gram, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so
long as it does not corrupt the standard-in &
standard-out that rsync is using to communicate.
One tricky example is to set a different default direc-
tory on the remote machine for use with the --relative
option. For instance:
rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d
/e/
-C, --cvs-exclude
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range
of files that you often don't want to transfer between
systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to
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determine if a file should be ignored.
The exclude list is initialized to:
RCS SCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS
.make.state .nsedepinfo *~ #* .#* ,* $* *$ *.old
*.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* *.a *.olb *.o
*.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/
then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to
the list and any files listed in the CVSIGNORE environ-
ment variable (all cvsignore names are delimited by
whitespace).
Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same
directory as a .cvsignore file and matches one of the
patterns listed therein. Unlike rsync's filter/exclude
files, these patterns are split on whitespace. See the
cvs(1) manual for more information.
If you're combining -C with your own --filter rules,
you should note that these CVS excludes are appended at
the end of your own rules, regardless of where the -C
was placed on the command-line. This makes them a
lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly.
If you want to control where these CVS excludes get
inserted into your filter rules, you should omit the -C
as a command-line option and use a combination of
--filter=:C and --filter=-C (either on your command-
line or by putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a
filter file with your other rules). The first option
turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
file. The second option does a one-time import of the
CVS excludes mentioned above.
-f, --filter=RULE
This option allows you to add rules to selectively
exclude certain files from the list of files to be
transferred. This is most useful in combination with a
recursive transfer.
You may use as many --filter options on the command
line as you like to build up the list of files to
exclude.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information
on this option.
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-F The -F option is a shorthand for adding two --filter
rules to your command. The first time it is used is a
shorthand for this rule:
--filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
This tells rsync to look for per-directory
.rsync-filter files that have been sprinkled through
the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the files
in the transfer. If -F is repeated, it is a shorthand
for this rule:
--filter='exclude .rsync-filter'
This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves
from the transfer.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information
on how these options work.
--exclude=PATERN
This option is a simplified form of the --filter option
that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow the
full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information
on this option.
--exclude-from=FILE
This option is related to the --exclude option, but it
specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one
per line). Blank lines in the file and lines starting
with ';' or '#' are ignored. If FILE is -, the list
will be read from standard input.
--include=PATERN
This option is a simplified form of the --filter option
that defaults to an include rule and does not allow the
full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
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See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information
on this option.
--include-from=FILE
This option is related to the --include option, but it
specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one
per line). Blank lines in the file and lines starting
with ';' or '#' are ignored. If FILE is -, the list
will be read from standard input.
--files-from=FILE
Using this option allows you to specify the exact list
of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE
or - for standard input). It also tweaks the default
behavior of rsync to make transferring just the speci-
fied files and directories easier:
o The --relative (-R) option is implied, which
preserves the path information that is specified
for each item in the file (use --no-relative or
--no-R if you want to turn that off).
o The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will
create directories specified in the list on the
destination rather than noisily skipping them (use
--no-dirs or --no-d if you want to turn that off).
o The --archive (-a) option's behavior does not
imply --recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly,
if you want it.
o These side-effects change the default state of
rsync, so the position of the --files-from option
on the command-line has no bearing on how other
options are parsed (e.g. -a works the same before
or after --files-from, as does --no-R and all
other options).
The file names that are read from the FILE are all
relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are
removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher
than the source dir. For example, take this command:
rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
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If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"),
the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin
on the remote host. If it contains "bin/" (note the
trailing slash), the immediate contents of the direc-
tory would also be sent (without needing to be expli-
citly mentioned in the file -- this began in version
2.6.4). In both cases, if the -r option was enabled,
that dir's entire hierarchy would also be transferred
(keep in mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly
with --files-from, since it is not implied by -a).
Also note that the effect of the (enabled by default)
--relative option is to duplicate only the path info
that is read from the file -- it does not force the
duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this
case).
In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the
remote host instead of the local host if you specify a
"host:" in front of the file (the host must match one
end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify
just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
transfer". For example:
rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/
/tmp/copy
This would copy all the files specified in the
/path/file-list file that was located on the remote
"src" host.
-0, --from0
This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from
a file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a
NL, CR, or CR]LF. This affects --exclude-from,
--include-from, --files-from, and any merged files
specified in a --filter rule. It does not affect
--cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
file are split on whitespace).
-T, --temp-dir=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a scratch
directory when creating temporary copies of the files
transferred on the receiving side. The default
behavior is to create each temporary file in the same
directory as the associated destination file.
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This option is most often used when the receiving disk
partition does not have enough free space to hold a
copy of the largest file in the transfer. In this case
(i.e. when the scratch directory in on a different disk
partition), rsync will not be able to rename each
received temporary file over the top of the associated
destination file, but instead must copy it into place.
Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
destination file, which means that the destination file
will contain truncated data during this copy. If this
were not done this way (even if the destination file
were first removed, the data locally copied to a tem-
porary file in the destination directory, and then
renamed into place) it would be possible for the old
file to continue taking up disk space (if someone had
it open), and thus there might not be enough room to
fit the new version on the disk at the same time.
If you are using this option for reasons other than a
shortage of disk space, you may wish to combine it with
the --delay-updates option, which will ensure that all
copied files get put into subdirectories in the desti-
nation hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If
you don't have enough room to duplicate all the arriv-
ing files on the destination partition, another way to
tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned about disk
space is to use the --partial-dir option with a rela-
tive path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to
stash off a copy of a single file in a subdir in the
destination hierarchy, rsync will use the partial-dir
as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and
then rename it into place from there. (Specifying a
--partial-dir with an absolute path does not have this
side-effect.)
-y, --fuzzy
This option tells rsync that it should look for a basis
file for any destination file that is missing. The
current algorithm looks in the same directory as the
destination file for either a file that has an identi-
cal size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file.
If found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to
speed up the transfer.
Note that the use of the --delete option might get rid
of any potential fuzzy-match files, so either use
--delete-after or specify some filename exclusions if
you need to prevent this.
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--compare-dest=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the destina-
tion machine as an additional hierarchy to compare des-
tination files against doing transfers (if the files
are missing in the destination directory). If a file
is found in DIR that is identical to the sender's file,
the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup
of just files that have changed from an earlier backup.
Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --compare-dest
directories may be provided, which will cause rsync to
search the list in the order specified for an exact
match. If a match is found that differs only in attri-
butes, a local copy is made and the attributes updated.
If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the
DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the desti-
nation directory. See also --copy-dest and
--link-dest.
--copy-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --compare-dest, but rsync will
also copy unchanged files found in DIR to the destina-
tion directory using a local copy. This is useful for
doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover
when all files have been successfully transferred.
Multiple --copy-dest directories may be provided, which
will cause rsync to search the list in the order speci-
fied for an unchanged file. If a match is not found, a
basis file from one of the DIRs will be selected to try
to speed up the transfer.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the desti-
nation directory. See also --compare-dest and
--link-dest.
--link-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --copy-dest, but unchanged
files are hard linked from DIR to the destination
directory. The files must be identical in all
preserved attributes (e.g. permissions, possibly owner-
ship) in order for the files to be linked together. An
example:
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rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/priordir host:srcdir/
newdir/
Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --link-dest direc-
tories may be provided, which will cause rsync to
search the list in the order specified for an exact
match. If a match is found that differs only in attri-
butes, a local copy is made and the attributes updated.
If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the
DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
Note that if you combine this option with
--ignore-times, rsync will not link any files together
because it only links identical files together as a
substitute for transferring the file, never as an addi-
tional check after the file is updated.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the desti-
nation directory. See also --compare-dest and
--copy-dest.
Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that
could prevent --link-dest from working properly for a
non-super-user when -o was specified (or implied by
-a). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the -o
option when sending to an old rsync.
-z, --compress
With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it
is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the
amount of data being transmitted -- something that is
useful over a slow connection.
Note that this option typically achieves better
compression ratios than can be achieved by using a
compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
because it takes advantage of the implicit information
in the matching data blocks that are not explicitly
sent over the connection.
--compress-level=NUM
Explicitly set the compression level to use (see
--compress) instead of letting it default. If NUM is
non-zero, the --compress option is implied.
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--numeric-ids
With this option rsync will transfer numeric group and
user IDs rather than using user and group names and
mapping them at both ends.
By default rsync will use the username and groupname to
determine what ownership to give files. The special uid
0 and the special group 0 are never mapped via
user/group names even if the --numeric-ids option is
not specified.
If a user or group has no name on the source system or
it has no match on the destination system, then the
numeric ID from the source system is used instead. See
also the comments on the "use chroot" setting in the
rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how the chroot
setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of
the users and groups and what you can do about it.
--timeout=TIMEOUT
This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in
seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified
time then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which
means no timeout.
--address
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
connecting to an rsync daemon. The --address option
allows you to specify a specific IP address (or host-
name) to bind to. See also this option in the --daemon
mode section.
--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if
you are using the double-colon (::) syntax to connect
with an rsync daemon (since the URL syntax has a way to
specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
option in the --daemon mode section.
--sockopts
This option can provide endless fun for people who like
to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set
all sorts of socket options which may make transfers
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faster (or slower!). Read the man page for the set-
sockopt() system call for details on some of the
options you may be able to set. By default no special
socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also
exists in the --daemon mode section.
--blocking-io
This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching a
remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either
rsh or remsh, rsync defaults to using blocking I/O,
otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note
that ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
-i, --itemize-changes
Requests a simple itemized list of the changes that are
being made to each file, including attribute changes.
This is exactly the same as specifying --out-format='%i
%n%L'. If you repeat the option, unchanged files will
also be output, but only if the receiving rsync is at
least version 2.6.7 (you can use -vv with older ver-
sions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of
other verbose messages).
The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters
long. The general format is like the string YXcstpogz,
where Y is replaced by the type of update being done, X
is replaced by the file-type, and the other letters
represent attributes that may be output if they are
being modified.
The update types that replace the Y are as follows:
o A < means that a file is being transferred to the
remote host (sent).
o A > means that a file is being transferred to the
local host (received).
o A c means that a local change/creation is occur-
ring for the item (such as the creation of a
directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
o A h means that the item is a hard link to another
item (requires --hard-links).
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o A . means that the item is not being updated
(though it might have attributes that are being
modified).
The file-types that replace the X are: f for a file, a
d for a directory, an L for a symlink, a D for a dev-
ice, and a S for a special file (e.g. named sockets and
fifos).
The other letters in the string above are the actual
letters that will be output if the associated attribute
for the item is being updated or a "." for no change.
Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created item
replaces each letter with a "]", (2) an identical item
replaces the dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown
attribute replaces each letter with a "?" (this can
happen when talking to an older rsync).
The attribute that is associated with each letter is as
follows:
o A c means the checksum of the file is different
and will be updated by the file transfer (requires
--checksum).
o A s means the size of the file is different and
will be updated by the file transfer.
o A t means the modification time is different and
is being updated to the sender's value (requires
--times). An alternate value of T means that the
time will be set to the transfer time, which hap-
pens anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a
file or device is transferred without --times.
o A p means the permissions are different and are
being updated to the sender's value (requires
--perms).
o An o means the owner is different and is being
updated to the sender's value (requires --owner
and super-user privileges).
o A g means the group is different and is being
updated to the sender's value (requires --group
and the authority to set the group).
o The z slot is reserved for future use.
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One other output is possible: when deleting files, the
"%i" will output the string "*deleting" for each item
that is being removed (assuming that you are talking to
a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
outputting them as a verbose message).
--out-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync
client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The
format is a text string containing embedded single-
character escape sequences prefixed with a percent (%)
character. For a list of the possible escape charac-
ters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf
manpage.
Specifying this option will mention each file, dir,
etc. that gets updated in a significant way (a
transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-
changes escape (%i) is included in the string, the log-
ging of names increases to mention any item that is
changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at
least 2.6.4). See the --itemize-changes option for a
description of the output of "%i".
The --verbose option implies a format of "%n%L", but
you can use --out-format without --verbose if you like,
or you can override the format of its per-file output
using this option.
Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a
file's transfer unless one of the transfer-statistic
escapes is requested, in which case the logging is done
at the end of the file's transfer. When this late log-
ging is in effect and --progress is also specified,
rsync will also output the name of the file being
transferred prior to its progress information (fol-
lowed, of course, by the out-format output).
--log-file=FILE
This option causes rsync to log what it is doing to a
file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon
does, but can be requested for the client side and/or
the server side of a non-daemon transfer. If specified
as a client option, transfer logging will be enabled
with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the
--log-file-format option if you wish to override this.
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Here's a example command that requests the remote side
to log what is happening:
rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/
This is very useful if you need to debug why a connec-
tion is closing unexpectedly.
--log-file-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what per-update log-
ging is put into the file specified by the --log-file
option (which must also be specified for this option to
have any effect). If you specify an empty string,
updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
For a list of the possible escape characters, see the
"log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
--stats
This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effec-
tive the rsync algorithm is for your data.
The current statistics are as follows:
o Number of files is the count of all "files" (in
the generic sense), which includes directories,
symlinks, etc.
o Number of files transferred is the count of normal
files that were updated via the rsync algorithm,
which does not include created dirs, symlinks,
etc.
o Total file size is the total sum of all file sizes
in the transfer. This does not count any size for
directories or special files, but does include the
size of symlinks.
o Total transferred file size is the total sum of
all files sizes for just the transferred files.
o Literal data is how much unmatched file-update
data we had to send to the receiver for it to
recreate the updated files.
o Matched data is how much data the receiver got
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User Commands rsync(1)
locally when recreating the updated files.
o File list size is how big the file-list data was
when the sender sent it to the receiver. This is
smaller than the in-memory size for the file list
due to some compressing of duplicated data when
rsync sends the list.
o File list generation time is the number of seconds
that the sender spent creating the file list.
This requires a modern rsync on the sending side
for this to be present.
o File list transfer time is the number of seconds
that the sender spent sending the file list to the
receiver.
o Total bytes sent is the count of all the bytes
that rsync sent from the client side to the server
side.
o Total bytes received is the count of all non-
message bytes that rsync received by the client
side from the server side. "Non-message" bytes
means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose
message that the server sent to us, which makes
the stats more consistent.
-8, --8-bit-output
This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters unes-
caped in the output instead of trying to test them to
see if they're valid in the current locale and escaping
the invalid ones. All control characters (but never
tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
setting.
The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a
literal backslash (\) and a hash (#), followed by
exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline would
output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a
filename is not escaped unless it is followed by a hash
and 3 digits (0-9).
-h, --human-readable
Output numbers in a more human-readable format. This
makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K,
M, or G suffix. If this option was specified once,
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User Commands rsync(1)
these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and G
(1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units
are powers of 1024 instead of 1000.
--partial
By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred
file if the transfer is interrupted. In some cir-
cumstances it is more desirable to keep partially
transferred files. Using the --partial option tells
rsync to keep the partial file which should make a sub-
sequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
--partial-dir=DIR
A better way to keep partial files than the --partial
option is to specify a DIR that will be used to hold
the partial data (instead of writing it out to the des-
tination file). On the next transfer, rsync will use a
file found in this dir as data to speed up the resump-
tion of the transfer and then delete it after it has
served its purpose.
Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied),
any partial-dir file that is found for a file that is
being updated will simply be removed (since rsync is
sending files without using the incremental rsync algo-
rithm).
Rsync will create the DIR if it is missing (just the
last dir -- not the whole path). This makes it easy to
use a relative path (such as
"--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create
the partial-directory in the destination file's direc-
tory when needed, and then remove it again when the
partial file is deleted.
If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync
will add an exclude rule at the end of all your exist-
ing excludes. This will prevent the sending of any
partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side,
and will also prevent the untimely deletion of
partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
the above --partial-dir option would add the equivalent
of "--exclude=.rsync-partial/" at the end of any other
filter rules.
If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may
need to add your own exclude/hide/protect rule for the
partial-dir because (1) the auto-added rule may be
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User Commands rsync(1)
ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you
may wish to override rsync's exclude choice. For
instance, if you want to make rsync clean-up any left-
over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you should
specify --delete-after and add a "risk" filter rule,
e.g. -f 'R .rsync-partial/'. (Avoid using
--delete-before or --delete-during unless you don't
need rsync to use any of the left-over partial-dir data
during the current run.)
IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by
other users or it is a security risk. E.g. AVOID
"/tmp".
You can also set the partial-dir value the
RSYNCPARTIALDIR environment variable. Setting this
in the environment does not force --partial to be
enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go
when --partial is specified. For instance, instead of
using --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp along with --progress,
you could set RSYNCPARTIALDIR=.rsync-tmp in your
environment and then just use the -P option to turn on
the use of the .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers.
The only times that the --partial option does not look
for this environment value are (1) when --inplace was
specified (since --inplace conflicts with
--partial-dir), and (2) when --delay-updates was speci-
fied (see below).
For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse
options" setting, --partial-dir does not imply --par-
tial. This is so that a refusal of the --partial
option can be used to disallow the overwriting of des-
tination files with a partial transfer, while still
allowing the safer idiom provided by --partial-dir.
--delay-updates
This option puts the temporary file from each updated
file into a holding directory until the end of the
transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into
place in rapid succession. This attempts to make the
updating of the files a little more atomic. By default
the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
each file's destination directory, but if you've speci-
fied the --partial-dir option, that directory will be
used instead. See the comments in the --partial-dir
section for a discussion of how this ".~tmp~" dir will
be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
you wnat rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might
be lying around. Conflicts with --inplace and
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User Commands rsync(1)
--append.
This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one
bit per file transferred) and also requires enough free
disk space on the receiving side to hold an additional
copy of all the updated files. Note also that you
should not use an absolute path to --partial-dir unless
(1) there is no chance of any of the files in the
transfer having the same name (since all the updated
files will be put into a single directory if the path
is absolute) and (2) there are no mount points in the
hierarchy (since the delayed updates will fail if they
can't be renamed into place).
See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "sup-
port" subdir for an update algorithm that is even more
atomic (it uses --link-dest and a parallel hierarchy of
files).
-m, --prune-empty-dirs
This option tells the receiving rsync to get rid of
empty directories from the file-list, including nested
directories that have no non-directory children. This
is useful for avoiding the creation of a bunch of use-
less directories when the sending rsync is recursively
scanning a hierarchy of files using
include/exclude/filter rules.
Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this
option also affects what directories get deleted when a
delete is active. However, keep in mind that excluded
files and directories can prevent existing items from
being deleted (because an exclude hides source files
and protects destination files).
You can prevent the pruning of certain empty direc-
tories from the file-list by using a global "protect"
filter. For instance, this option would ensure that
the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
--filter 'protect emptydir/'
Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a
hierarchy, only creating the necessary destination
directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures that
any superfluous files and directories in the destina-
tion are removed (note the hide filter of non-
directories being used instead of an exclude):
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User Commands rsync(1)
rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/
dest
If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination
files, the more time-honored options of "--include='*/'
--exclude='*'" would work fine in place of the hide-
filter (if that is more natural to you).
--progress
This option tells rsync to print information showing
the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
something to watch. Implies --verbose if it wasn't
already specified.
While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates
a progress line that looks like this:
782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448
bytes or 63% of the sender's file, which is being
reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes per second,
and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the
current rate is maintained until the end.
These statistics can be misleading if the incremental
transfer algorithm is in use. For example, if the
sender's file consists of the basis file followed by
additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal
data, and the transfer will probably take much longer
to finish than the receiver estimated as it was finish-
ing the matched part of the file.
When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the
progress line with a summary line that looks like this:
1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396)
In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in
total, the average rate of transfer for the whole file
was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8 seconds that
it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regu-
lar file during the current rsync session, and there
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User Commands rsync(1)
are 169 more files for the receiver to check (to see if
they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of the 396
total files in the file-list.
-P The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress.
Its purpose is to make it much easier to specify these
two options for a long transfer that may be inter-
rupted.
--password-file
This option allows you to provide a password in a file
for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this
option is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon
using the built in transport, not when using a remote
shell as the transport. The file must not be world
readable. It should contain just the password as a sin-
gle line.
--list-only
This option will cause the source files to be listed
instead of transferred. This option is inferred if
there is a single source arg and no destination speci-
fied, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy command
that includes a destination arg into a file-listing
command, (2) to be able to specify more than one local
source arg (note: be sure to include the destination),
or (3) to avoid the automatically added "-r
--exclude='/*/*'" options that rsync usually uses as a
compatibility kluge when generating a non-recursive
listing. Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with
a wild-card is expanded by the shell into multiple
args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
without using this option. For example:
rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/
--bwlimit=KBPS
This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer
rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most
effective when using rsync with large files (several
megabytes and up). Due to the nature of rsync
transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync
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User Commands rsync(1)
determines the transfer was too fast, it will wait
before sending the next data block. The result is an
average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A
value of zero specifies no limit.
--write-batch=FILE
Record a file that can later be applied to another
identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH
MODE" section for details, and also the
--only-write-batch option.
--only-write-batch=FILE
Works like --write-batch, except that no updates are
made on the destination system when creating the batch.
This lets you transport the changes to the destination
system via some other means and then apply the changes
via --read-batch.
Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly
to some portable media: if this media fills to capacity
before the end of the transfer, you can just apply that
partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long
as you don't mind a partially updated destination sys-
tem while the multi-update cycle is happening).
Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing
changes to a remote system because this allows the
batched data to be diverted from the sender into the
batch file without having to flow over the wire to the
receiver (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus
can't write the batch).
--read-batch=FILE
Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previ-
ously generated by --write-batch. If FILE is -, the
batch data will be read from standard input. See the
"BATCH MODE" section for details.
--protocol=NUM
Force an older protocol version to be used. This is
useful for creating a batch file that is compatible
with an older version of rsync. For instance, if rsync
2.6.4 is being used with the --write-batch option, but
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rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
--read-batch option, you should use "--protocol=28"
when creating the batch file to force the older proto-
col version to be used in the batch file (assuming you
can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
-4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating sockets.
This only affects sockets that rsync has direct control
over, such as the outgoing socket when directly con-
tacting an rsync daemon. See also these options in the
--daemon mode section.
--checksum-seed=NUM
Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4
byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed
is generated by the server and defaults to the current
time() . This option is used to set a specific check-
sum seed, which is useful for applications that want
repeatable block and file checksums, or in the case
where the user wants a more random checksum seed. Note
that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default
of time() for checksum seed.
DAEMON OPTIONS
The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as
follows:
--daemon
This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync
client using the host::module or rsync:/host/module/
syntax.
If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume
that it is being run via inetd, otherwise it will
detach from the current terminal and become a back-
ground daemon. The daemon will read the config file
(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and
respond to requests accordingly. See the
rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more details.
--address
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
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run as a daemon with the --daemon option. The
--address option allows you to specify a specific IP
address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual
hosting possible in conjunction with the --config
option. See also the "address" global option in the
rsyncd.conf manpage.
--bwlimit=KBPS
This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer
rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon
sends. The client can still specify a smaller
--bwlimit value, but their requested value will be
rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the client
version of this option (above) for some extra details.
--config=FILE
This specifies an alternate config file than the
default. This is only relevant when --daemon is speci-
fied. The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the dae-
mon is running over a remote shell program and the
remote user is not the super-user; in that case the
default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typi-
cally $HOME).
--no-detach
When running as a daemon, this option instructs rsync
to not detach itself and become a background process.
This option is required when running as a service on
Cygwin, and may also be useful when rsync is supervised
by a program such as daemontools or AIX's System
Resource Controller. --no-detach is also recommended
when rsync is run under a debugger. This option has no
effect if rsync is run from inetd or sshd.
--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873.
See also the "port" global option in the rsyncd.conf
manpage.
--log-file=FILE
This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given
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log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting
in the config file.
--log-file-format=FORMAT
This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given
FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting
in the config file. It also enables "transfer logging"
unless the string is empty, in which case transfer log-
ging is turned off.
--sockopts
This overrides the socket options setting in the
rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information the
daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client
connects, the daemon's verbosity level will be con-
trolled by the options that the client used and the
"max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
-4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating the
incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
listen for connections. One of these options may be
required in older versions of Linux to work around an
IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see an "address already
in use" error when nothing else is using the port, try
specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
-h, --help
When specified after --daemon, print a short help page
describing the options available for starting an rsync
daemon.
FILTER RULES
The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files
to transfer (include) and which files to skip (exclude).
The rules either directly specify include/exclude patterns
or they specify a way to acquire more include/exclude pat-
terns (e.g. to read them from a file).
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As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync
checks each name to be transferred against the list of
include/exclude patterns in turn, and the first matching
pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude pattern, then that
file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found,
then the filename is not skipped.
Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on
the command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
RULE [PATERNORFILENAME]
RULE,MODIFIERS [PATERNORFILENAME]
You have your choice of using either short or long RULE
names, as described below. If you use a short-named rule,
the ',' separating the RULE from the MODIFIERS is optional.
The PATERN or FILENAME that follows (when present) must
come after either a single space or an underscore (). Here
are the available rule prefixes:
exclude, - specifies an exclude pattern.
include, ] specifies an include pattern.
merge, . specifies a merge-file to read for more rules.
dir-merge, : specifies a per-directory merge-file.
hide, H specifies a pattern for hiding files from the
transfer.
show, S files that match the pattern are not hidden.
protect, P specifies a pattern for protecting files
from deletion.
risk, R files that match the pattern are not protected.
clear, ! clears the current include/exclude list (takes
no arg)
When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are
ignored, as are comment lines that start with a "#".
Note that the --include/--exclude command-line options do
not allow the full range of rule parsing as described above
-- they only allow the specification of include/exclude pat-
terns plus a "!" token to clear the list (and the normal
comment parsing when rules are read from a file). If a pat-
tern does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "] " (plus,
space), then the rule will be interpreted as if "] " (for an
include option) or "- " (for an exclude option) were pre-
fixed to the string. A --filter option, on the other hand,
must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
start of the rule.
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Note also that the --filter, --include, and --exclude
options take one rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones,
you can repeat the options on the command-line, use the
merge-file syntax of the --filter option, or the
--include-from/--exclude-from options.
INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATERN RULES
You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns
using the "]", "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the
FILTER RULES section above). The include/exclude rules each
specify a pattern that is matched against the names of the
files that are going to be transferred. These patterns can
take several forms:
o if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it
is matched against the end of the pathname. This is
similar to a leading ^ in regular expressions. Thus
"/foo" would match a file named "foo" at either the
"root of the transfer" (for a global rule) or in the
merge-file's directory (for a per-directory rule). An
unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory
named "foo" anywhere in the tree because the algorithm
is applied recursively from the top down; it behaves as
if each path component gets a turn at being the end of
the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would
match at any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was
found within a directory named "sub". See the section
on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATERNS for a full dis-
cussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the
root of the transfer.
o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
directory, not a file, link, or device.
o rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and
wildcard matching by checking if the pattern contains
one of these three wildcard characters: '*', '?', and
'[' .
o a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at
slashes).
o use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
o a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
o a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or
[:alpha:].
o in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to
escape a wildcard character, but it is matched
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literally when no wildcards are present.
o if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /)
or a "**", then it is matched against the full path-
name, including any leading directories. If the pattern
doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is matched only
against the final component of the filename. (Remember
that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full
filename" can actually be any portion of a path from
the starting directory on down.)
o a trailing "dirname/***" will match both the directory
(as if "dirname/" had been specified) and all the
files in the directory (as if "dirname/**" had been
specified). (This behavior is new for version 2.6.7.)
Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is
implied by -a), every subcomponent of every path is visited
from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get applied
recursively to each subcomponent's full name (e.g. to
include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
"/foo/bar" must not be excluded). The exclude patterns
actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage when
rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a par-
ticular parent directory, it can render a deeper include
pattern ineffectual because rsync did not descend through
that excluded section of the hierarchy. This is particu-
larly important when using a trailing '*' rule. For
instance, this won't work:
] /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
] /file-is-included
- *
This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded
by the '*' rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in
the "some" or "some/path" directories. One solution is to
ask for all directories in the hierarchy to be included by
using a single rule: "] */" (put it somewhere before the "-
*" rule), and perhaps use the --prune-empty-dirs option.
Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this
set of rules works fine:
] /some/
] /some/path/
] /some/path/this-file-is-found
] /file-also-included
- *
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Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
o "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
o "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo
in the transfer-root directory
o "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
o "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which
is at two levels below a directory named foo in the
transfer-root directory
o "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two or
more levels below a directory named foo in the
transfer-root directory
o The combination of "] */", "] *.c", and "- *" would
include all directories and C source files but nothing
else (see also the --prune-empty-dirs option)
o The combination of "] foo/", "] foo/bar.c", and "- *"
would include only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the
foo directory must be explicitly included or it would
be excluded by the "*")
MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES
You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specify-
ing either a merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as
introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.')
and per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is
read one time, and its rules are incorporated into the
filter list in the place of the "." rule. For per-
directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when
the file exists into the current list of inherited rules.
These per-directory rule files must be created on the send-
ing side because it is the sending side that is being
scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule
files may also need to be transferred to the receiving side
if you want them to affect what files don't get deleted (see
PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE below).
Some examples:
merge /etc/rsync/default.rules
. /etc/rsync/default.rules
dir-merge .per-dir-filter
dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
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:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-
merge rule:
o A - specifies that the file should consist of only
exclude patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for
in-file comments.
o A ] specifies that the file should consist of only
include patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for
in-file comments.
o A C is a way to specify that the file should be read in
a CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and
'-', but also allows the list-clearing token (!) to be
specified. If no filename is provided, ".cvsignore" is
assumed.
o A e will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer;
e.g. "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules"
and "- .rules".
o An n specifies that the rules are not inherited by sub-
directories.
o A w specifies that the rules are word-split on whi-
tespace instead of the normal line-splitting. This
also turns off comments. Note: the space that
separates the prefix from the rule is treated spe-
cially, so "- foo ] bar" is parsed as two rules (assum-
ing that prefix-parsing wasn't also disabled).
o You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "]"
or "-" rules (below) in order to have the rules that
are read in from the file default to having that modif-
ier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would treat
the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes, while
"dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
The following modifiers are accepted after a "]" or "-":
o A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be
matched against the absolute pathname of the current
item. For example, "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the
passwd file any time the transfer was sending files
from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo" would
always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "sub-
dir", even if "foo" is at the root of the current
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transfer.
o A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take
effect if the pattern fails to match. For instance,
"-! */" would exclude all non-directories.
o A C is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude
rules should be inserted as excludes in place of the
"-C". No arg should follow.
o An s is used to indicate that the rule applies to the
sending side. When a rule affects the sending side, it
prevents files from being transferred. The default is
for a rule to affect both sides unless
--delete-excluded was specified, in which case default
rules become sender-side only. See also the hide (H)
and show (S) rules, which are an alternate way to
specify sending-side includes/excludes.
o An r is used to indicate that the rule applies to the
receiving side. When a rule affects the receiving
side, it prevents files from being deleted. See the s
modifier for more info. See also the protect (P) and
risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to specify
receiver-side includes/excludes.
Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of
the directory where the merge-file was found unless the 'n'
modifier was used. Each subdirectory's rules are prefixed
to the inherited per-directory rules from its parents, which
gives the newest rules a higher priority than the inherited
rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped
together in the spot where the merge-file was specified, so
it is possible to override dir-merge rules via a rule that
got specified earlier in the list of global rules. When the
list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory file,
it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge
file.
Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file
from being inherited is to anchor it with a leading slash.
Anchored rules in a per-directory merge-file are relative to
the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo" would only
match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge
filter file was found.
Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via
--filter=". file":
merge /home/user/.global-filter
- *.gz
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dir-merge .rules
] *.[ch]
- *.o
This will merge the contents of the
/home/user/.global-filter file at the start of the list and
also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory filter
file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory
scan follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash
matches at the root of the transfer).
If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that
is a parent directory of the first transfer directory, rsync
will scan all the parent dirs from that starting point to
the transfer directory for the indicated per-directory file.
For instance, here is a common filter (see -F):
--filter=': /.rsync-filter'
That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in
all directories from the root down through the parent direc-
tory of the transfer prior to the start of the normal direc-
tory scan of the file in the directories that are sent as a
part of the transfer. (Note: for an rsync daemon, the root
is always the same as the module's "path".)
Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir
rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/
/dest/dir
rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/
/dest/dir
The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter"
in "/" and "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for
the file in "/src/path" and its subdirectories. The last
command avoids the parent-dir scan and only looks for the
".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is a part of
the transfer.
If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in
your patterns, you should use the rule ":C", which creates a
dir-merge of the .cvsignore file, but parsed in a CVS-
compatible manner. You can use this to affect where the
--cvs-exclude (-C) option's inclusion of the per-directory
.cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this,
rsync would add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file
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at the end of all your other rules (giving it a lower prior-
ity than your command-line rules). For example:
cat < out.dat
then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly
then out.dat should be a zero length file. If you are get-
ting the above error from rsync then you will probably find
that out.dat contains some text or data. Look at the con-
tents and try to work out what is producing it. The most
common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup scripts
(such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
for non-interactive logins.
If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity
rsync will show why each individual file is included or
excluded.
EXIT VALUES
0 Success
1 Syntax or usage error
2 Protocol incompatibility
3 Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
4 Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to
manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot sup-
port them; or an option was specified that is supported
by the client and not by the server.
5 Error starting client-server protocol
6 Daemon unable to append to log-file
10 Error in socket I/O
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11 Error in file I/O
12 Error in rsync protocol data stream
13 Errors with program diagnostics
14 Error in IPC code
20 Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
21 Some error returned by waitpid()
22 Error allocating core memory buffers
23 Partial transfer due to error
24 Partial transfer due to vanished source files
25 The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
30 Timeout in data send/receive
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CVSIGNORE
The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the
--cvs-exclude option for more details.
RSYNCRSH
The RSYNCRSH environment variable allows you to over-
ride the default shell used as the transport for rsync.
Command line options are permitted after the command
name, just as in the -e option.
RSYNCPROXY
The RSYNCPROXY environment variable allows you to
redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when con-
necting to a rsync daemon. You should set RSYNCPROXY
to a hostname:port pair.
RSYNCPASWORD
Setting RSYNCPASWORD to the required password allows
you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
daemon without user intervention. Note that this does
not supply a password to a shell transport such as ssh.
USER or LOGNAME
The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used to
determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
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HOME The HOME environment variable is used to find the
user's default .cvsignore file.
FILES
/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
SEE ALSO
rsyncd.conf(5)
BUGS
times are transferred as *nix timet values
When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync unmo-
dified files. See the comments on the --modify-window
option.
file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native
numerical values
see also the comments on the --delete option
Please report bugs! See the website at
http:/rsync.samba.org/
VERSION
This man page is current for version 2.6.9 of rsync.
INTERNAL OPTIONS
The options --server and --sender are used internally by
rsync, and should never be typed by a user under normal cir-
cumstances. Some awareness of these options may be needed
in certain scenarios, such as when setting up a login that
can only run an rsync command. For instance, the support
directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a
restricted ssh login.
CREDITS
rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the
file COPYING for details.
A WEB site is available at http:/rsync.samba.org/. The
site includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions
unanswered by this manual page.
The primary ftp site for rsync is
ftp:/rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync.
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this pro-
gram.
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This program uses the excellent zlib compression library
written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
THANKS
Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen
Rothwell and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and
testing of rsync. I've probably missed some people, my apo-
logies if I have.
Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebas-
tian Krahmer, Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
AUTHOR
rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul
Mackerras. Many people have later contributed to it.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at
http:/lists.samba.org
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Availability SUNWrsync
Interface Stability Volatile
NOTES
Source for rsync is available on http:/opensolaris.org.
WARNING: Daemon mode does not participate in the core
Solaris security policies, including Authentication, limit
of privileges, Audit and Audit of any subprocessing.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 6 Nov 2006 67
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