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manpage(rsync)(1)(19 Feb 2006)()()

manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)

manpagesynopsis()

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]

manpagedescription()

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 algorithm described in the technical

report that accompanies this package.

Some of the additional features of rsync are:

itemize(

it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions

it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar

it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore

it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh

it() does not require super-user privileges

it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs

it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for

mirroring)

)

manpagesection(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 contains a double colon (::) separator after a

host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the

"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" 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 bf(--list-only) option).

manpagesection(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 bf(-e)

command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.

Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination

machines.

manpagesection(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:

quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))

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.

quote(tt(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, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved

in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the

size of data portions of the transfer.

quote(tt(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 destination. 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, including their setting of the attributes of

/dest/foo:

quote(

tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()

tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()

)

Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to

copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these

copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":

quote(

tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()

tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()

)

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:

quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))

See the following section for more details.

manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)

The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using

quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:

quote(tt(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 "modname/" 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.

quote(tt(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 configured 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:

quote(

tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()

tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()

)

This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched

wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.

manpagesection(CONNECTING 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 ACCEPT

CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)

Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except

that:

itemize(

it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to

separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.

it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.

it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you

connect.

it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the

list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.

it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the

specified files on the remote daemon is provided.

it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.

)

An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":

verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)

Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,

you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the

password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to

the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This

may be useful when scripting rsync.

WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all

users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.

You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the

environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to

your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support

proxy connections to port 873.

manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)

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 supports 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 chroot or

change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon

transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel 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

bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment

will not turn on this functionality.) For example:

verb( 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 specifying 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 bf(--rsh) option:

verb( 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".

manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)

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 information 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 daemon.

manpagesection(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

quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))

each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine

"arvidsjaur".

To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile

targets:

verb( 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 protocol isn't very efficient.

I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the

command:

tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")

This is launched from cron every few hours.

manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)

Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer

to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(

-v, --verbose increase verbosity

-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages

-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=SUFFIX 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

--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 change destination 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=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use

--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine

--existing ignore non-existing files on receiving side

--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver

--remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender

--del an alias for --delete-during

--delete delete files that don't exist on sender

--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 on receiver

--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

--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=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN

--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE

--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN

--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=ADDRESS 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

--log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format

--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 following options are

accepted: verb(

--daemon run as an rsync daemon

--address=ADDRESS 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

--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options

-v, --verbose increase verbosity

-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4

-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6

-h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon)

)

manpageoptions()

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.

startdit()

dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options

available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older

versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)

option without any other args.

dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.

dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you

are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A

single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being

transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you

information on what files are being skipped and slightly more

information at the end. More than two bf(-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 bf(--log-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 bf(-v)

level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes

changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either

bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the

output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in

any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.

dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you

are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages

from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from

cron.

dit(bf(-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.

dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are

already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the

bf(--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.

dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the

timestamps 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), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful

(allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).

dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum em(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 available files. The receiver

then checksums its version 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 addition 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 em(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.

dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-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 bf(--files-from) is

specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.

Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because

finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately

specify bf(-H).

dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing

the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":

only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),

bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances

(e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may

specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix

(e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).

For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want

bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you

could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).

The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the

bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).

Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT

positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly

changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more

details).

dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories

recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).

dit(bf(-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:

quote(tt( 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

quote(tt( 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:

quote(tt( 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:

quote(tt( (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 daemon):

quote(

tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()

tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)

)

dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the

bf(--relative) 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 attributes. 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 bf(--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 bf(--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 bf(--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 symlink on the sending side, running without

bf(--no-implied-dirs) would cause rsync to transform "path/foo" on the

receiving side into an identical symlink, 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 way to avoid this sending of

a symlink as an implied directory is to use bf(--copy-unsafe-links), or

bf(--copy-dirlinks) (both of which also affect symlinks in the rest of the

transfer -- see their descriptions for full details).

dit(bf(-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

bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.

Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the

bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is

also in effect (without bf(--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 supplying 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).

dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this

tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is

very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally

specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option

(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory

will keep their original filenames).

dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default

backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~

if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.

dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on

the 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 bf(--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).

dit(bf(--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 bf(--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 systems that are disk bound, not network

bound.

The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete

the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).

Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)

and bf(--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.

dit(bf(--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 that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the

resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.

Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding

file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.

Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the

bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing

data is required).

dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that

are encountered. Unlike bf(--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

bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and

output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both

bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.

dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the

symlink on the destination.

dit(bf(-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 bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))

to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to

an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option

will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--relative) is used. This option has no

additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--relative) may

give unexpected results.

dit(bf(-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 bf(--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

bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).

See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving

side.

dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat

a symlink 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

bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a

directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With

bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in

"bar".

See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.

dit(bf(-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 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.

dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the

destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See

also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to

be the source permissions.)

When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:

quote(itemize(

it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing

permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just

the execute permission for the file.

it() 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 bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,

rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,

such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).

In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source

permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default

permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the

bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--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 bf(-s) option,

and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):

quote(tt( rsync alias -s --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))

You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:

quote(tt( rsync -asv src/ dest/))

(Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-s), or it will re-enable

the "--no-*" options.)

The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created

directories when bf(--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 bf(--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.)

dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the

executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is

not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one

'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's

executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync

modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:

quote(itemize(

it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'

permissions.

it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that

has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.

))

If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--perms) is not enabled.

In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(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:

quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)

It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each

additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.

See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting

permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.

dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the

destination file to be the same as the source file. By default, the

preservation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number

in some circumstances (see the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full

discussion).

This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the

super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.

dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the

destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving

program is not running as the super-user (or with the bf(--no-super)

option), only groups that the

receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation

is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some

circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--super) is not specified.

dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files

such as named sockets and fifos.

dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).

dit(bf(-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 bf(-t) or bf(-a) will

cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be

updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient

if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).

dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when

it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing

the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).

This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).

dit(bf(--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 bf(--owner) option, preserving

all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)

option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful

for systems that allow such activities 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 bf(--no-super).

dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take

up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's

not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.

NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"

filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions

correctly and ends up corrupting the files.

dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,

instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.

dit(bf(-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.

dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a

filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability

to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion

through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also

the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep

in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the

same filesystem.

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 inaccessible).

If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or

bf(--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.

dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip

updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is

combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated

(which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete missing files).

dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that

already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).

dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending

side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is

updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,

nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.

dit(bf(--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 synchronized. You must have asked rsync to

send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard

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 bf(--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 bf(--recursive)

was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)

(bf(-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 bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-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

destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.

The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options

without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the

--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the

bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the

bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).

dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving

side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)

or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.

See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.

Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem 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 bf(--timeout) was

specified).

dit(bf(--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 bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.

dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving

side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful 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 bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--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

bf(--delete-excluded).

See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.

dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files

even when there are I/O errors.

dit(bf(--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 bf(--delete) for details).

Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when

using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the

bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.

dit(bf(--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.

dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any

file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be

suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and

may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").

The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (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.)