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manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Sep 2004)()()

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

manpagesynopsis()

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST

rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST

rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST

rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/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 root privileges

it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs

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

mirroring)

)

manpagesection(GENERAL)

There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:

itemize(

it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither

source nor destination path contains a : separator

it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using

a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or

rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a

single : separator.

it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine

using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source

contains a : separator.

it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local

machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::

separator or an rsync:// URL.

it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync

server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::

separator or an rsync:// URL.

it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell

program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote

machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::

separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is

also provided.

it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine

using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync

server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the

destination path contains a :: separator and the

--rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.

it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the

same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the

local destination.

)

Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source

and destination paths must be local.

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 -e

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

One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of

security.

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

quote(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)

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.

quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)

This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host

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

quote(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.

manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)

It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the

transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server

running on TCP port 873.

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.

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

that:

itemize(

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

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

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

connect.

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

list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.

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

specified files on the remote server is provided.

)

Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then

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 --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 --password-file is recommended.

manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)

It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync

server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or

rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect

to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a

firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server

features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,

below).

From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as

using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must

explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with

--rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on

this functionality.)

In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync

server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:

quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)

The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be

used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.

manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)

An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the

rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration

file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote

shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name

is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer

(typically $HOME).

manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)

See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync

server configuration file.

Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote

user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to

configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port

if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.

To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section

in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.

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(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:

quote( get:nl()

rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .

put:nl()

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

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

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 decrease verbosity

-c, --checksum always checksum

-a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD

-r, --recursive recurse into directories

-R, --relative use relative path names

--no-relative turn off --relative

--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R

-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)

--backup-dir make backups into this directory

--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)

-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)

--inplace update the destination files in-place

-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing

-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks

-L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks

--copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks

--safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks

-H, --hard-links preserve hard links

-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir

-p, --perms preserve permissions

-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)

-g, --group preserve group

-D, --devices preserve devices (root only)

-t, --times preserve times

-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times

-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently

-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred

-W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks

--no-whole-file turn off --whole-file

-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

--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine

--existing only update files that already exist

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

--del an alias for --delete-during

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

--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

--partial keep partially transferred files

--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR

--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name

--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds

-I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check

--size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)

--modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy

-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR

--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

-P equivalent to --partial --progress

-z, --compress compress file data

-C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does

-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE

-F same as --filter=': /.rsync-filter'

repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'

--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN

--exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE

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

--include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE

--files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names

-0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls

--version print version number

--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number

--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell

--no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io

--stats give some file transfer stats

--progress show progress during transfer

--log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format

--password-file=FILE get 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 batch to FILE

--read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE

--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed

-4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4

-6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6

-h, --help show this help screen

)

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

-4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4

-6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6

-h, --help show this help screen

)

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(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options

available in rsync.

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 -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.

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

--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 are within the value of

modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to

set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when

transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times

with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.

dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using

a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then

explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name

which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the

receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.

dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick

way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost

everything.

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

finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately

specify bf(-H).

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

recursively. See also --dirs (-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 the command

verb(rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)

then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote

machine. If instead you used

verb(rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)

then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote

machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of

path information that is sent, do something like this:

verb(cd /foo

rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)

That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.

dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only

needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative

file processing.

dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the

implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part

of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows

the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the

path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,

the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the

destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using

the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,

which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a

symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.

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

--backup-dir and --suffix options.

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

(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory

will keep their original filenames).

If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory

(which changes in a recursive transfer).

dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) 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, 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 --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 --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 --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete

the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir. Prior to rsync 2.6.4

--inplace was also incompatible with --compare-dest, --copy-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.

dit(bf(-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 was specified on the command-line as either "." or a

name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the

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

output a message to that effect for each one).

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

symlink on the destination.

dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file 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.

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 --relative is used.

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 --relative may

give unexpected results.

dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on

the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this

option hard links are treated like regular files.

Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link

are in the list of files being sent.

This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.

dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is

pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory

from the sender.

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(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the

default.

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

permissions to be the same as the source permissions.

Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the

source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all

other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions

(which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).

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

destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,

only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation

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

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

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, 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 --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.

dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and

block device information to the remote system to recreate these

devices. This option is only available to the super-user.

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 -t or -a will

cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -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 -t).

dit(bf(-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.

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

up less space on the destination.

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(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem

boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the

contents of only one filesystem.

dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -

only update files that already exist on the destination.

dit(bf(--ignore-existing))

This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on

the destination.

dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM

files or directories. 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 letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and

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

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

excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.

This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.

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

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

If you don't specify --delete-during (--del) or --delete-after, the

file deletions will be done before the first file is transferred.

This 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 --timeout was

specified).

dit(bf(--del, --delete-during)) Request that the file-deletions on the

receving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is

a faster method than chosing the before- or after-transfer processing,

but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.

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

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

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 --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 --exclude).

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

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

even when there are I/O errors.

dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if

they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This

is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.

Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.

dit(bf(-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.

dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) 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 bf([user@]host::module/path), then the

remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server 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 server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING

TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.

Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is

presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:

quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")

(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 RSYNC_RSH

environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.

See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.

dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of

rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note

that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that

the binary is in.

dit(bf(-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 determine if

a file should be ignored.

The exclude list is initialized to:

quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state

.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.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 environment 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.

See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.

dit(bf(-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.

dit(bf(-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:

verb(

--filter=': /.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:

verb(

--filter='- .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.

dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) 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.

dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude

option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file

FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with

';' or '#' are ignored.

If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.

dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) 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.

See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.

dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns

from a file.

If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.

dit(bf(--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 specified files and directories easier. For

instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option

is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all

directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather

than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's

behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if

you want it.

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:

quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)

If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin

directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the

contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r

or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind

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:

quote(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.

dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the 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).

dit(bf(-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

the temporary files in the receiving directory.

dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on

the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination

files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination

directory). If a file is found in em(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 and rsync will search the list in the order specified until it

finds an existing file. That first discovery is used as the basis file,

and also determines if the transfer needs to happen.

If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.

See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.

dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but

rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination

directory (using the data in the em(DIR) for an efficient 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.

If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.

See also --compare-dest and --link-dest.

dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but

unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.

The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,

possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.

An example:

verb(

rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/

)

Beginning with version 2.6.4, if more than one --link-dest option is

specified, rsync will try to find an exact match to link with (searching

the list in the order specified), and if not found, a basis file from one

of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.

If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination 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-root 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.

dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from

the files that it sends to the destination machine. This

option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the

same method that gzip uses.

Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios

that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a

compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit

information sent for matching data blocks.

dit(bf(--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.

dit(bf(--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.

dit(bf(--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.

dit(bf(--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.)

dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the

default.

dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the

rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is

specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in

rsyncd.conf.

dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics

on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync

algorithm is for your data.

dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially

transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances

it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the

--partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should

make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.

dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to

put a partially transferred file into em(DIR) instead of writing out the