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manpage(rsync)(1)(29 Jun 2008)()()

manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)

manpagesynopsis()

verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]

Access via remote shell:

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

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

Access via rsync daemon:

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

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

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

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

Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files

instead of copying.

manpagedescription()

Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can

copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a

remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control

every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the

set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,

which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the

differences between the source files and the existing files in the

destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an

improved copy command for everyday use.

Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"

algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or

in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as

requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the

quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.

Some of the additional features of rsync are:

itemization(

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).

Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the

"server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a

server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.

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 is done by

specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,

or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:

quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()

tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()

tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))

Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these

examples:

quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()

tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))

This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is

not as easy to use as the first method.

If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either

specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape

the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For

instance:

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

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:

itemization(

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.

You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by

setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you

wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may

contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync

command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For

example:

verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'

rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/

rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )

The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,

which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost

(%H).

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 bf(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

--info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity

--debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity

-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages

--no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)

-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size

-a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)

--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

--append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum

-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

--munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer

-k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir

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

-H, --hard-links preserve hard links

-p, --perms preserve permissions

-E, --executability preserve executability

--chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions

-A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)

-X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes

-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 modification times

-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times

-J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times

--super receiver attempts super-user activities

--fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs

-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently

-n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made

-W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer 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 skip creating new files on receiver

--ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver

--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)

--del an alias for --delete-during

--delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs

--delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during

--delete-during receiver deletes during transfer (default)

--delete-delay find deletions during, delete after

--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before

--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs

--ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error

--delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination

--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

--usermap=STRING custom username mapping

--groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping

--chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping

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

--contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection 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

--skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST

-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

-s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only

--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

-M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only

--out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT

--log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE

--log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT

--password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE

--list-only list the files instead of copying them

--bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth

--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

--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames

--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=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth

--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file

-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter

--no-detach do not detach from the parent

--port=PORT listen on alternate port number

--log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting

--log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting

--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options

-v, --verbose increase verbosity

-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4

-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) options will give you

information on what files are being skipped and slightly more

information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if

you are debugging rsync.

In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups

of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer

options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any

fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both

bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you

exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.

dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))

This option lets you have fine-grained control over the

information

output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level

number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output

level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those

that support higher levels). Use

bf(--info=help)

to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names

are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:

verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/

rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )

Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and

bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more

information on what is output and when.

This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might

reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed

to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).

dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))

This option lets you have fine-grained control over the

debug

output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level

number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output

level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those

that support higher levels). Use

bf(--debug=help)

to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names

are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:

verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/

rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )

This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might

reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed

to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).

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 option name is useful when invoking rsync from

cron.

dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output

by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the

message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules

that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to

a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to

request the list of modules from the daemon.

dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are

already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.

This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to

be updated.

dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for

finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of

transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified

time to just looking for files that have changed in size. 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 changes the way rsync checks if the files have

been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync

uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time

of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option

changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a

matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend

a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and

this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),

so this can slow things down significantly.

The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system

scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates

its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any

file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with

either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.

Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was

correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file

checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, 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.

For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is

MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.

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)).

Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an

incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the

transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been

completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and

does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when

both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.

Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options

disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),

bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).

Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now

bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0

(use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode

explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice

than using bf(--delete-after).

Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)

option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.

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, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called

"implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the

above example).

Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as

real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a

symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected

behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had

a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,

include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real

path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may

need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.

It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as

implied directories for each path you specify. 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.)

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 from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only

for a non-daemon transfer):

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

the receiving 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).

When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this

option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you

wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.

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. bf(-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 on the receiving

side. This can be used 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).

Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be

relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify

either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync

daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path

hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.

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 modification time equal to the

source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)

Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special

files. Also, 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

where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of

the timestamps.

This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the

data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.

It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.

dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when

its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating

a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync

instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.

This has several effects:

quote(itemization(

it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible

through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to

copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will

result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.

it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from

happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or

crash).

it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer

and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update

fails.

it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user

can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for

the open of the file for writing to be successful.

it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if

some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to

a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),

since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the

transfer.

))

WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being

accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.

This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes

or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network

bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from

diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.

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).

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 a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is

the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This

does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes

(e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be

transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.

Implies bf(--inplace),

but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a

file's length).

dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but

the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file

checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the

final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending

bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).

Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like

bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the

transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option

will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.

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.

The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option

or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied

bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that

directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))

if you want to turn this off.

There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or

bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get

an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.

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(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on

the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see

below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in

a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data

to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.

The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the

string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as

that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse

to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.

The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to

affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local

transfer, the client side is the sender.)

This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it

wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the

"munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.

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.

bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If

you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to

pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)

to make the paths match up right. For example:

quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))

This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the

trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory

in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".

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".

One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all

the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to

create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a

subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the

content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,

you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink

to modify your receiving hierarchy.

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 source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.

Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated

as though they were separate files.

This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the

destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the

destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:

quote(itemization(

it() If the destination already contains hard links, rsync will not break

them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content

differences, the normal file-update process will break those links, unless

you are using the bf(--inplace) option.

it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,

rsync may use the same bf(--link-dest) file multiple times via several of

its paths.

))

Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside

the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link

connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If

you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be

very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are

certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and

see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).

If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer

a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents

exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of

the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency

(i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could

have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked

set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable

incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.

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(itemization(

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 directory's default

permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions

specified via the destination directory's default ACL), 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