mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au)

manpage(rsync)(1)(13 May 1998)()()

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

manpagesynopsis()

rsync [options] [user@]host:path path

rsync [options] path [user@]host:path

rsync [options] path path

rsync [options] [user@]host::path path

rsync [options] path [user@]host::path

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 speedup file transfers when the destination file already

exists.

The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the

differences between two sets of files across the network link, 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 rsh or ssh

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 five 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 rsh or

ssh). 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 local path

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.

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

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

separator.

)

Note that in all cases 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 use rsh

to. rsync uses rsh for its communications, unless both the source and

destination are local.

You can also specify a alternative to rsh, by either 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 some examples:

quote(rsync *.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)

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)

With a trailing slash on the source this behavior changes to transfer

all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the

/data/tmp/. With a trailing / on a source name it means "copy the

contents of this directory". Without a trailing slash it means "copy

the directory". This difference becomes particularly important when

using the --delete option.

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.

manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)

It is also possible to use rsync without using rsh or ssh as the

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

running on TCP port 873.

Using rsync in this was is the same as using it with rsh or ssh except

that:

itemize(

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

separate the hostname from the path.

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.

)

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. This may be useful when scripting rsync.

manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)

An rsync server is configured using a config file which by default is

called /etc/rsyncd.conf. Please see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more

information.

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 link 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

link. 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 avalable in rsync. Please refer

to the detailed description below for a complete description.

verb(

-v, --verbose increase verbosity

-c, --checksum always checksum

-a, --archive archive mode

-r, --recursive recurse into directories

-R, --relative use relative path names

-b, --backup make backups (default ~ extension)

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

-l, --links preserve soft links

-L, --copy-links treat soft links like regular files

-H, --hard-links preserve hard links

-p, --perms preserve permissions

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

-g, --group preserve group

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

-t, --times preserve 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

-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries

-B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size

-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify rsh replacement

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

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

--delete delete files that don't exist on the sending side

--partial keep partially transferred files

--force force deletion of directories even if not empty

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

--timeout=TIME set IO timeout in seconds

-I, --ignore-times don't exclude files that match length and time

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

-z, --compress compress file data

--exclude=PATTERN exclude file FILE

--exclude-from=PATTERN exclude files listed in FILE

--include=PATTERN don't exclude file FILE

--include-from=PATTERN don't exclude files listed in FILE

--suffix=SUFFIX override backup suffix

--version print version number

--daemon run as a rsync daemon

--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file

--port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number

--stats give some file transfer stats

--progress show progress during transfer

-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.

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

already the same length and have the same time-stamp. This option turns

off this behavior.

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 skipped. This option can be quite slow.

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

of saying I want recursion and want to preserve everything.

Note: if the user launching rsync is root then the -o option (preserve

uid) is also implied.

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

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 sent 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.

dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option preexisting destination files are

renamed with a ~ extension as each file is transferred. You can

control the backup suffix using the --suffix option.

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

destination file already exists and has a date later than the source

file.

dit(bf(-l, --links)) This tells rsync to recreate symbolic links on the

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

option all symbolic links are skipped.

dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links just

like ordinary files.

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(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm

is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. This may be

useful when using rsync with a local machine.

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(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to update the remote

permissions to be the same as the local permissions.

dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to update the remote owner

of the file to be the same as the local owner. This is only available

to the super-user.

dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group

of the file to be the same as the local group.

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

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.

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(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving

side that aren't on the sending side. 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.

rsync 1.6.4 changed the behavior of --delete to make it less

dangerous. rsync now only scans directories on the receiving side

that are explicitly transferred from the sending side. Only files in

these directories are deleted.

Still, it is probably easy to get burnt with this option. The moral

of the story is to use the -n option until you get used to the

behavior of --delete.

NOTE: It also may delete files on the destination if the sending side

can't open them or stat them. This is a bug that hopefully will be

fixed in a future release.

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

they are not empty. This applies to both the --delete option and to

cases where rsync tries to copy a normal file but the destination

contains a directory of the same name. Normally rsync will refuse to

do a recursive directory deletion in such cases, by using --force

the recursive deletion will be done.

Use this option with caution!

dit(bf(-B , --block_size BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in

the rsync algorithm. 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. By default rsync will use rsh, but you may

like to instead use ssh because of its high security.

You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH

environment variable.

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

rsync on the remote machine. Useful when its not in your path.

dit(bf(--exclude pattern)) This option allows you 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 --exclude options on the command line as you like

to build up the list of files to exclude.

See the section of exclude patterns for information on the syntax of

this option.

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

option, but instead it adds all filenames listed in the file FILE to

the exclude list.

dit(bf(--include pattern)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the

specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to

build up quite complex exclude/include rules.

See the section of exclude patterns for information on the syntax of

this option.

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

from a file.

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 *.o *.obj *.so *.Z *.elc *.ln core)

then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any

files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (space delimited).

Finally in each directory any files listed in the .cvsignore file in

that directory are added to the list.

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

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

dit(bf(--csum-length LENGTH)) By default the primary checksum used in

rsync is a very strong 16 byte MD4 checksum. In most cases you will

find that a truncated version of this checksum is quite efficient, and

this will decrease the size of the checksum data sent over the link,

making things faster.

You can choose the number of bytes in the truncated checksum using the

--csum-length option. Any value less than or equal to 16 is valid.

Note that if you use this option then you run the risk of ending up

with an incorrect target file. The risk with a value of 16 is

microscopic and can be safely ignored (the universe will probably end

before it fails) but with smaller values the risk is higher.

Current versions of rsync actually use an adaptive algorithm for the

checksum length by default, using a 16 byte file checksum to determine

if a 2nd pass is required with a longer block checksum. Only use this

option if you have read the source code and know what you are doing.

dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This options instructs rsync to use DIR as a

scratch directory when creating a 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(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from

the source file(s) which it sends to the destination machine. This

option is useful on slow links. 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 user name and group name to determine

what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group

0 and never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids

option is not specified.

If a user or group name does not exist on the destination system then

the numeric id from the source system is used instead.

dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum IO

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(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a rsync

daemon. If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it

is being run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current

terminal and become a background daemon. The daemon will read the

config file (/etc/rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and

respond to requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more

details.

dit(bf(--config FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than

the default /etc/rsyncd.conf. This is only relevant when --daemon is

specified.

dit(bf(--port PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use

rather than the default port 873.

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. This option only works in conjunction with

the -v (verbose) option.

dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information

showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user

something to watch.

enddit()

manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)

The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible

selection of what files to transfer and what files to skip.

rsync build a ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on

the command line. When a filename is encountered rsync then checks the

name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching

pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern than that file is

skipped. If it is an include pattern then that filename is not

skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the

filename is not skipped.

The patterns themselves can take several forms. The rules are:

itemize(

it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the

start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of

the filename. Thus /foo would match a file called foo

at the base of the tree whereas foo would match any file

called foo anywhere in the tree.

it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a

directory, not a file, link or device.

it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set

*?[ then regular expression matching is applied using the

normal shell filename matching rules. Otherwise a simple string

match is used.

it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) then it

is matched against the full filename, including any leading

directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / then it is matched

only against the final component of the filename.

it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)

then it is always considered a include pattern, even if specified as

part of an exclude option. The "+ " part is discarded before matching.

it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)

then it is always considered a exclude pattern, even if specified as

part of an include option. The "- " part is discarded before matching.

it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current

exclude list is reset, removing all previous exclude patterns.

)

The +/- rules are most useful in exclude lists, allowing you to have a

single exclude list that contains both include and exclude options.

Here are some examples:

itemize(

it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o

it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file in the base directory called foo

it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo

it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all

directories and C source files.

)

manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)

startdit()

dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any

ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for

more details.

dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to

override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. This can

be used instead of the -e option.

dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required

password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to a rsync

daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a

password to a shell transport such as ssh.

dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables

are used to determine the default username sent to a rsync server.

dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the users

default .cvsignore file.

enddit()

manpagefiles()

/etc/rsyncd.conf

manpageseealso()

rsyncd.conf(5)

manpagediagnostics()

manpagebugs()

times are transferred as unix time_t values

file permissions, devices etc are transferred as native numerical

values

see also the comments on the --delete option

Please report bugs! The rsync bug tracking system is online at

url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)

manpagesection(VERSION)

This man page is current for version 2.0 of rsync

manpagesection(CREDITS)

rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file

COPYING for details.

The primary ftp site for rsync is

url(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync)(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync).

A WEB site is available at

url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)

We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.

This program uses the zlib compression library written by Jean-loup

Gailly and Mark Adler.

manpagesection(THANKS)

Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell

and David Bell for helpful suggestions and testing of rsync. I've

probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.

manpageauthor()

rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. They may be

contacted via email at tridge@samba.anu.edu.au and

Paul.Mackerras@cs.anu.edu.au