1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(29 Jun 2008)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences. See the tech report for details.
108 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
110 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
111 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
112 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
113 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
114 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
115 size of data portions of the transfer.
117 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
119 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
120 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
121 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
122 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
123 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
124 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
125 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
129 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
130 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
133 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
134 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
135 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
138 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
139 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
142 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
143 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
144 an improved copy command.
146 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
147 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
149 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
151 See the following section for more details.
153 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
155 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
156 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
157 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
159 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
160 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
161 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
163 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
166 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
167 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
169 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
170 not as easy to use as the first method.
172 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
173 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
174 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
177 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
179 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
181 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
182 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
183 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
184 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
185 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
187 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
191 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
192 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
193 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
194 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
196 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
197 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
198 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
199 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
200 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
203 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
205 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
207 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
208 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
209 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
210 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
211 may be useful when scripting rsync.
213 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
214 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
216 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
217 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
218 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
219 proxy connections to port 873.
221 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
222 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
223 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
224 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
225 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
228 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
229 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
230 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
232 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
233 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
236 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
238 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
242 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
243 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
244 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
245 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
246 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
247 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
248 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
249 connections from "localhost".)
251 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
252 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
253 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
254 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
255 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
256 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
258 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
260 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
261 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
262 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
263 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
264 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
266 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
268 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
269 used to log-in to the "module".
271 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
273 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
274 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
275 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
276 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
277 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
278 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
279 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
281 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
282 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
284 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
286 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
288 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
289 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
291 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
293 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
296 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
300 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
302 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
305 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
306 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
307 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
309 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
312 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
314 This is launched from cron every few hours.
316 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
318 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
319 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
320 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
321 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
322 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
323 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
324 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
325 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
326 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
327 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
328 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
329 -R, --relative use relative path names
330 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
331 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
332 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
333 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
334 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
335 --inplace update destination files in-place
336 --append append data onto shorter files
337 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
338 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
339 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
340 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
341 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
342 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
343 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
344 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
345 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
346 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
347 -p, --perms preserve permissions
348 -E, --executability preserve executability
349 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
350 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
351 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
352 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
353 -g, --group preserve group
354 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
355 --specials preserve special files
356 -D same as --devices --specials
357 -t, --times preserve modification times
358 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
359 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
360 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
361 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
362 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
363 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
364 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
365 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
366 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
367 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
368 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
369 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
370 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
371 --del an alias for --delete-during
372 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
373 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
374 --delete-during receiver deletes during transfer (default)
375 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
376 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
377 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
378 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
379 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
380 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
381 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
382 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
383 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
384 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
385 --partial keep partially transferred files
386 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
387 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
388 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
389 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
390 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
391 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
392 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
393 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
394 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
395 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
396 --size-only skip files that match in size
397 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
398 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
399 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
400 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
401 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
402 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
403 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
404 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
405 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
406 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
407 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
408 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
409 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
410 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
411 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
412 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
413 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
414 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
415 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
416 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
417 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
418 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
419 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
420 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
421 --stats give some file-transfer stats
422 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
423 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
424 --progress show progress during transfer
425 -P same as --partial --progress
426 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
427 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
428 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
429 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
430 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
431 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
432 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
433 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
434 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
435 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
436 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
437 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
438 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
439 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
440 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
441 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
442 --version print version number
443 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
445 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
447 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
448 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
449 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
450 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
451 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
452 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
453 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
454 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
455 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
456 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
457 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
458 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
459 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
460 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
464 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
465 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
466 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
467 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
471 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
472 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
473 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
474 option without any other args.
476 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
478 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
479 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
480 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
481 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
482 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
483 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
484 you are debugging rsync.
486 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
487 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
488 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
489 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
490 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
491 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
493 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
494 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
496 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
497 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
498 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
499 that support higher levels). Use
501 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
502 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
504 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
505 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
507 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
508 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
509 information on what is output and when.
511 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
512 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
513 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
515 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
516 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
518 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
519 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
520 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
521 that support higher levels). Use
523 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
524 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
526 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
527 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
529 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
530 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
531 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
533 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
534 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
535 from the remote server. This option name is useful when invoking rsync from
538 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
539 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
540 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
541 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
542 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
543 request the list of modules from the daemon.
545 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
546 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
547 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
550 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
551 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
552 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
553 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
554 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
555 not preserve timestamps exactly.
557 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
558 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
559 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
560 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
561 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
562 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
563 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
565 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
566 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
567 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
568 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
569 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
570 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
571 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
572 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
573 so this can slow things down significantly.
575 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
576 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
577 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
578 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
579 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
581 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
582 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
583 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
584 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
585 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
587 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
588 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
590 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
591 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
592 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
593 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
594 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
596 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
597 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
600 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
601 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
602 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
603 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
604 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
605 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
606 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
608 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
609 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
610 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
612 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
613 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
614 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
615 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
616 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
619 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
620 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
622 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
623 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
624 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
625 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
626 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
627 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
629 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
630 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
631 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
632 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
633 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
634 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
635 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
636 than using bf(--delete-after).
638 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
639 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
641 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
642 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
643 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
644 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
645 example, if you used this command:
647 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
649 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
650 machine. If instead you used
652 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
654 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
655 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
656 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
659 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
660 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
661 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
662 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
663 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
664 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
665 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
666 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
668 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
669 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
670 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
671 the source path, like this:
673 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
675 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
676 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
677 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
678 source path. For example, when pushing files:
680 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
682 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
683 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
684 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
685 for a non-daemon transfer):
688 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
689 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
692 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
693 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
694 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
695 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
696 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
697 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
698 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
701 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
702 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
703 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
704 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
705 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
706 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
707 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
708 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
709 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
710 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
712 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
713 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
714 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
716 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
717 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
718 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
719 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
721 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
722 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
723 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
724 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
725 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
726 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
727 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
728 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
729 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
730 rule would never be reached).
732 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
733 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
734 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
735 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
736 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
737 will keep their original filenames).
739 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
740 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
741 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
742 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
743 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
745 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
746 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
747 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
749 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
750 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
751 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
752 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
754 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
755 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
756 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
757 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
758 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
761 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
762 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
763 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
765 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
766 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
767 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
768 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
770 This has several effects:
773 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
774 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
775 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
776 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
777 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
778 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
780 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
781 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
783 it() A file that does not have write permissions cannot be updated.
784 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
785 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
786 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
787 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
791 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
792 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
794 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
795 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
798 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
799 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
800 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
803 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
804 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
805 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
806 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
807 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
808 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
809 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
810 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
811 Implies bf(--inplace),
812 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
815 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
816 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
817 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
818 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
819 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
821 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
822 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
823 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
824 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
826 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
827 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
828 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
829 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
830 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
831 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
832 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
834 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
835 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
836 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
837 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
838 if you want to turn this off.
840 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
841 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
842 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
844 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
845 symlink on the destination.
847 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
848 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
849 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
850 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
851 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
852 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
853 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
854 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
856 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
857 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
858 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
859 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
860 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
862 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
863 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
864 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
865 give unexpected results.
867 dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
868 the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
869 below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
870 a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
871 to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
873 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
874 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
875 that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
876 to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
878 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
879 affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
880 transfer, the client side is the sender.)
882 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
883 wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
884 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
886 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
887 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
888 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
889 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
891 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
892 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
893 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
894 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
896 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
899 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
900 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
901 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
902 to make the paths match up right. For example:
904 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
906 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
907 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
908 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
910 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
911 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
912 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
913 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
915 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
916 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
917 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
918 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
919 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
922 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
923 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
924 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
925 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
926 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
927 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
928 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
930 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
932 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
933 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
934 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
935 as though they were separate files.
937 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
938 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
939 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
942 it() If the destination already contains hard links, rsync will not break
943 them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
944 differences, the normal file-update process will break those links, unless
945 you are using the bf(--inplace) option.
946 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
947 rsync may use the same bf(--link-dest) file multiple times via several of
951 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
952 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
953 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
954 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
955 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
956 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
957 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
959 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
960 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
961 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
962 the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
963 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
965 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
966 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
967 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
968 be the source permissions.)
970 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
973 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
974 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
975 the execute permission for the file.
976 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
977 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
978 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
979 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
980 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
981 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
984 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
985 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
986 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
988 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
989 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
990 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
991 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
992 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
993 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
994 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
995 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
997 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
999 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1001 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
1003 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1004 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1006 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1007 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1008 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1009 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1010 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1011 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1012 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1013 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1016 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1017 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1018 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1019 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1020 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1021 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1024 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1026 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1027 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1030 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1032 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1033 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1034 The option also implies bf(--perms).
1036 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1037 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1038 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1040 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1041 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1043 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1044 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1045 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1046 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1048 Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
1049 used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
1050 "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1052 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1053 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
1054 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1055 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1056 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1058 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1059 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1060 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1061 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
1063 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1065 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1066 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1068 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1069 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1071 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1072 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1073 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1074 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1075 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1076 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1078 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1079 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1080 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1082 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1083 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1084 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1085 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1086 is a member of will be preserved.
1087 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1088 user on the receiving side.
1090 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1091 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1092 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1094 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1095 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1096 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1097 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1099 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1100 such as named sockets and fifos.
1102 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1104 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1105 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1106 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1107 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1108 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1109 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1110 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1112 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1113 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1114 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1115 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1117 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1118 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1119 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1120 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1121 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1122 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1123 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1124 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1125 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1127 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1128 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1129 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1130 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1131 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1132 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1133 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1134 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1135 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1136 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1137 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1139 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1140 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1142 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1143 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1144 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1146 quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1148 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1149 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1150 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1151 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1154 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1156 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1158 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1159 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1160 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1162 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1163 filesystem. It seems to have problems seeking over null regions,
1164 and ends up corrupting the files.
1166 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1167 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1168 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1169 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1170 to do before one actually runs it.
1172 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1173 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1174 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1175 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1176 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1177 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1178 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1179 where no file transfers were needed.
1181 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1182 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1183 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1184 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1185 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1186 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1187 batch-writing option is in effect.
1189 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1190 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1191 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1192 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1193 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1194 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1197 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1198 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1199 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1200 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1202 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1203 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1204 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1207 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1208 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1209 yet on the destination. If this option is
1210 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1211 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1213 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1214 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1215 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1217 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1218 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1219 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1221 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1222 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1223 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1225 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1226 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1227 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1228 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1229 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1230 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1231 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1233 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1234 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1235 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1237 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1238 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1239 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1240 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1241 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1242 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1243 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1244 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1245 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1246 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1248 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1249 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1250 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1252 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1253 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1254 going to be deleted.
1256 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1257 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1258 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1259 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1260 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1262 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1263 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1264 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1265 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1266 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1267 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1269 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1270 side be done before the transfer starts.
1271 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1273 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1274 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1275 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1276 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1277 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1278 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1279 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1281 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1282 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1283 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1284 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1285 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1286 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1287 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1289 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1290 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1291 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1292 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1293 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1294 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1295 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1296 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1297 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1298 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1299 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1301 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1303 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1304 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1305 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1306 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1307 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1308 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1309 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1310 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1312 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1313 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1314 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1315 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1316 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1317 bf(--delete-excluded).
1318 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1320 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1321 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1322 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1323 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1324 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1325 present and later is no longer there.
1327 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1328 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1329 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1330 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1331 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1332 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1334 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1335 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1337 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1338 even when there are I/O errors.
1340 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1341 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1342 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1344 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1345 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1346 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1348 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1349 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1350 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1352 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1353 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1354 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1355 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1356 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1357 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1359 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1360 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1361 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1362 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1364 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1365 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1366 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1368 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1369 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1370 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1371 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1372 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1373 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1374 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1376 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1379 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1380 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1381 transferring small, junk files.
1382 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1384 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1385 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1386 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1388 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1389 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1390 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1391 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1393 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1394 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1395 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1396 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1397 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1398 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1400 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1401 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1402 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1403 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1404 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1405 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1406 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1407 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1410 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1411 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1414 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1415 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1417 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1418 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1420 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1422 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1423 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1424 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1425 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1426 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1427 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1430 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1431 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1433 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1435 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1436 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1437 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1438 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1440 quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1442 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1443 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1446 quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1448 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1449 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1450 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1452 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1453 want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1454 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1455 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1457 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1458 "remote" side is the receiver.
1460 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1461 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1462 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1463 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1465 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1466 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1467 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1468 a file should be ignored.
1470 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1471 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1473 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1474 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1475 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1477 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1478 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1479 are delimited by whitespace).
1481 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1482 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1483 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1484 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1486 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1487 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1488 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1489 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1490 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1491 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1492 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1493 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1494 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1495 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1498 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1499 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1500 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1502 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1503 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1504 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1505 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1506 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1508 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1510 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1511 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1513 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1515 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1516 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1517 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1520 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1522 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1524 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1527 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1528 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1529 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1531 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1533 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1534 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1535 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1536 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1538 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1539 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1540 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1542 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1544 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1545 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1546 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1547 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1549 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1550 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1551 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1552 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1555 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1556 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1557 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1558 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1559 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1560 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1561 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1562 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1563 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1564 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1565 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1566 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1569 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1570 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1571 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1574 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1576 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1577 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1578 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1579 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1580 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1581 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1582 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1583 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1585 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1586 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1587 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1589 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1590 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1591 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1592 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1593 transfer". For example:
1595 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1597 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1598 was located on the remote "src" host.
1600 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1601 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1602 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1603 receiving host's charset.
1605 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1606 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1607 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1608 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1609 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1610 file are split on whitespace).
1612 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1613 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1614 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1615 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1616 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1618 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1619 side will also be translated
1620 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1621 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1623 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1624 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1625 by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1626 overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1627 (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1628 Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1629 disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1632 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1633 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1634 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1635 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1637 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1638 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1639 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1640 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1642 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1643 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1644 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1645 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1646 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1647 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1648 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1649 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1650 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1651 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1652 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1653 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1654 new version on the disk at the same time.
1656 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1657 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1658 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1659 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1660 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1661 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1662 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1663 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1664 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1665 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1666 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1667 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1669 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1670 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1671 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1672 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1673 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1675 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1676 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1677 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1679 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1680 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1681 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1682 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1683 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1684 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1685 have changed from an earlier backup.
1687 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1688 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1690 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1691 and the attributes updated.
1692 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1693 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1695 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1696 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1698 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1699 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1700 directory using a local copy.
1701 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1702 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1703 been successfully transferred.
1705 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1706 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1707 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1708 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1710 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1711 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1713 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1714 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1715 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1716 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1719 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1721 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1722 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1723 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1724 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1726 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1727 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1729 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1730 and the attributes updated.
1731 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1732 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1734 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1735 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1736 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1737 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1740 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1741 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1742 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1745 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1746 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1748 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1749 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1750 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1751 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1753 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1754 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1755 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1757 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1758 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1759 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1760 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1762 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1763 that will not be compressed.
1765 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1766 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1767 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1769 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1770 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1771 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1773 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1775 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1776 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1777 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1779 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1781 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1782 matches 2 suffixes):
1784 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1786 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1818 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1819 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1820 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1823 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1824 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1827 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1828 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1829 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1830 option is not specified.
1832 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1833 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1834 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1835 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1836 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1837 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1839 dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
1840 specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
1841 receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
1842 values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
1843 replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
1844 or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
1845 also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
1846 names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
1847 why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
1848 numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
1850 verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
1852 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
1853 all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
1854 your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
1856 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
1857 to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
1858 the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
1859 bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
1860 match those in use on the receiving side.
1862 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
1863 empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
1864 a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
1866 verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
1868 When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
1869 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
1870 you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
1871 nameless IDs to different values.
1873 For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
1874 option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
1875 as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
1876 option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
1877 (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
1880 dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
1881 with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
1882 bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
1883 so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
1884 the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
1885 be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
1887 If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
1888 "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
1890 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1891 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1892 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1894 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1895 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1896 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1898 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1899 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1900 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1901 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1903 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1904 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1905 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1906 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1907 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1909 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1910 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1911 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1912 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1913 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1914 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1915 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1916 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1918 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1919 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1920 rsync defaults to using
1921 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1922 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1924 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1925 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1926 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1927 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1928 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1929 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1932 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1933 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1934 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1935 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1938 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1941 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1943 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1945 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1946 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1947 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1949 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1950 have attributes that are being modified).
1951 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1952 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1955 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1956 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1957 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1959 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1960 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1961 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1962 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1963 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1964 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1966 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1969 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1970 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1972 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1973 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1974 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1975 by the file transfer.
1976 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1977 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1978 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1979 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1980 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1981 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1982 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1983 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1984 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1985 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1986 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1987 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1988 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1989 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1990 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1991 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1994 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1995 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1996 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1997 outputting them as a verbose message).
1999 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2000 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2001 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2002 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2003 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2004 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2005 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2006 rsyncd.conf manpage.
2008 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2009 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2010 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2011 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2012 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2013 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2014 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2015 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2017 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2018 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2019 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2020 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2021 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2022 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2024 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2025 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2026 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2027 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2028 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2029 option if you wish to override this.
2031 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2034 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2036 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2039 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2040 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2041 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2042 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2043 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2044 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2046 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2049 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2050 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2051 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2052 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2053 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2055 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2056 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2057 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2058 be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2059 For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2060 totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2061 files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2062 it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2063 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2064 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2065 it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2066 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2067 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2068 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2069 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2070 it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2071 that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2072 include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2073 "regular" into this heading.
2074 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2075 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2076 include the size of symlinks.
2077 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2078 for just the transferred files.
2079 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2080 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2081 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2082 recreating the updated files.
2083 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2084 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2085 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2087 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2088 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2089 sending side for this to be present.
2090 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2091 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2092 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2093 from the client side to the server side.
2094 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2095 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2096 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2097 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2100 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2101 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2102 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2103 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2106 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2107 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2108 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2109 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2111 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2112 There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2113 set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2114 is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2115 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2118 The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2119 by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2120 specifing the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2122 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2123 G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2124 in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2126 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2127 human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2128 two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2129 as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2130 options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2132 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2133 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2134 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2135 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2136 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2138 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2139 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2140 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2141 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2142 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2143 after it has served its purpose.
2145 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2146 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2148 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2150 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2151 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2152 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2153 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2154 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2156 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2157 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2158 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2159 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2160 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2161 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2164 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2165 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2166 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2167 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2168 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2169 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2170 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2171 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2172 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2174 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2175 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2177 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2178 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2179 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2180 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2181 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2182 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2183 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2184 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2185 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2186 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2188 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2189 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2190 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2191 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2192 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2194 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2195 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2196 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2197 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2198 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2199 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2200 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2201 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2202 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2203 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2204 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2206 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2207 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2208 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2209 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2211 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2212 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2214 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2215 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2217 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2218 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2219 parallel hierarchy of files).
2221 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2222 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2223 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2224 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2225 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2228 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2229 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2230 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2232 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2233 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2234 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2235 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2236 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2239 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2240 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2241 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2243 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2245 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2246 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2247 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2248 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2250 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2252 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2253 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2254 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2256 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2257 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2259 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2260 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2261 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2263 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2266 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2268 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2269 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2270 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2271 is maintained until the end.
2273 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2274 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2275 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2276 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2277 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2278 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2280 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2281 summary line that looks like this:
2283 verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2285 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2286 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2287 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2288 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2289 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2290 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2292 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2293 in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2294 transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2295 (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2296 knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2297 "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2298 in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2299 of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2302 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2303 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2304 transfer that may be interrupted.
2306 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2307 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2308 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2309 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2310 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2311 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2313 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
2314 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
2315 It should contain just the password as the first line of the file (all
2316 other lines are ignored).
2318 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2319 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2320 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2321 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2322 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2325 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2326 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2327 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2328 command that includes a
2329 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2330 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2331 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2332 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2333 without using this option. For example:
2335 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2337 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2338 by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2339 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2340 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2341 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2342 bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2345 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2346 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2347 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2348 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2349 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2350 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2351 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2353 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2354 rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2355 RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2356 be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2357 the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2358 been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2359 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2361 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2362 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2364 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2365 size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2366 rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2367 out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2369 Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2370 accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2371 files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2372 while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2373 occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2375 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2376 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2377 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2379 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2380 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2381 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2382 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2384 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2385 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2386 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2387 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2388 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2391 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2392 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2393 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2394 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2396 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2397 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2398 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2399 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2401 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2402 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2403 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2404 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2405 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2406 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2407 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2409 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2410 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2411 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2412 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2413 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2414 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2415 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2416 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2417 to turn off any conversion.
2418 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2419 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2421 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2424 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2425 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2426 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2428 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2429 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2430 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2431 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2432 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2434 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2435 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2436 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2437 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2439 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2440 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2441 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2442 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2444 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2445 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2448 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer
2449 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2450 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2451 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2452 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2453 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2454 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2455 Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2459 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2461 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2464 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2465 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2466 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2468 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2469 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2470 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2471 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2472 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2475 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2476 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2477 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2478 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2479 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2481 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2482 rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2483 specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2484 See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2486 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2487 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2488 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2489 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2490 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2492 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2493 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2494 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2495 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2496 desire. For instance:
2498 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2500 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2501 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2502 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2503 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2504 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2505 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2506 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2509 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2510 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2511 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2513 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2514 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2517 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2518 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2519 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2520 case transfer logging is turned off.
2522 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2523 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2525 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2526 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2527 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2528 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2530 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2531 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2532 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2533 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2534 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2535 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2537 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2538 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2541 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2542 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2545 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2547 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2548 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2549 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2550 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2552 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2553 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2554 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2555 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2556 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2557 filename is not skipped.
2559 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2560 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2563 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2564 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2567 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2568 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2569 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2570 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2571 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2574 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2575 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2576 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2577 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2578 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2579 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2580 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2581 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2582 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2585 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2586 comment lines that start with a "#".
2588 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2589 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2590 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2591 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2593 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2594 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2595 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2596 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2599 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2600 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2601 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2602 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2604 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2606 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2607 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2608 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2609 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2610 can take several forms:
2613 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2614 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2615 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2616 regular expressions.
2617 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2618 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2619 per-directory rule).
2620 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2621 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2622 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2623 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2624 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2625 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2626 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2628 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2629 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2630 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2631 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2632 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2633 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2634 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2635 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2636 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2637 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2638 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2639 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2640 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2641 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2642 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2643 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2644 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2646 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2647 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2648 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2652 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2653 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2654 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2655 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2656 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2657 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2658 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2659 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2660 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2661 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2662 For instance, this won't work:
2665 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2666 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2670 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2671 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2672 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2673 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2674 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2675 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2676 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2681 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2682 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2683 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2687 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2690 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2691 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2692 transfer-root directory
2693 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2694 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2695 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2696 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2697 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2698 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2699 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2700 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2701 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2702 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2703 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2706 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2709 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2710 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2711 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2712 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2713 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2714 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2715 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2716 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2718 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2719 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2721 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2722 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2723 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2724 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2725 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2726 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2727 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2728 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2729 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2730 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2731 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2732 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2733 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2734 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2735 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2736 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2739 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2741 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2742 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2745 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2746 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2747 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2748 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2749 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2750 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2751 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2752 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2753 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2754 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2760 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2761 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2762 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2763 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2764 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2767 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2770 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2771 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2772 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2773 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2774 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2775 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2776 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2777 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2778 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2779 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2780 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2781 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2782 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2783 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2784 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2786 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2787 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2788 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2789 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2790 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2791 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2792 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2793 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2794 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2795 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2798 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2799 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2800 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2801 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2802 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2803 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2804 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2805 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2806 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2808 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2809 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2810 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2811 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2814 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2817 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2819 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2824 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2825 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2826 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2827 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2830 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2831 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2832 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2833 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2835 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2837 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2838 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2839 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2840 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2841 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2843 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2846 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2847 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2848 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2851 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2852 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2853 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2854 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2855 a part of the transfer.
2857 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2858 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2859 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2860 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2861 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2862 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2863 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2864 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2868 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2873 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2876 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2877 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2878 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2879 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2880 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2881 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2882 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2883 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2885 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2887 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2888 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2889 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2890 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2891 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2892 out the parent's rules).
2894 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2896 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2897 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2898 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2899 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2900 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2901 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2903 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2904 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2905 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2906 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2907 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2909 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2910 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2911 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2914 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2915 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2916 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2917 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2918 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2922 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2923 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2924 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2925 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2926 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2930 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2931 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2932 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2933 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2934 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2938 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2939 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2940 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2941 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2942 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2945 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2946 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2947 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2949 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2951 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2952 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2953 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2954 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2957 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2958 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2961 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2962 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2963 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2964 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2965 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2966 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2968 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2970 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2971 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2972 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2973 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2974 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2976 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2977 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2979 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2980 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2981 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2982 per-directory merge rule.
2984 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2985 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2986 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2987 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2988 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2989 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2991 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2993 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2995 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2997 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2998 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2999 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3000 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3001 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3002 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3003 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3004 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3005 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3007 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3008 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3009 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3010 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3011 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3013 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3014 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3015 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3016 using the information stored in the batch file.
3018 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3019 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3020 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3021 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3022 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3023 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3024 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3025 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3030 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3031 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3032 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3036 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3037 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3040 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3041 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3042 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3043 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3044 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3047 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3048 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3049 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3050 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3051 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3052 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3053 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3054 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3055 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3056 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3057 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3062 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3063 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3064 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3065 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3066 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3067 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3068 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3069 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3070 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3071 option (when reading the batch).
3072 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3073 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3074 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3077 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3078 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3079 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3080 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3081 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3082 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3083 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3085 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3086 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3087 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3088 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3089 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3090 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3091 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3093 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3094 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3095 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3096 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3097 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3098 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3100 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3101 version uses a new implementation.
3103 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3105 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3106 link in the source directory.
3108 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3109 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3111 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3112 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3115 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3116 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3118 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3119 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3120 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3121 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3122 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3123 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3124 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3125 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3127 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3128 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3129 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3131 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3132 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3133 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3135 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3136 symlinks for any other options to affect).
3138 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3139 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3141 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3142 skip all safe symlinks.
3144 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3147 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3149 manpagediagnostics()
3151 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3152 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3153 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3155 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3156 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3157 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3158 remote shell like this:
3160 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3162 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3163 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3164 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3165 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3166 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3167 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3168 for non-interactive logins.
3170 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3171 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3172 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3174 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3178 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3179 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3180 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3181 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3182 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3183 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3185 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3186 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3187 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3188 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3189 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3190 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3191 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3192 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3193 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3194 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3195 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3196 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3197 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3198 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3199 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3202 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3205 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3206 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3208 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3209 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3210 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3211 bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3212 sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3213 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3214 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3215 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3216 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3217 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3218 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3219 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3220 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3221 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3222 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3223 consult the remote shell's documentation.
3224 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3225 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3226 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3227 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3228 default .cvsignore file.
3233 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3241 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3243 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3245 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3247 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3250 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3252 Please report bugs! See the web site at
3253 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3255 manpagesection(VERSION)
3257 This man page is current for version 3.0.3 of rsync.
3259 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3261 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3262 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3263 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3264 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3265 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3266 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3269 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3271 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
3272 COPYING for details.
3274 A WEB site is available at
3275 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3276 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3279 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3280 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3282 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3283 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3285 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3286 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3288 manpagesection(THANKS)
3290 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3291 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3292 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3294 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3295 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3299 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3300 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3303 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3304 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)