Notes on processing the SGML stuff.

[rsync/rsync.git] / doc / rsync.sgml

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">
<book id="rsync">
  <bookinfo>
    <title>rsync</title>
    <copyright>
      <year>1996 -- 2002</year>
      <holder>Martin Pool</holder>
      <holder>Andrew Tridgell</holder>
    </copyright>
    <author>
      <firstname>Martin</firstname>
      <surname>Pool</surname>
    </author>
  </bookinfo>

  <chapter>
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>rsync is a flexible program for efficiently copying files or
      directory trees.

    <para>rsync has many options to select which files will be copied
      and how they are to be transferred.  It may be used as an
      alternative to ftp, http, scp or rcp.

    <para>The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just
      the differences between two sets of files across the network link,
      using an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the
      technical report that accompanies this package.</para>

    <para>Some of the additional features of rsync are:</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>support for copying links, devices, owners, groups and
	  permissions
	</para>
      </listitem>
      
      <listitem>
	<para>
	  exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
	</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>
	  a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>
	  can use any transparent remote shell, including rsh or ssh
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>
	  does not require root privileges
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
	<para>
	  pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
      </listitem>
		
      <listitem>
	<para>
	  support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
	  mirroring)
	</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>
  </chapter>



  <chapter>
    <title>Using rsync</title>
    <section>
      <title>
	Introductory example
      </title>
      
      <para>
	Probably the most common case of rsync usage is to copy files
	to or from a remote machine using
	<application>ssh</application> as a network transport.  In
	this situation rsync is a good alternative to
	<application>scp</application>.
      </para>

      <para>
	The most commonly used arguments for rsync are
      </para>

<!--
@item -a 
Reproduce the structure and attributes of the origin files as exactly
as possible: this includes copying subdirectories, symlinks, special
files, ownership and permissions.  (@xref{Attributes to copy}.)

@item -v 
Be verbose.  Primarily, display the name of each file as it is copied.

@item -z 
Compress network traffic, using a modified version of the
@command{zlib} library.

@item -P
Display a progress indicator while files are transferred.  This should
normally be ommitted if rsync is not run on a terminal.
-->
    </section>
  </chapter>
</book>