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<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>

      <variablelist>
	<varlistentry>
	  <term><option>-v</term>
	  <listitem>
	    <para>Be verbose.  Primarily, display the name of each file as it is copied.</para>
	  </listitem>
	</varlistentry>


	<varlistentry>
	  <term><option>-a
	  <listitem>
	    <para>
	      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}.)
	    </para>
	  </listitem>
	</varlistentry>
      </variablelist>


	
      <para><option>-v </option>
      
      <para><option>-z</option>
	Compress network traffic, using a modified version of the
	@command{zlib} library.</para>
      
      <para><option>-P</option>
	Display a progress indicator while files are transferred.  This should
	normally be ommitted if rsync is not run on a terminal.
      </para>
    </section>




    <section>
      <title>Local and remote</title>
      
      <para>There are six different ways of using rsync. They
      are:</para>

      

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      <orderedlist>
	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
	    source nor destination path contains a @code{:} separator

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
	    a remote shell program as the transport (such as rsh or
	    ssh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
	    single @code{:} separator.

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
	    using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
	    contains a @code{:} separator.

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
	    machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a @code{::}
	    separator or a @code{rsync://} URL.

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
	    server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a @code{::}
	    separator.

	<listitem>
	  <para>
	    for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
	    same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
	    local destination.  

	</listitem>
      </orderedlist>
	  <para>
Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
and destination paths must be local.

	  <para>
Any one invocation of rsync makes a copy in a single direction.  rsync
currently has no equivalent of @command{ftp}'s interactive mode.

@cindex @sc{nfs}
@cindex network filesystems
@cindex remote filesystems

	  <para>
rsync's network protocol is generally faster at copying files than
network filesystems such as @sc{nfs} or @sc{cifs}.  It is better to
run rsync on the file server either as a daemon or over ssh than
running rsync giving the network directory.
      </para>
    </section>
  </chapter>
</book>