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1 | mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au) |
2 | manpage(rsync)(1)(13 May 1998)()() | |
3 | manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp) | |
4 | manpagesynopsis() | |
5 | ||
6 | rsync [options] [user@]host:path path | |
7 | ||
8 | rsync [options] path [user@]host:path | |
9 | ||
10 | rsync [options] path path | |
11 | ||
12 | rsync [options] [user@]host::path path | |
13 | ||
14 | rsync [options] path [user@]host::path | |
15 | ||
16 | manpagedescription() | |
17 | ||
18 | rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does, | |
19 | but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to | |
20 | greatly speedup file transfers when the destination file already | |
21 | exists. | |
22 | ||
23 | The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the | |
24 | differences between two sets of files across the network link, using | |
25 | an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical | |
26 | report that accompanies this package. | |
27 | ||
28 | Some of the additional features of rsync are: | |
29 | ||
30 | itemize( | |
31 | it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups and permissions | |
32 | it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar | |
33 | it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore | |
34 | it() can use any transparent remote shell, including rsh or ssh | |
35 | it() does not require root privileges | |
36 | it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs | |
37 | it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for | |
38 | mirroring) | |
39 | ) | |
40 | ||
41 | manpagesection(GENERAL) | |
42 | ||
43 | There are five different ways of using rsync. They are: | |
44 | ||
45 | itemize( | |
46 | it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither | |
47 | source nor destination path contains a : separator | |
48 | ||
49 | it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using | |
50 | a remote shell program as the transport (such as rsh or | |
51 | ssh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a | |
52 | single : separator. | |
53 | ||
54 | it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine | |
55 | using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the local path | |
56 | contains a : separator. | |
57 | ||
58 | it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local | |
59 | machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a :: | |
60 | separator. | |
61 | ||
62 | it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync | |
63 | server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a :: | |
64 | separator. | |
65 | ) | |
66 | ||
67 | Note that in all cases at least one of the source and destination | |
68 | paths must be local. | |
69 | ||
70 | manpagesection(SETUP) | |
71 | ||
72 | See the file README for installation instructions. | |
73 | ||
74 | Once installed you can use rsync to any machine that you can use rsh | |
75 | to. rsync uses rsh for its communications, unless both the source and | |
76 | destination are local. | |
77 | ||
78 | You can also specify a alternative to rsh, by either using the -e | |
79 | command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable. | |
80 | ||
81 | One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of | |
82 | security. | |
83 | ||
8e987130 AT |
84 | Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination |
85 | machines. | |
86 | ||
41059f75 AT |
87 | manpagesection(USAGE) |
88 | ||
89 | You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source | |
90 | and a destination, one of which may be remote. | |
91 | ||
92 | Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is some examples: | |
93 | ||
94 | quote(rsync *.c foo:src/) | |
95 | ||
96 | this would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the | |
97 | current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of | |
98 | the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync | |
99 | remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the | |
100 | differences. See the tech report for details. | |
101 | ||
102 | quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp) | |
103 | ||
104 | recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the | |
105 | machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The | |
106 | files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic | |
107 | links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships etc are preserved | |
108 | in the transfer. Additionally compression will be used to reduce the | |
109 | size of data portions of the transfer. | |
110 | ||
111 | quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp) | |
112 | ||
113 | With a trailing slash on the source this behavior changes to transfer | |
114 | all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the | |
115 | /data/tmp/. With a trailing / on a source name it means "copy the | |
116 | contents of this directory". Without a trailing slash it means "copy | |
117 | the directory". This difference becomes particularly important when | |
118 | using the --delete option. | |
119 | ||
120 | You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and | |
121 | destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like | |
122 | an improved copy command. | |
123 | ||
124 | ||
125 | manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER) | |
126 | ||
127 | It is also possible to use rsync without using rsh or ssh as the | |
128 | transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server | |
129 | running on TCP port 873. | |
130 | ||
131 | Using rsync in this was is the same as using it with rsh or ssh except | |
132 | that: | |
133 | ||
134 | itemize( | |
135 | it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to | |
136 | separate the hostname from the path. | |
137 | ||
138 | it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you | |
139 | connect | |
140 | ||
141 | it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the | |
142 | list of accessible paths on the server will be shown. | |
143 | ) | |
144 | ||
4c3d16be AT |
145 | Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then |
146 | you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the | |
147 | password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to | |
148 | the password you want to use. This may be useful when scripting rsync. | |
149 | ||
41059f75 AT |
150 | manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER) |
151 | ||
152 | An rsync server is configured using a config file which by default is | |
153 | called /etc/rsyncd.conf. Please see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more | |
154 | information. | |
155 | ||
156 | manpagesection(EXAMPLES) | |
157 | ||
158 | Here are some examples of how I use rsync. | |
159 | ||
160 | To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS word | |
161 | files and mail folders I use a cron job that runs | |
162 | ||
163 | quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup) | |
164 | ||
165 | each night over a PPP link to a duplicate directory on my machine | |
166 | "arvidsjaur". | |
167 | ||
168 | To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile | |
169 | targets: | |
170 | ||
171 | quote( get:nl() | |
172 | rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ . | |
173 | ||
174 | put:nl() | |
175 | rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/ | |
176 | ||
177 | sync: get put) | |
178 | ||
179 | this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the | |
180 | link. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a | |
181 | lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very efficient. | |
182 | ||
183 | I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the | |
184 | command | |
185 | ||
186 | quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba") | |
187 | ||
188 | this is launched from cron every few hours. | |
189 | ||
190 | manpageoptions() | |
191 | ||
192 | rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line | |
193 | options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown | |
194 | below separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant. | |
195 | ||
196 | startdit() | |
197 | dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options | |
198 | available in rsync | |
199 | ||
200 | dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit | |
201 | ||
202 | dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you | |
203 | are given during the transfer. By default rsync works silently. A | |
204 | single -v will give you information about what files are being | |
205 | transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you | |
206 | information on what files are being skipped and slightly more | |
207 | information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if | |
208 | you are debugging rsync | |
209 | ||
210 | dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are | |
211 | already the same length and have the same time-stamp. This option turns | |
212 | off this behavior. | |
213 | ||
214 | dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using | |
215 | a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then | |
216 | explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name | |
217 | which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the | |
218 | receiver are skipped. This option can be quite slow. | |
219 | ||
220 | dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptDog. It is a quick way | |
221 | of saying I want recursion and want to preserve everything. | |
222 | ||
223 | dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively | |
224 | ||
225 | dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path | |
226 | names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than | |
227 | just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when | |
228 | you want to sent several different directories at the same time. For | |
229 | example if you used the command | |
230 | ||
231 | verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/) | |
232 | ||
233 | then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote | |
234 | machine. If instead you used | |
235 | ||
236 | verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/) | |
237 | ||
238 | then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote | |
239 | machine. The full path name is preserved. | |
240 | ||
241 | dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option preexisting destination files are | |
242 | renamed with a ~ extension as each file is transferred. You can | |
243 | control the backup suffix using the --suffix option. | |
244 | ||
245 | dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the | |
246 | destination file already exists and has a date later than the source | |
247 | file. | |
248 | ||
249 | dit(bf(-l, --links)) This tells rsync to recreate symbolic links on the | |
250 | remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this | |
251 | option all symbolic links are skipped. | |
252 | ||
253 | dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links just | |
254 | like ordinary files. | |
255 | ||
256 | dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on | |
257 | the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this | |
258 | option hard links are treated like regular files. | |
259 | ||
260 | Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link | |
261 | are in the list of files being sent. | |
262 | ||
263 | This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it. | |
264 | ||
265 | dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm | |
266 | is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. This may be | |
267 | useful when using rsync with a local machine. | |
268 | ||
269 | dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to update the remote | |
270 | permissions to be the same as the local permissions. | |
271 | ||
272 | dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to update the remote owner | |
273 | of the file to be the same as the local owner. This is only available | |
274 | to the super-user. | |
275 | ||
276 | dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group | |
277 | of the file to be the same as the local group. | |
278 | ||
279 | dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and | |
280 | block device information to the remote system to recreate these | |
281 | devices. This option is only available to the super-user. | |
282 | ||
283 | dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along | |
284 | with the files and update them on the remote system | |
285 | ||
286 | dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, | |
287 | instead it will just report the actions it would have taken. | |
288 | ||
289 | dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take | |
290 | up less space on the destination. | |
291 | ||
292 | dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem | |
293 | boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the | |
294 | contents of only one filesystem. | |
295 | ||
296 | dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving | |
297 | side that aren't on the sending side. This option can be dangerous if | |
298 | used incorrectly! | |
299 | ||
300 | It is a very good idea to run first using the dry run option (-n) to | |
301 | see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't | |
302 | listed. | |
303 | ||
304 | rsync 1.6.4 changed the behavior of --delete to make it less | |
305 | dangerous. rsync now only scans directories on the receiving side | |
306 | that are explicitly transferred from the sending side. Only files in | |
307 | these directories are deleted. | |
308 | ||
309 | Still, it is probably easy to get burnt with this option. The moral | |
310 | of the story is to use the -n option until you get used to the | |
311 | behavior of --delete. | |
312 | ||
313 | NOTE: It also may delete files on the destination if the sending side | |
314 | can't open them or stat them. This is a bug that hopefully will be | |
315 | fixed in a future release. | |
316 | ||
317 | dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if | |
318 | they are not empty. This applies to both the --delete option and to | |
319 | cases where rsync tries to copy a normal file but the destination | |
320 | contains a directory of the same name. Normally rsync will refuse to | |
321 | do a recursive directory deletion in such cases, by using --force | |
322 | the recursive deletion will be done. | |
323 | ||
324 | Use this option with caution! | |
325 | ||
326 | dit(bf(-B , --block_size BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in | |
327 | the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details. | |
328 | ||
329 | dit(bf(-e, --rsh COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative | |
330 | remote shell program to use for communication between the local and | |
331 | remote copies of rsync. By default rsync will use rsh, but you may | |
332 | like to instead use ssh because of its high security. | |
333 | ||
334 | You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH | |
335 | environment variable. | |
336 | ||
337 | dit(bf(--rsync-path PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of | |
338 | rsync on the remote machine. Useful when its not in your path. | |
339 | ||
340 | dit(bf(--exclude FILE)) This option allows you to selectively exclude | |
341 | certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most | |
342 | useful in combination with a recursive transfer. | |
343 | ||
344 | The option FILE can either be a file name or a shell wildcard | |
345 | expression. If it is a directory name then rsync will not recurse into | |
346 | directories of that name. | |
347 | ||
348 | You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like | |
349 | to build up the list of files to exclude. | |
350 | ||
351 | If the filename is a single ! then the exclude list is reset. | |
352 | ||
353 | dit(bf(--exclude-from FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude | |
354 | option, but instead it adds all filenames listed in the file FILE to | |
355 | the exclude list. | |
356 | ||
357 | dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a | |
358 | broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between | |
359 | systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if | |
360 | a file should be ignored. | |
361 | ||
362 | The exclude list is initialized to: | |
363 | ||
364 | quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state | |
365 | .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* | |
366 | *.a *.o *.obj *.so *.Z *.elc *.ln core) | |
367 | ||
368 | then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any | |
369 | files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (space delimited). | |
370 | ||
371 | Finally in each directory any files listed in the .cvsignore file in | |
372 | that directory are added to the list. | |
373 | ||
374 | dit(bf(--suffix SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default | |
375 | backup suffix used with the -b option. The default is a ~. | |
376 | ||
377 | dit(bf(--csum-length LENGTH)) By default the primary checksum used in | |
378 | rsync is a very strong 16 byte MD4 checksum. In most cases you will | |
379 | find that a truncated version of this checksum is quite efficient, and | |
380 | this will decrease the size of the checksum data sent over the link, | |
381 | making things faster. | |
382 | ||
383 | You can choose the number of bytes in the truncated checksum using the | |
384 | --csum-length option. Any value less than or equal to 16 is valid. | |
385 | ||
386 | Note that if you use this option then you run the risk of ending up | |
387 | with an incorrect target file. The risk with a value of 16 is | |
388 | microscopic and can be safely ignored (the universe will probably end | |
389 | before it fails) but with smaller values the risk is higher. | |
390 | ||
391 | dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This options instructs rsync to use DIR as a | |
392 | scratch directory when creating a temporary copies of the files | |
393 | transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create | |
394 | the temporary files in the receiving directory. | |
395 | ||
396 | dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from | |
397 | the source file(s) which it sends to the destination machine. This | |
398 | option is useful on slow links. The compression method used is the | |
399 | same method that gzip uses. | |
400 | ||
401 | Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios | |
402 | that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a | |
403 | compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit | |
404 | information sent for matching data blocks. | |
405 | ||
406 | dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group | |
407 | and user ids rather than using user and group names and mapping them | |
408 | at both ends. | |
409 | ||
410 | By default rsync will use the user name and group name to determine | |
411 | what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group | |
412 | 0 and never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids | |
413 | option is not specified. | |
414 | ||
415 | If a user or group name does not exist on the destination system then | |
416 | the numeric id from the source system is used instead. | |
417 | ||
418 | dit(bf(--timeout)) This option allows you to set a maximum IO timeout in | |
419 | seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time then rsync | |
420 | will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout. | |
421 | ||
422 | dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a rsync | |
423 | daemon. If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it | |
424 | is being run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current | |
5315b793 | 425 | terminal and become a background daemon. The daemon will read the |
41059f75 AT |
426 | config file (/etc/rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and |
427 | respond to requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more | |
428 | details. | |
429 | ||
430 | dit(bf(--config FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than | |
5315b793 | 431 | the default /etc/rsyncd.conf. This is only relevant when --daemon is |
41059f75 AT |
432 | specified. |
433 | ||
434 | dit(bf(--port PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use | |
435 | rather than the default port 873. | |
436 | ||
437 | enddit() | |
438 | ||
439 | manpagefiles() | |
440 | ||
441 | /etc/rsyncd.conf | |
442 | ||
443 | manpageseealso() | |
444 | ||
445 | rsyncd.conf(5) | |
446 | ||
447 | manpagediagnostics() | |
448 | ||
449 | manpagebugs() | |
450 | ||
451 | times are transferred as unix time_t values | |
452 | ||
453 | file permissions, devices etc are transferred as native numerical | |
454 | values | |
455 | ||
a87b3b2a | 456 | see also the comments on the --delete option |
41059f75 AT |
457 | |
458 | Please report bugs! The rsync bug tracking system is online at | |
459 | url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/) | |
460 | ||
461 | manpagesection(VERSION) | |
462 | This man page is current for version 2.0 of rsync | |
463 | ||
464 | manpagesection(CREDITS) | |
465 | ||
466 | rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file | |
467 | COPYING for details. | |
468 | ||
469 | The primary ftp site for rsync is | |
470 | url(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync)(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync). | |
471 | ||
472 | A WEB site is available at | |
473 | url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/) | |
474 | ||
475 | We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program. | |
476 | ||
477 | This program uses the zlib compression library written by Jean-loup | |
478 | Gailly and Mark Adler. | |
479 | ||
480 | manpagesection(THANKS) | |
481 | ||
482 | Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell | |
483 | and David Bell for helpful suggestions and testing of rsync. I've | |
484 | probably missed some people, my apologies if I have. | |
485 | ||
486 | ||
487 | manpageauthor() | |
488 | ||
489 | rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. They may be | |
490 | contacted via email at tridge@samba.anu.edu.au and | |
491 | Paul.Mackerras@cs.anu.edu.au | |
492 |