Fixed the backing up of a device or socket.
[rsync/rsync.git] / rsync.yo
CommitLineData
9e3c856a 1mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
cc56eb2a 2manpage(rsync)(1)(17 May 2008)()()
ddf8c2b0 3manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
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4manpagesynopsis()
5
ddf8c2b0 6verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
868676dc 7
8f61dfdb 8Access via remote shell:
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9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
41059f75 11
8f61dfdb 12Access via rsync daemon:
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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)
41059f75 17
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18Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
19instead of copying.
039faa86 20
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21manpagedescription()
22
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23Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31improved copy command for everyday use.
32
33Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
1874f7e2 38
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39Some of the additional features of rsync are:
40
b8a6dae0 41itemization(
b9f592fb 42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
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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
43cd760f 45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
d38772e0 46 it() does not require super-user privileges
41059f75 47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
5a727522 48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
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49 mirroring)
50)
51
52manpagesection(GENERAL)
53
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54Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
56
57There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
ba3542cf 63host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
754a080f 64"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
ba3542cf 65an exception to this latter rule).
15997547 66
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67As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
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69
70As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
72
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73manpagesection(SETUP)
74
75See the file README for installation instructions.
76
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77Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
78a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
43cd760f 79daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
1bbf83c0 80for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
43cd760f 81different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
41059f75 82
faa82484 83You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
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84command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
85
8e987130 86Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
faa82484 87machines.
8e987130 88
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89manpagesection(USAGE)
90
91You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
92and a destination, one of which may be remote.
93
4d888108 94Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
41059f75 95
faa82484 96quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
41059f75 97
8a97fc2e 98This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
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99current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
100the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
101remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
102differences. See the tech report for details.
103
faa82484 104quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
41059f75 105
8a97fc2e 106This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
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107machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
108files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
b5accaba 109links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
14d43f1f 110in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
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111size of data portions of the transfer.
112
faa82484 113quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
41059f75 114
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115A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
116additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
117/ on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
118to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
119containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
120destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
121files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
122/dest/foo:
123
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124quote(
125tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
126tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
127)
41059f75 128
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129Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
130copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
131copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
132
133quote(
134tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
135tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
136)
137
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138You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
139destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
140an improved copy command.
141
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142Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
143particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
144
faa82484 145quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
14d43f1f 146
bb9bdba4 147See the following section for more details.
14d43f1f 148
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149manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
150
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151The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
152specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
153or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
675ef1aa 154
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155quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
156tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
157tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
675ef1aa 158
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159Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
160examples:
675ef1aa 161
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162quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
163tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
675ef1aa 164
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165This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
166not as easy to use as the first method.
675ef1aa 167
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168If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
169specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
170the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
171instance:
675ef1aa 172
f92e15ef 173quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
675ef1aa 174
5a727522 175manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
41059f75 176
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177It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
178In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
179using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
180the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
181CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
4c3b4b25 182
1bbf83c0 183Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
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184that:
185
b8a6dae0 186itemization(
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187 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
188 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
2c64b258 189 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
5a727522 190 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
14d43f1f 191 connect.
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192 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
193 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
f7632fc6 194 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
5a727522 195 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
2c64b258 196 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
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197)
198
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199An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
200
201verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
202
203Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
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204you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
205password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
faa82484 206the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
65575e96 207may be useful when scripting rsync.
4c3d16be 208
3bc67f0c 209WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
faa82484 210users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
3bc67f0c 211
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212You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
213environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
214your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
215proxy connections to port 873.
bef49340 216
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217You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
218setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
219wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
220contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
221command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
222example:
223
224verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
225 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
226 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
227
84e1a34e 228The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
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229which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
230(%H).
231
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232manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
233
234It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
235named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
236system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
237Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
238a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
239home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
240daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
241the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
242change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
243transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
244configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
245connections from "localhost".)
246
247From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
248connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
249rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
250explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
251bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
252will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
253
254verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
255
256If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
257user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
258module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
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259give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
260this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
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261
262verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
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263
264The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
754a080f 265used to log-in to the "module".
bef49340 266
754a080f 267manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
bef49340 268
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269In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
270daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
271to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
272For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
49f4cfdf 273socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
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274file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
275daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
bef49340 276
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277If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
278no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
bef49340 279
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280manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
281
282Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
283
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284To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
285files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
41059f75 286
faa82484 287quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
41059f75 288
f39281ae 289each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
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290"arvidsjaur".
291
292To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
293targets:
294
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295verb( get:
296 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
297 put:
298 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
299 sync: get put)
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300
301this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
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302connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
303lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
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304
305I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
faa82484 306command:
41059f75 307
faa82484 308tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
41059f75 309
faa82484 310This is launched from cron every few hours.
41059f75 311
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312manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
313
14d43f1f 314Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
faa82484 315to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
c95da96a 316 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
44d98d61 317 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
1de02c27 318 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
44d98d61 319 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
16edf865 320 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
f40aa6fb 321 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
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322 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
323 -R, --relative use relative path names
f40aa6fb 324 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
915dd207 325 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
44d98d61 326 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
915dd207 327 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
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328 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
329 --inplace update destination files in-place
94f20a9f 330 --append append data onto shorter files
84e1a34e 331 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
09ed3099 332 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
eb06fa95 333 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
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334 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
335 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
336 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
f2ebbebe 337 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
09ed3099 338 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
f2ebbebe 339 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
c95da96a 340 -p, --perms preserve permissions
2d5279ac 341 -E, --executability preserve executability
dfe1ed5e 342 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
1c3344a1 343 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
eb7e7b24 344 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
d38772e0 345 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
c95da96a 346 -g, --group preserve group
d38772e0 347 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
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348 --specials preserve special files
349 -D same as --devices --specials
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350 -t, --times preserve modification times
351 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
d38772e0 352 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
9439c0cb 353 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
c95da96a 354 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
d100e733 355 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
f7a2ac07 356 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
c95da96a 357 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
3ed8eb3f 358 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
44d98d61 359 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
68e169ab 360 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
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361 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
362 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
47c11975 363 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
ae76a740 364 --del an alias for --delete-during
8517e9c1 365 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
598c409e 366 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
ae76a740 367 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
fd0a130c 368 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
ae76a740 369 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
8517e9c1 370 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
b5accaba 371 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
866925bf 372 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
0b73ca12 373 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
3610c458 374 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
59dd6786 375 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
c95da96a 376 --partial keep partially transferred files
44cad59f 377 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
44d98d61 378 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
a272ff8c 379 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
c95da96a 380 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
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381 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
382 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
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383 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
384 --size-only skip files that match in size
385 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
abce74bb 386 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
5b483755 387 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
915dd207 388 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
2f03ce67 389 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
b127c1dc 390 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
32a5edf4 391 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
bad01106 392 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
2b967218 393 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
44d98d61 394 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
16e5de84 395 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
8a6f3fea 396 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
16e5de84 397 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
2acf81eb 398 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
44d98d61 399 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
2acf81eb 400 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
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401 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
402 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
fa92818a 403 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
82f37486 404 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
3ae5367f 405 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
c259892c 406 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
04f48837 407 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
b5accaba 408 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
44d98d61 409 --stats give some file-transfer stats
a6a27602 410 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
955c3145 411 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
eb86d661 412 --progress show progress during transfer
44d98d61 413 -P same as --partial --progress
b78296cb 414 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
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415 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
416 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
417 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
09a54c39 418 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
09ed3099 419 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
44d98d61 420 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
faa82484 421 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
326bb56e 422 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
44d98d61 423 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
0b941479 424 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
84e1a34e 425 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
44d98d61 426 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
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427 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
428 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
81c453b1 429 --version print version number
b8a6dae0 430(-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
6902ed17 431
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432Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
433accepted: verb(
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434 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
435 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
44d98d61 436 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
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437 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
438 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
c259892c 439 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
a2ed5801 440 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
4b90820d 441 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
04f48837 442 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
24b0922b 443 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
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444 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
445 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
b8a6dae0 446 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
c95da96a 447
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448manpageoptions()
449
450rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
451options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
14d43f1f 452below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
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453The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
454can be used instead.
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455
456startdit()
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457dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
458available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
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459versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
460option without any other args.
41059f75 461
bdf278f7 462dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
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463
464dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
14d43f1f 465are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
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466single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
467transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
41059f75 468information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
faa82484 469information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
14d43f1f 470you are debugging rsync.
41059f75 471
4f90eb43 472Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
4b90820d 473a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
81c453b1 474file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
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475level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
476changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
4b90820d 477bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
4f90eb43 478output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
4b90820d 479any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
4f90eb43 480
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481dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
482are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
483from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
484cron.
485
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486dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
487by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
488message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
489that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
490a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
c5b6e57a 491request the list of modules from the daemon.
1de02c27 492
41059f75 493dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
1874f7e2 494already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
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495This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
496be updated.
41059f75 497
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498dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
499finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
500transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
d15f2ff0 501time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
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502when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
503not preserve timestamps exactly.
f83f0548 504
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505dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
506timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
507value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
508to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
509transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
510times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
511(allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
5b56cc19 512
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513dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
514been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
515uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
516of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
517changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a
518matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
519a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
520this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
521so this can slow things down significantly.
522
523The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
524scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
525its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
526file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
527either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
528
529Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
530correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
f96bac84 531checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
c64ff141 532automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
2a24b4bd 533option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
41059f75 534
faa82484 535dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
e7bf3e5e 536way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
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537everything (with -H being a notable omission).
538The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
5dd97ab9 539specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
e7bf3e5e 540
faa82484 541Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
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MP
542finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
543specify bf(-H).
41059f75 544
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545dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
546the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
547only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
548bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
549(e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
550specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
551(e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
552
553For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
554bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
555could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
556
557The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
558bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
559Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
a9af5d8e 560positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
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561changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
562details).
563
24986abd 564dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
faa82484 565recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
41059f75 566
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567Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
568incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
569transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
570completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
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571does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
572both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
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573
574Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
1e05b590 575disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
ba2d43d7 576bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
d9f46544 577Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
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578bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
579(use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
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580explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
581than using bf(--delete-after).
582
ba2d43d7 583Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
27999aba 584option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
ba2d43d7 585
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586dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
587names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
588just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
14d43f1f 589you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
1dc42d12 590example, if you used this command:
41059f75 591
1dc42d12 592quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
41059f75 593
58718881 594... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
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AT
595machine. If instead you used
596
1dc42d12 597quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
41059f75 598
58718881 599then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
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600machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
601"implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
602above example).
603
604Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
605real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
606symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
607behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
608a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
609include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
610path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
611need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
612
613It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
614implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
615sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
616the source path, like this:
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617
618quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
619
620That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
f2ebbebe 621dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
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622(2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
623source path. For example, when pushing files:
624
53cf0b8b 625quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
1dc42d12 626
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627(Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
628"cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
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629If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
630for a non-daemon transfer):
9bef934c 631
faa82484 632quote(
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633tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
634tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
faa82484 635)
9bef934c 636
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637dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
638bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
639directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
640means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
641left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
642created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
643elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
0758b2db 644the receiving side.
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645
646For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
647transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
648are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
649"bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
650delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
651the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
652"path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
653ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
654preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
655affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
656
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657When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
658option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
659wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
41059f75 660
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661dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
662renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
663backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
faa82484 664bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
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665
666Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
667bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
2d5279ac 668also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
4c72f27d 669filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
f49c8376 670(e.g. bf(-f "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
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WD
671deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
672need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
673in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
674your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
675rule would never be reached).
41059f75 676
faa82484 677dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
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WD
678tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
679side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
faa82484 680specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
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DD
681(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
682will keep their original filenames).
66203a98 683
b5679335 684dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
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WD
685backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
686if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
9ef53907 687
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WD
688dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
689the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
42b06481 690file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
4539c0d7 691source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
41059f75 692
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WD
693Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
694files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
695is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
696date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
697where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
698the timestamps.
adddd075 699
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700dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when the
701file's data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
702a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
703instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
704
705This has several effects: (1) in-use binaries cannot be updated (either the
706OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in
707their data will misbehave or crash), (2) the file's data will be in an
708inconsistent state during the transfer, (3) a file's data may be left in an
709inconsistent state after the transfer if the transfer is interrupted or if
710an update fails, (4) a file that does not have write permissions can not be
711updated, and (5) the efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be
712reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
713be copied to a position later in the file (one exception to this is if you
714combine this option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use
715the backup file as the basis file for the transfer).
716
717WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
718accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
a3221d2a 719
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720This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
721or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
722bound.
723
faa82484
WD
724The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
725the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
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WD
726Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
727and bf(--link-dest).
a3221d2a 728
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WD
729dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
730the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
731the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
022dec7a
WD
732side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
733the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
734does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
735(e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
736transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
737Implies bf(--inplace),
07bbf870
WD
738but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
739file's length).
740
741dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
742the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
743checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
744final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
745bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
746
747Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
748bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
749transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
750will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
94f20a9f 751
09ed3099 752dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
faa82484 753are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
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WD
754unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
755(e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
faa82484 756bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
f40aa6fb 757output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
6e6cc163 758bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
09ed3099 759
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760The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
761or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
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WD
762bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
763directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
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WD
764if you want to turn this off.
765
766There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
767bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
768an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
32b9011a 769
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MP
770dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
771symlink on the destination.
41059f75 772
f2ebbebe 773dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
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WD
774they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
775versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
776receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
faa82484 777modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
ef855d19 778to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
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WD
779an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
780will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
b5313607 781
eb06fa95 782dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
7af4227a 783symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
eb06fa95 784are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
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WD
785source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
786additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
41059f75 787
d310a212 788dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
7af4227a 789which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
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WD
790also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
791give unexpected results.
d310a212 792
1a515b49 793dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
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794a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
795useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
796they would be using bf(--copy-links).
41059f75 797
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WD
798Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
799symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
800the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
801bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
41059f75 802
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WD
803See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
804side.
41059f75 805
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806dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
807a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
808matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
809receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
09ed3099 810
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WD
811For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
812"file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
813bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
814directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
815bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
816"bar".
817
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WD
818One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
819the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
820create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
821subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
822content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
823you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
824to modify your receiving hierarchy.
825
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WD
826See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
827
828dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
829the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
830side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
831as though they were separate files.
832
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WD
833When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
834that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
835together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
836already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
837the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
838have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
839are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
840
841Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
842the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
843connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
844you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
845very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
846certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
847see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
41059f75 848
ba2d43d7 849If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
5f0f2e08 850a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
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WD
851exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
852the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
27999aba 853incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
ba2d43d7 854
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855dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
856destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
857also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
858be the source permissions.)
8dc74608 859
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WD
860When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
861
b8a6dae0 862quote(itemization(
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WD
863 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
864 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
865 the execute permission for the file.
77ed253c 866 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
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WD
867 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
868 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
869 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
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WD
870 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
871 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
2d5279ac 872))
77ed253c 873
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WD
874Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
875rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
876such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
877
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WD
878In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
879permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
1f77038e 880permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
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881bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
882all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
883behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
58b7b3d6 884putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
662127e6 885and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
77ed253c 886
58b7b3d6 887quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
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WD
888
889You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
890
58b7b3d6 891quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
77ed253c 892
58b7b3d6
WD
893(Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
894the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
662127e6 895
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896The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
897directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
898versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
899newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
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900destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
901observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
902non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
903(Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
904these behaviors.)
77ed253c 905
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906dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
907executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
908not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
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909'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
910executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
911modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
2d5279ac 912
b8a6dae0 913quote(itemization(
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914 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
915 permissions.
916 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
917 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
918))
919
920If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
41059f75 921
1c3344a1 922dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
0f6b4909
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923ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
924The option also implies bf(--perms).
925
926The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
927option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
928and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1c3344a1 929
16edf865 930dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
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931extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
932
933For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
934super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
935the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
936a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
16edf865 937
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WD
938dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
939comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
940transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
941that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
942can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
943
944In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
945manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
946prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
947file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
948
949quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
950
951It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
952additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
953
954See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
955permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
956
eb06fa95 957dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
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958destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
959receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
9439c0cb 960and bf(--fake-super) options).
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961Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
962the invoking user on the receiving side.
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963
964The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
965may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
966bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
41059f75 967
eb06fa95
MP
968dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
969destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
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970program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
971specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
972is a member of will be preserved.
973Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
974user on the receiving side.
975
976The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
977default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
978(see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
41059f75 979
4e7d07c8 980dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
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981block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
982This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
9439c0cb 983super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
41059f75 984
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985dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
986such as named sockets and fifos.
987
988dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
989
41059f75 990dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
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DD
991with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
992option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
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993modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
994cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
adc4ebdd 995updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
faa82484 996if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
41059f75 997
54e66f1d 998dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
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999it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1000the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
fbe5eeb8 1001This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
54e66f1d 1002
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1003dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1004activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1005activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1006all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1007option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1008for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1009also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1010being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1011super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1012
9439c0cb 1013dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
0f6b4909
WD
1014super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1015special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
9439c0cb
WD
1016includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1017device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1018any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1019the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
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WD
1020access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1021files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
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WD
1022This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1023extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1024
84e1a34e 1025This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
0f6b4909 1026ACLs from incompatible systems.
9439c0cb
WD
1027
1028The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1029To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1030path:
1031
1032quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1033
1034Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
84e1a34e 1035the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
0f6b4909
WD
1036"localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1037script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1038shell (see bf(--rsh)).
9439c0cb
WD
1039
1040This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1041
1042See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1043
41059f75 1044dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
a8cbb57c
WD
1045up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1046not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
41059f75 1047
d310a212
AT
1048NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1049filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1050correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1051
d100e733
WD
1052dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1053make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1054is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1055bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1056to do before one actually runs it.
1057
1058The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1059dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1060call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1061extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1062send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1063the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1064statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1065where no file transfers are needed.
f2ebbebe 1066
adc4ebdd 1067dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
f2ebbebe
WD
1068is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1069faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1070destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1071"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1072the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1073
4e5baafe
WD
1074dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1075filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1076to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1077through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1078the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1079in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
77ed253c 1080same filesystem.
4e5baafe
WD
1081
1082If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1083the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1084encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1085the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1086
1087If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1088bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
49140b27
WD
1089treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1090by this option.
6d8c6bdb 1091
9639c718 1092dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
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WD
1093creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1094yet on the destination. If this option is
9639c718 1095combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
8e3b627d 1096(which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
9639c718 1097
58a06312
WD
1098dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1099already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
c5b6e57a 1100directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1347d512 1101
8e3b627d
WD
1102This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1103option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1104a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1105used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1106already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1107permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1108is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1109
47c11975 1110dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
fb41a3c6
WD
1111side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1112and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
96110304 1113
2c0fa6c5 1114dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
e8b155a3
WD
1115receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1116directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1117send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1118for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
ae76a740 1119by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
e8b155a3 1120the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
0dfffb88
WD
1121also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1122option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1123include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
41059f75 1124
505ada14 1125Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
d9f46544
WD
1126was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1127(bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
24986abd 1128
32b9011a
WD
1129This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1130first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1131going to be deleted.
41059f75 1132
e8b155a3 1133If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
3e578a19
AT
1134files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1135prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1136sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
faa82484 1137destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
41059f75 1138
faa82484
WD
1139The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1140without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
d9f46544
WD
1141--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1142bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to an rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1143the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1144bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
2c0fa6c5
WD
1145
1146dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
d9f46544 1147side be done before the transfer starts.
faa82484 1148See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
2c0fa6c5
WD
1149
1150Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
aaca3daa 1151and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
ae76a740 1152However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
faa82484 1153and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
d9f46544
WD
1154specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1155algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1156memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
ae76a740 1157
2c0fa6c5
WD
1158dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1159receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
ae283632 1160a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
ae76a740 1161but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
faa82484 1162See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
aaca3daa 1163
fd0a130c 1164dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
d9f46544
WD
1165side be computed during the transfer, and then removed after the transfer
1166completes. If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1167temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1168is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1169the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1170using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1171incremental scan).
fd0a130c 1172
2c0fa6c5 1173dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
ae76a740
WD
1174side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1175are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1176you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
d9f46544
WD
1177current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1178recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1179transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
faa82484 1180See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
e8b155a3 1181
866925bf
WD
1182dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1183receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
faa82484 1184delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
0dfffb88
WD
1185See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1186this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1187bf(--delete-excluded).
faa82484 1188See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
866925bf 1189
faa82484 1190dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
b5accaba 1191even when there are I/O errors.
2c5548d2 1192
b3964d1d
WD
1193dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1194when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1195deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1196
1197Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1198using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1199bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
41059f75 1200
e2124620 1201dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
e6109f49
WD
1202files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1203and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1204
1205Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1206about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1207Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1208version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1209a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1210older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
e2124620
WD
1211
1212dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1213file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
926d86d1 1214suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
e2124620
WD
1215may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1216
bee9df73
WD
1217The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1218"M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1219gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1220If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1221"MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
926d86d1
WD
1222Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1223be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
bee9df73
WD
1224
1225Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
926d86d1
WD
12262147483649 bytes.
1227
59dd6786
WD
1228dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1229file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1230transferring small, junk files.
1231See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
1232
3ed8eb3f 1233dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
adc4ebdd 1234rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
3ed8eb3f 1235the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
41059f75 1236
b5679335 1237dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
41059f75 1238remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
43cd760f
WD
1239remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1240default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
41059f75 1241
bef49340 1242If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
5a727522 1243remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
bef49340
WD
1244remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1245shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
754a080f
WD
1246running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1247RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
bef49340 1248
ea7f8108 1249Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
5d9530fe
WD
1250presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1251or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1252and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1253argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1254inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1255double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1256shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
98393ae2 1257
5d9530fe
WD
1258quote(
1259tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1260tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1261)
98393ae2
WD
1262
1263(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1264options in their .ssh/config file.)
1265
41059f75 1266You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
faa82484 1267environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
41059f75 1268
faa82484 1269See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
735a816e 1270
68e169ab
WD
1271dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1272on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1273the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1274Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1275program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1276not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1277communicate.
1278
1279One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1280machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1281
c5b6e57a 1282quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
41059f75 1283
f177b7cc
WD
1284dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1285broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
c575f8ce 1286systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
f177b7cc
WD
1287a file should be ignored.
1288
c575f8ce
WD
1289The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1290initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
f177b7cc 1291
faa82484 1292quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
9520ce4b
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1293.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1294*.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
f177b7cc 1295
c575f8ce 1296then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
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WD
1297files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1298are delimited by whitespace).
1299
f177b7cc 1300Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
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1301.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1302rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
49f4cfdf 1303See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
f177b7cc 1304
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1305If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1306note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
3753975f 1307regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
bafa4875
WD
1308a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1309control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1310should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1311bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1312putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1313The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1314file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1315mentioned above.
1316
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WD
1317dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1318exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1319most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
41059f75 1320
faa82484 1321You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
5f0f2e08
WD
1322to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1323be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1324argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1325replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
41059f75 1326
16e5de84
WD
1327See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1328
faa82484 1329dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
16e5de84
WD
1330your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1331
78be8e0f 1332quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
16e5de84
WD
1333
1334This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1335been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
faa82484 1336files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
16e5de84
WD
1337rule:
1338
78be8e0f 1339quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
16e5de84
WD
1340
1341This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1342
1343See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1344work.
1345
1346dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
faa82484 1347bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
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WD
1348the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1349
1350See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
41059f75 1351
78be8e0f
WD
1352dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1353option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1354Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1355If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
f8a94f0d 1356
16e5de84 1357dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
faa82484 1358bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
16e5de84 1359the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
43bd68e5 1360
16e5de84 1361See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
43bd68e5 1362
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WD
1363dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1364option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1365Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1366If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
f8a94f0d 1367
f177b7cc 1368dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
78be8e0f 1369exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
c769702f 1370for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
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1371transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1372
b8a6dae0 1373quote(itemization(
faa82484
WD
1374 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1375 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
f40aa6fb 1376 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
faa82484
WD
1377 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1378 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
f40aa6fb 1379 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
faa82484
WD
1380 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1381 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
f40aa6fb
WD
1382 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1383 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1384 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1385 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
faa82484 1386))
f177b7cc 1387
809724d7 1388The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
f177b7cc
WD
1389source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1390allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1391command:
1392
faa82484 1393quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
f177b7cc
WD
1394
1395If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
51cc96e4
WD
1396directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1397contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1398the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1399mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1400if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1401also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1402explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1403Also note
faa82484 1404that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
f177b7cc
WD
1405duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1406force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1407
faa82484 1408In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
f177b7cc
WD
1409instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1410(the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1411specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1412transfer". For example:
1413
faa82484 1414quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
f177b7cc
WD
1415
1416This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1417was located on the remote "src" host.
1418
fa92818a 1419dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
f177b7cc 1420file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
faa82484
WD
1421This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1422merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1423It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
f01b6368 1424file are split on whitespace).
41059f75 1425
82f37486
WD
1426If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1427bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1428filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1429receiving host's charset.
1430
1431dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1432the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1433means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1434characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1435expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1436
1437If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
0b52f94d 1438from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
82f37486
WD
1439wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1440
b5679335 1441dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
a9af5d8e
WD
1442scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1443on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1444file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
41059f75 1445
9ec1ef25
WD
1446This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1447have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
d770837e 1448In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
9ec1ef25
WD
1449partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1450over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1451into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1452destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
a9af5d8e
WD
1453truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1454the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1455temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1456it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1457someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1458new version on the disk at the same time.
9ec1ef25
WD
1459
1460If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1461space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
a0d9819f
WD
1462which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1463destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1464have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1465partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1466about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1467path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1468single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1469partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1470rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1471an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
9ec1ef25 1472
5b483755
WD
1473dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1474basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1475looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1476has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1477found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1478
1479Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1480fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1481filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1482
b127c1dc 1483dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
e49f61f5
WD
1484the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1485files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1486directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1487sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1488directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1489have changed from an earlier backup.
1490
faa82484 1491Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
99eb41b2
WD
1492provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1493for an exact match.
2f03ce67
WD
1494If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1495and the attributes updated.
99eb41b2
WD
1496If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1497selected to try to speed up the transfer.
e49f61f5
WD
1498
1499If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2f03ce67 1500See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
b127c1dc 1501
2f03ce67
WD
1502dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1503rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1504directory using a local copy.
1505This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1506existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1507been successfully transferred.
1508
1509Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1510rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1511If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1512selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1513
1514If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1515See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1516
1517dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
e49f61f5
WD
1518unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1519The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1520possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
8429aa9e
WD
1521An example:
1522
faa82484 1523quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
59c95e42 1524
99eb41b2
WD
1525Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1526provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1527for an exact match.
2f03ce67
WD
1528If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1529and the attributes updated.
99eb41b2
WD
1530If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1531selected to try to speed up the transfer.
e49f61f5 1532
33689f48
WD
1533This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1534rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1535dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1536change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1537versions).
1538
d04e95e9
WD
1539Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1540link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1541substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1542file is updated.
1543
e49f61f5 1544If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2f03ce67 1545See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
b127c1dc 1546
e0204f56 1547Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
d38772e0
WD
1548bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1549specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1550the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
e0204f56 1551
32a5edf4
WD
1552dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1553as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1554being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
41059f75 1555
02184920 1556Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
32a5edf4
WD
1557be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1558because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1559blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
41059f75 1560
2b967218
WD
1561See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1562that will not be compressed.
1563
bad01106
WD
1564dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1565(see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1566the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1567
2b967218
WD
1568dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1569not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1570(without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1571
1572You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1573
1574Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1575of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1576"[:alpha:]", are supported).
1577
1578The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1579
1580Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1581matches 2 suffixes):
1582
1583verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1584
1585The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1586of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1587
1588verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1589
1590This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1591situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1592its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1593different default).
1594
41059f75 1595dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
4d888108 1596and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
41059f75
AT
1597at both ends.
1598
4d888108 1599By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
41059f75 1600what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
faa82484 16010 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
41059f75
AT
1602option is not specified.
1603
ec40899b
WD
1604If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1605on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1606from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
a2b0471f
WD
1607"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1608the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1609users and groups and what you can do about it.
41059f75 1610
b5accaba 1611dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
de2fd20e
AT
1612timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1613then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
41059f75 1614
ba22c9e2
WD
1615dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1616that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1617If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1618
3ae5367f
WD
1619dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1620connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1621specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1622option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1623
c259892c
WD
1624dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1625rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1626double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1627syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
faa82484 1628option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
c259892c 1629
04f48837
WD
1630dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1631who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1632sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
49f4cfdf 1633slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
04f48837
WD
1634details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1635special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1636connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1637bf(--daemon) mode section.
1638
b5accaba 1639dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
314a74d7
WD
1640a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1641rsync defaults to using
b5accaba
WD
1642blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1643ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
64c704f0 1644
0cfdf226 1645dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
4f90eb43 1646changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
4b90820d 1647This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
14cbb645
WD
1648If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1649if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1650with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1651verbose messages).
ea67c715 1652
1c3344a1
WD
1653The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1654format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
4f417448 1655type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
a314f7c1 1656other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
ee171c6d 1657modified.
ea67c715 1658
2d5279ac 1659The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
ea67c715 1660
b8a6dae0 1661quote(itemization(
cc3e0770 1662 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
a314f7c1 1663 (sent).
cc3e0770
WD
1664 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1665 (received).
c48cff9f 1666 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
ee171c6d 1667 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
02184920 1668 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
b4875de4 1669 bf(--hard-links)).
ee171c6d
WD
1670 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1671 have attributes that are being modified).
59658acf
WD
1672 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1673 a message (e.g. "deleting").
a314f7c1 1674))
ea67c715 1675
a314f7c1 1676The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
4e7d07c8
WD
1677directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1678special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
ea67c715 1679
a314f7c1 1680The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
ea67c715
WD
1681will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1682a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
b9f0ca72
WD
1683item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1684dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
81c453b1 1685a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
ea67c715
WD
1686
1687The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1688
b8a6dae0 1689quote(itemization(
1ed9018e
WD
1690 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1691 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1692 a changed value.
600b56b3 1693 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
11faa893
WD
1694 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1695 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
ea67c715
WD
1696 by the file transfer.
1697 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
5a727522 1698 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
42b06481 1699 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1ed56a05
WD
1700 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1701 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1ed9018e
WD
1702 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1703 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
ea67c715 1704 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
5a727522 1705 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
4dc67d5e 1706 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
d38772e0 1707 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
4dc67d5e 1708 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
5a727522 1709 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
7869953b 1710 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1c3344a1 1711 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
7869953b 1712 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
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WD
1713))
1714
1715One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
ee171c6d 1716the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
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1717you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1718outputting them as a verbose message).
dc0f2497 1719
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1720dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1721rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text
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1722string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1723a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
4b90820d 1724the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
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1725
1726Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1727in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
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WD
1728touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is
1729included in the string, the logging of names increases to mention any
81c453b1 1730item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
7c6ea3d8 17312.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
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1732output of "%i".
1733
1734The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
4b90820d 1735bf(--out-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
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WD
1736the format of its per-file output using this option.
1737
4b90820d 1738Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
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WD
1739one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1740logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1741is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1742the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
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1743(followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1744
1745dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1746to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1747requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1748transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1749enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1750option if you wish to override this.
1751
1752Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1753happening:
1754
1755verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1756
1757This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1758unexpectedly.
1759
1760dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1761per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1762(which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1763specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1764For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1765in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
b6062654 1766
b72f24c7 1767dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
adc4ebdd 1768on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
e19452a9 1769algorithm is for your data.
b72f24c7 1770
b8a6dae0 1771The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
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1772 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1773 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1774 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
adc4ebdd 1775 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
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WD
1776 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1777 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1778 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1779 include the size of symlinks.
1780 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1781 for just the transferred files.
1782 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1783 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1784 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1785 recreating the updated files.
1786 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1787 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1788 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1789 list.
1790 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1791 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1792 sending side for this to be present.
1793 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1794 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1795 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1796 from the client side to the server side.
1797 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1798 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1799 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1800 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
38a4b9c2 1801))
7b13ff97 1802
a6a27602 1803dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
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1804unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1805valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1806characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1807setting.
1808
1809The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1810and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1811would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1812escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1813
955c3145 1814dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
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1815This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1816this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1817G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1818instead of 1000.
3b4ecc6b 1819
d9fcc198
AT
1820dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1821transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1822it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
faa82484 1823bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
d9fcc198
AT
1824make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1825
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1826dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1827bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1828partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1829On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
9ec1ef25 1830dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
c2582307 1831after it has served its purpose.
9ec1ef25 1832
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1833Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1834file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1835(since
adc4ebdd 1836rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
44cad59f 1837
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1838Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1839the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1840"bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1841partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1842remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
44cad59f 1843
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1844If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1845rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1846sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1847will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1848receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
f49c8376 1849the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
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1850filter rules.
1851
1852If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1853exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1854rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1855to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1856rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1857should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1858bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1859bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1860left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
44cad59f 1861
faa82484 1862IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
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1863is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1864
1865You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
faa82484 1866variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
02184920 1867enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
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1868specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1869along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1870environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
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WD
1871.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1872option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1873specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
faa82484 1874bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
01b835c2 1875
5a727522 1876For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
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1877bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1878refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1879of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1880safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1881
01b835c2 1882dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
c2582307 1883updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
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WD
1884transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1885succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
c2582307 1886atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
64318670 1887each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
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WD
1888bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1889comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1890".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
c5b6e57a 1891you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
64318670 1892Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
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WD
1893
1894This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1895transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1896side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
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WD
1897you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1898there is no
01b835c2
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1899chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1900the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
5efbddba
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1901absolute)
1902and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1903delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
01b835c2
WD
1904
1905See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
faa82484 1906update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
01b835c2 1907parallel hierarchy of files).
44cad59f 1908
a272ff8c 1909dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
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1910rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1911that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1912creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1913recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
a272ff8c
WD
1914rules.
1915
1916Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1917what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1918mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1919being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1920destination files).
1921
1922You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1923by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1924that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1925
1926quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
fb72aaba
WD
1927
1928Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1929the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1930that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
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WD
1931(note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1932
58718881 1933quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
fb72aaba 1934
a272ff8c 1935If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
4743f0f4 1936time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
a272ff8c 1937in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
fb72aaba 1938
eb86d661
AT
1939dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1940showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1941something to watch.
c2582307 1942Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
7b10f91d 1943
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WD
1944While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
1945looks like this:
68f9910d 1946
faa82484 1947verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
68f9910d 1948
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WD
1949In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
1950sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
1951per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
1952is maintained until the end.
1953
adc4ebdd 1954These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
5e1f082d
WD
1955in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
1956followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
1957dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
1958will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
1959was finishing the matched part of the file.
1960
1961When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
1962summary line that looks like this:
1963
1964verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
1965
1966In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
1967of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
1968seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
1969during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
1970receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
1971the 396 total files in the file-list.
68f9910d 1972
faa82484 1973dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
183150b7
WD
1974purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1975transfer that may be interrupted.
d9fcc198 1976
9586e593
WD
1977dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
1978file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
1979It should contain just the password as a single line.
1980
b2057d38
WD
1981This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
1982ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
9586e593
WD
1983When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
1984option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
1985authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
1986config file).
65575e96 1987
09ed3099 1988dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
b4c7c1ca
WD
1989instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
1990arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
1991command that includes a
32b9011a
WD
1992destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
1993more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
1994Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
1995shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
b4c7c1ca
WD
1996without using this option. For example:
1997
1998verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
09ed3099 1999
32b9011a
WD
2000Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2001that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2002non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2003option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2004avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2005need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2006the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2007
ef5d23eb
DD
2008dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2009transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2010using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2011of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2012transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
4d888108 2013result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
ef5d23eb
DD
2014of zero specifies no limit.
2015
b9f592fb 2016dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
faa82484 2017another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
32c7f91a 2018section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
6902ed17 2019
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WD
2020dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2021no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2022This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
32c7f91a
WD
2023other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2024
2025Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2026media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2027can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2028whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2029partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2030happening).
2031
2032Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2033system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2034into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2035(when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
326bb56e 2036
b9f592fb 2037dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
faa82484 2038file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
78be8e0f 2039If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
c769702f 2040See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
6902ed17 2041
0b941479
WD
2042dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2043is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2044version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2045bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
81c453b1
WD
2046bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2047batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2048file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
0b941479 2049
332cf6df
WD
2050dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2051sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2052the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2053fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
0b52f94d
WD
2054separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2055bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2056will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2057Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2058to turn off any conversion.
332cf6df
WD
2059The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2060affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2061
0b52f94d
WD
2062For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2063run "iconv --list".
2064
82f37486
WD
2065If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2066the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2067remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2068
332cf6df 2069Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
82f37486
WD
2070(including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2071specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2072For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2073filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
332cf6df 2074
0b52f94d
WD
2075When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2076daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2077regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2078specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2079
e40a46de
WD
2080dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2081when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2082control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
faa82484 2083rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
e40a46de 2084
24d677fc
WD
2085If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2086will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2087is the case.
2088
c8d895de
WD
2089dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
2090NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2091MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
49f4cfdf 2092by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
c8d895de
WD
2093is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2094applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2095in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
49f4cfdf 2096Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
b9f592fb 2097for checksum seed.
41059f75
AT
2098enddit()
2099
faa82484
WD
2100manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2101
bdf278f7
WD
2102The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2103
2104startdit()
bdf278f7 2105dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
62f27e3c
WD
2106daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2107the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
bdf278f7
WD
2108
2109If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2110run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2111become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2112(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
49f4cfdf 2113requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
bdf278f7
WD
2114details.
2115
3ae5367f
WD
2116dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2117run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2118allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2119makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2120See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
bdf278f7 2121
1f69bec4
WD
2122dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2123transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
faa82484 2124The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1f69bec4
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2125requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2126client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2127
bdf278f7 2128dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
faa82484 2129the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
bdf278f7 2130The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
d38772e0 2131a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
bdf278f7
WD
2132the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2133
2134dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2135rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2136option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2137be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2138bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2139bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2140debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2141sshd.
2142
c259892c
WD
2143dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2144daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2145global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
bdf278f7 2146
a2ed5801
WD
2147dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2148given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2149file.
2150
4b90820d
WD
2151dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2152given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2153file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2154case transfer logging is turned off.
2155
04f48837
WD
2156dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2157rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2158
24b0922b
WD
2159dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2160daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2161daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2162used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2163
bdf278f7
WD
2164dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2165when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2166listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2167versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2168an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
faa82484 2169try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
bdf278f7 2170
24d677fc
WD
2171If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2172will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2173is the case.
2174
faa82484 2175dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
bdf278f7 2176page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
bdf278f7
WD
2177enddit()
2178
16e5de84 2179manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
43bd68e5 2180
16e5de84
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2181The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2182(include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2183specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2184include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
43bd68e5 2185
16e5de84
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2186As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2187name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2188turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2189pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2190filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
43bd68e5
AT
2191filename is not skipped.
2192
16e5de84
WD
2193Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2194command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2195
faa82484 2196quote(
d91de046
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2197tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2198tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
16e5de84
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2199)
2200
d91de046
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2201You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2202below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2203MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2204must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2205Here are the available rule prefixes:
16e5de84 2206
faa82484 2207quote(
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2208bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2209bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2210bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2211bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
0dfffb88
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2212bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2213bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2214bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2215bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
d91de046 2216bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
16e5de84
WD
2217)
2218
d91de046
WD
2219When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2220comment lines that start with a "#".
2221
faa82484 2222Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
16e5de84 2223full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
d91de046
WD
2224specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2225list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2226If a pattern
16e5de84
WD
2227does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2228rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
faa82484 2229an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
d91de046
WD
2230the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2231start of the rule.
16e5de84 2232
faa82484 2233Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
16e5de84 2234rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
faa82484
WD
2235the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2236the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
16e5de84 2237
16e5de84
WD
2238manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2239
0dfffb88
WD
2240You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2241"-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
bb5f4e72
WD
2242The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2243the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2244can take several forms:
16e5de84 2245
b8a6dae0 2246itemization(
16e5de84
WD
2247 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2248 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2249 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2250 regular expressions.
809724d7 2251 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
16e5de84
WD
2252 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2253 per-directory rule).
809724d7
WD
2254 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2255 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
16e5de84 2256 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
809724d7 2257 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
16e5de84
WD
2258 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2259 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2260 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2261 of the transfer.
16e5de84 2262 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
809724d7 2263 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
9639c718
WD
2264 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2265 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2266 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2267 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
2268 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2269 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2270 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2271 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2272 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2273 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
16e5de84
WD
2274 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2275 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2276 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2277 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
ae283632 2278 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
16e5de84 2279 down.)
d3db3eef 2280 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
809724d7 2281 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
c575f8ce
WD
2282 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2283 version 2.6.7.
16e5de84
WD
2284)
2285
faa82484
WD
2286Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2287bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
16e5de84
WD
2288include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2289full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2290"/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2291The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2292when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2293parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2294because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2295hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2296For instance, this won't work:
2297
faa82484
WD
2298quote(
2299tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2300tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2301tt(- *)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2302)
2303
2304This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2305rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2306directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
a5a26484 2307to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
58718881
WD
2308"- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2309solution is to add specific include rules for all
16e5de84
WD
2310the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2311works fine:
2312
faa82484
WD
2313quote(
2314tt(+ /some/)nl()
2315tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2316tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2317tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2318tt(- *)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2319)
2320
2321Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2322
b8a6dae0 2323itemization(
809724d7 2324 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
58718881
WD
2325 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2326 transfer-root directory
2327 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2328 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2329 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2330 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2331 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
faa82484 2332 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
58718881
WD
2333 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2334 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
16e5de84
WD
2335 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2336 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2337 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2338)
2339
2340manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2341
2342You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
d91de046
WD
2343merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2344section above).
16e5de84
WD
2345
2346There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2347per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2348its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2349rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2350it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2351into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2352must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2353being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2354also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2355affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2356below).
2357
2358Some examples:
2359
faa82484 2360quote(
d91de046 2361tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
faa82484 2362tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
d91de046
WD
2363tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2364tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
faa82484 2365tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2366)
2367
d91de046 2368The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
16e5de84 2369
b8a6dae0 2370itemization(
62bf783f 2371 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
d91de046 2372 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
62bf783f 2373 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
d91de046
WD
2374 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2375 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2376 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2377 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2378 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2379 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
a5a26484 2380 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
62bf783f
WD
2381 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2382 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
16e5de84
WD
2383 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2384 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
d91de046
WD
2385 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2386 also disabled).
2387 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
467688dc 2388 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
a5a26484 2389 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
0dfffb88
WD
2390 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2391 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
5a727522 2392 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
16e5de84
WD
2393)
2394
44d60d5f 2395The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
dc1488ae 2396
b8a6dae0 2397itemization(
c575f8ce 2398 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
82360c6b 2399 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
a5a26484 2400 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
82360c6b
WD
2401 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2402 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2403 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
c575f8ce 2404 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
44d60d5f
WD
2405 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2406 non-directories.
397a3443
WD
2407 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2408 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2409 follow.
0dfffb88
WD
2410 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2411 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2412 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2413 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2414 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
5a727522 2415 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
0dfffb88
WD
2416 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2417 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2418 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2419 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2420 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
c575f8ce
WD
2421 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2422 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2423 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2424 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2425 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
0dfffb88 2426)
dc1488ae 2427
16e5de84
WD
2428Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2429where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2430subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2431from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
d91de046 2432inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
16e5de84 2433the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
d91de046 2434dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
16e5de84
WD
2435rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2436file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2437
d91de046 2438Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
16e5de84
WD
2439anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2440merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
d91de046 2441would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
16e5de84
WD
2442file was found.
2443
faa82484 2444Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
16e5de84 2445
faa82484 2446quote(
d91de046 2447tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
faa82484 2448tt(- *.gz)nl()
d91de046 2449tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
faa82484
WD
2450tt(+ *.[ch])nl()
2451tt(- *.o)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2452)
2453
2454This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2455start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
467688dc 2456filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
16e5de84
WD
2457follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2458of the transfer).
2459
2460If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2461directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2462dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
faa82484 2463per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
16e5de84 2464
faa82484 2465quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
16e5de84
WD
2466
2467That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2468directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2469transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2470the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2471rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2472
2473Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2474
faa82484
WD
2475quote(
2476tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2477tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2478tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2479)
2480
2481The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2482"/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2483and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2484and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2485a part of the transfer.
2486
2487If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
d91de046
WD
2488you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2489file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
faa82484 2490use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
d91de046 2491per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
16e5de84 2492":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
d91de046 2493add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
16e5de84
WD
2494rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2495example:
2496
faa82484
WD
2497quote(
2498tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2499tt(+ foo.o)nl()
2500tt(:C)nl()
2501tt(- *.old)nl()
2502tt(EOT)nl()
2503tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
16e5de84
WD
2504)
2505
2506Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2507the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2508at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
bafa4875
WD
2509that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2510affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2511the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2512omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
4743f0f4 2513your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
16e5de84
WD
2514
2515manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2516
2517You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2518rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2519list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2520parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2521inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2522out the parent's rules).
2523
2524manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2525
2526As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2527"root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2528anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2529a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2530transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2531directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
a4b6f305
WD
2532
2533Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
faa82484 2534trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
a4b6f305
WD
2535option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2536changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
16e5de84 2537host). The following examples demonstrate this.
a4b6f305 2538
b5ebe6d9
WD
2539Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2540path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2541Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
a4b6f305 2542
faa82484
WD
2543quote(
2544 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2545 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2546 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2547 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2548 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2549)
2550
2551quote(
2552 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2553 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2554 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2555 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2556 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2557)
2558
2559quote(
2560 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2561 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2562 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2563 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2564 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2565)
2566
2567quote(
2568 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2569 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2570 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2571 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2572 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
a4b6f305
WD
2573)
2574
16e5de84 2575The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
faa82484
WD
2576look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2577(use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
d1cce1dd 2578
16e5de84 2579manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
43bd68e5 2580
16e5de84
WD
2581Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2582sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2583without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2584this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
27b9a19b 2585
faa82484
WD
2586quote(
2587tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2588tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
43bd68e5
AT
2589)
2590
16e5de84
WD
2591However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2592files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2593receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
faa82484 2594the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
16e5de84
WD
2595because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2596rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
43bd68e5 2597
faa82484 2598quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
20af605e 2599
16e5de84
WD
2600However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2601either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2602line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2603the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2604remote .rules files exclude themselves):
20af605e 2605
faa82484
WD
2606verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2607 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
20af605e 2608
16e5de84
WD
2609In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2610transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2611merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2612per-directory merge rule.
43bd68e5 2613
16e5de84
WD
2614In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2615files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2616to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2617specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2618deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2619should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2620
faa82484
WD
2621verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2622 host:src/dir /dest
2623 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
43bd68e5 2624
6902ed17
MP
2625manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2626
088aac85
DD
2627Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2628identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2629number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2630source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2631hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2632write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2633of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
b9f592fb
WD
2634client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2635this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2636
2637To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2638with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2639file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2640using the information stored in the batch file.
2641
2642For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2643option is used. This file's name is created by appending
73e01568 2644".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
b9f592fb 2645a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
49f4cfdf
WD
2646batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
2647optionally
b9f592fb
WD
2648passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2649instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2650path differs from the original destination tree path.
2651
2652Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2653status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
088aac85 2654updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
b9f592fb
WD
2655be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2656at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
088aac85 2657
4602eafa 2658Examples:
088aac85 2659
faa82484
WD
2660quote(
2661tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2662tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2663tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
4602eafa
WD
2664)
2665
faa82484
WD
2666quote(
2667tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2668tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
4602eafa
WD
2669)
2670
98f51bfb
WD
2671In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2672and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2673"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2674into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2675reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2676
b8a6dae0 2677itemization(
98f51bfb
WD
2678 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2679 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2680 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
98f51bfb
WD
2681 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2682 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
98f51bfb
WD
2683 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2684 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2685 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
faa82484 2686 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
98f51bfb 2687 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
faa82484 2688 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
98f51bfb 2689)
088aac85
DD
2690
2691Caveats:
2692
98f51bfb 2693The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
088aac85
DD
2694to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2695batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
0b941479 2696is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
7432ccf4
WD
2697appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2698and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2699error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
59d73bf3 2700if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
faa82484 2701always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
59d73bf3
WD
2702option (when reading the batch).
2703If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
7432ccf4 2704partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
088aac85
DD
2705be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2706destination tree.
2707
b9f592fb 2708The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
59d73bf3
WD
2709one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2710protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
0b941479
WD
2711to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2712creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2713(Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2714older than that with newer versions will not work.)
088aac85 2715
7432ccf4
WD
2716When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2717to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2718as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
bb5f4e72
WD
2719For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2720bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2721bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2722one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
b9f592fb 2723
faa82484 2724The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
98f51bfb
WD
2725options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2726shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
faa82484 2727list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
98f51bfb 2728user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
faa82484 2729to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
98f51bfb 2730
59d73bf3
WD
2731The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2732version uses a new implementation.
6902ed17 2733
eb06fa95
MP
2734manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2735
f28bd833 2736Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
eb06fa95
MP
2737link in the source directory.
2738
2739By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2740"skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2741
2742If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2743target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2744bf(--links).
2745
2746If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2747copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2748
2749rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2750example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2751ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2752bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2753bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2754they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
6efe9416
WD
2755unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2756bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
eb06fa95 2757
7bd0cf5b 2758Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
4743f0f4 2759(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
7bd0cf5b
MP
2760components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2761
6efe9416
WD
2762Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2763in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2764use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2765
2766dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2767symlinks for any other options to affect).
2768
2769dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2770and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2771
2772dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2773skip all safe symlinks.
2774
02184920 2775dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
6efe9416
WD
2776ones.
2777
2778dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2779
faa82484 2780manpagediagnostics()
d310a212 2781
14d43f1f 2782rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
d310a212 2783cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
faa82484 2784version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
d310a212
AT
2785
2786This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2787facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
14d43f1f 2788for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
d310a212
AT
2789remote shell like this:
2790
faa82484
WD
2791quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2792
d310a212 2793then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2cfeab21 2794should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
d310a212
AT
2795rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2796data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
14d43f1f 2797it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
d310a212
AT
2798scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2799for non-interactive logins.
2800
16e5de84 2801If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
faa82484 2802try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
e6c64e79
MP
2803show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2804
55b64e4b
MP
2805manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2806
2807startdit()
a73de5f3 2808dit(bf(0)) Success
faa82484
WD
2809dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2810dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
a73de5f3
WD
2811dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2812dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
8212336a 2813was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
f28bd833 2814them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
8212336a 2815not by the server.
a73de5f3 2816dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
124f349e 2817dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
faa82484
WD
2818dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2819dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2820dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2821dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2822dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2823dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
49f4cfdf 2824dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
faa82484 2825dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3c1e2ad9
WD
2826dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2827dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
124f349e 2828dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
faa82484 2829dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
ba22c9e2 2830dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
55b64e4b
MP
2831enddit()
2832
de2fd20e
AT
2833manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2834
2835startdit()
de2fd20e 2836dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
faa82484 2837ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
de2fd20e 2838more details.
332cf6df
WD
2839dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2840environment variable.
de2fd20e 2841dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
ea7f8108 2842override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
faa82484 2843options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
4c3b4b25
AT
2844dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2845redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2846rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
de2fd20e 2847dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
bb18e755 2848password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
de2fd20e 2849daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
b2057d38
WD
2850password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2851consult the remote shell's documentation.
de2fd20e 2852dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
5a727522 2853are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
4b2f6a7c 2854If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
14d43f1f 2855dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
de2fd20e 2856default .cvsignore file.
de2fd20e
AT
2857enddit()
2858
41059f75
AT
2859manpagefiles()
2860
30e8c8e1 2861/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
41059f75
AT
2862
2863manpageseealso()
2864
49f4cfdf 2865bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
41059f75 2866
41059f75
AT
2867manpagebugs()
2868
02184920 2869times are transferred as *nix time_t values
41059f75 2870
f28bd833 2871When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
38843171 2872unmodified files.
faa82484 2873See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
38843171 2874
b5accaba 2875file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
41059f75
AT
2876values
2877
faa82484 2878see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
41059f75 2879
b553a3dd 2880Please report bugs! See the web site at
38843171 2881url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
41059f75 2882
15997547
WD
2883manpagesection(VERSION)
2884
cc56eb2a 2885This man page is current for version 3.0.3pre2 of rsync.
15997547 2886
4e0bf977
WD
2887manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2888
2889The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2890and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2891awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2892when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2893the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2894named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2895ssh login.
2896
41059f75
AT
2897manpagesection(CREDITS)
2898
2899rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2900COPYING for details.
2901
41059f75 2902A WEB site is available at
3cd5eb3b
MP
2903url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2904includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2905manual page.
9e3c856a
AT
2906
2907The primary ftp site for rsync is
2908url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
41059f75
AT
2909
2910We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
03646b49 2911Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
41059f75 2912
9e3c856a
AT
2913This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2914Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
41059f75
AT
2915
2916manpagesection(THANKS)
2917
03646b49
WD
2918Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
2919David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
2920gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
7ff701e8 2921
03646b49
WD
2922Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2923and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
41059f75
AT
2924
2925manpageauthor()
2926
ce5f2732 2927rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
03646b49
WD
2928Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
2929by Wayne Davison.
3cd5eb3b 2930
a5d74a18 2931Mailing lists for support and development are available at
faa82484 2932url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)