Make wf_writeBufSize based on a multiple of WRITE_SIZE instead
[rsync/rsync.git] / rsync.yo
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9e3c856a 1mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
c8d771a0 2manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Apr 2004)()()
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3manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
4manpagesynopsis()
5
9ef53907 6rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
41059f75 7
9ef53907 8rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
41059f75 9
9ef53907 10rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
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9ef53907 12rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
41059f75 13
9ef53907 14rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
41059f75 15
9ef53907 16rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
039faa86 17
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18rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
19
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20manpagedescription()
21
22rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
23but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
eb06fa95 24greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file already
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25exists.
26
27The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
f39281ae 28differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
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29an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
30report that accompanies this package.
31
32Some of the additional features of rsync are:
33
34itemize(
b9f592fb 35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
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36 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
37 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
43cd760f 38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
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39 it() does not require root privileges
40 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
41 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
42 mirroring)
43)
44
45manpagesection(GENERAL)
46
bef49340 47There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
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48
49itemize(
50 it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
51 source nor destination path contains a : separator
52
53 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
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54 a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
55 rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
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56 single : separator.
57
58 it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
6c7c2ef3 59 using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
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60 contains a : separator.
61
62 it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
63 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
bb18e755 64 separator or an rsync:// URL.
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65
66 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
67 server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
bb18e755 68 separator or an rsync:// URL.
039faa86 69
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70 it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
71 program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
72 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
73 separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is
74 also provided.
75
76 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
77 using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
78 server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
79 destination path contains a :: separator and the
4d888108 80 --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
bef49340 81
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82 it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
83 same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
84 local destination.
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85)
86
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87Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
88and destination paths must be local.
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89
90manpagesection(SETUP)
91
92See the file README for installation instructions.
93
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94Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
95a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
43cd760f 96daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
1bbf83c0 97for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
43cd760f 98different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
41059f75 99
1bbf83c0 100You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
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101command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
102
103One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
104security.
105
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106Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
107machines.
108
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109manpagesection(USAGE)
110
111You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
112and a destination, one of which may be remote.
113
4d888108 114Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
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115
116quote(rsync *.c foo:src/)
117
8a97fc2e 118This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
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119current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
120the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
121remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
122differences. See the tech report for details.
123
124quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
125
8a97fc2e 126This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
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127machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
128files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
b5accaba 129links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
14d43f1f 130in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
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131size of data portions of the transfer.
132
133quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
134
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135A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
136additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
137/ on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
138to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
139containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
140destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
141files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
142/dest/foo:
143
144quote(rsync -avz /src/foo /dest)
145quote(rsync -avz /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
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146
147You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
148destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
149an improved copy command.
150
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151quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
152
8a97fc2e 153This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
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154somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
155
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156
157manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
158
1bbf83c0 159It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
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160transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
161running on TCP port 873.
162
eb06fa95 163You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
4c3b4b25 164environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
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165your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
166proxy connections to port 873.
4c3b4b25 167
1bbf83c0 168Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
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169that:
170
171itemize(
172 it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
bb18e755 173 separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
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174
175 it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
14d43f1f 176 connect.
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177
178 it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
179 list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
14d43f1f 180
f7632fc6 181 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
14d43f1f 182 specified files on the remote server is provided.
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183)
184
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185Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
186you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
187password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
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188the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
189may be useful when scripting rsync.
4c3d16be 190
3bc67f0c 191WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
65575e96 192users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
3bc67f0c 193
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194manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
195
196It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
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197server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
198rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
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199to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
200firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
201features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
202below).
203
204From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
205using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
206explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
207--rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
208this functionality.)
209
210In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
211server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
212
213quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
214
215The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
216used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
217
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218manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
219
4d888108 220An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
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221rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
222file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
223shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
224is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
225(typically $HOME).
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227manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
228
229See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
230server configuration file.
231
232Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
233user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
234configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port
235if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
236
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237To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
238in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
bef49340 239
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240manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
241
242Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
243
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244To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
245files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
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246
247quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
248
f39281ae 249each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
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250"arvidsjaur".
251
252To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
253targets:
254
255quote( get:nl()
256 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
257
258 put:nl()
259 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
260
261 sync: get put)
262
263this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
f39281ae 264connection. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a
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265lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very efficient.
266
267I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
268command
269
270quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba")
271
272this is launched from cron every few hours.
273
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274manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
275
14d43f1f 276Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
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277to the detailed description below for a complete description.
278
279verb(
280 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
b86f0cef 281 -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
c95da96a 282 -c, --checksum always checksum
06891710 283 -a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
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284 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
285 -R, --relative use relative path names
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286 --no-relative turn off --relative
287 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
915dd207 288 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
5b56cc19 289 --backup-dir make backups into this directory
915dd207 290 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
c95da96a 291 -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
716e73d4 292 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
eb06fa95 293 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
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294 -L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
295 --copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
296 --safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks
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297 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
298 -p, --perms preserve permissions
299 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
300 -g, --group preserve group
301 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
302 -t, --times preserve times
303 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
304 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
305 -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
93689aa5 306 --no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
c95da96a 307 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
9ef53907 308 -B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size (default 700)
915dd207 309 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
d9fcc198 310 --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
1347d512 311 --existing only update files that already exist
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312 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
313 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
314 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
d48c8065 315 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
b5accaba 316 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
0b73ca12 317 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
c95da96a 318 --partial keep partially transferred files
915dd207 319 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
c95da96a 320 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
b5accaba 321 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
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322 -I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
323 --size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
f6aeaa74 324 --modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
c95da96a 325 -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
915dd207 326 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
59c95e42 327 --link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
d9fcc198 328 -P equivalent to --partial --progress
c95da96a 329 -z, --compress compress file data
f177b7cc 330 -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
2acf81eb 331 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
9ef53907 332 --exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
2acf81eb 333 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
9ef53907 334 --include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
f177b7cc 335 --files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
915dd207 336 -0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
c95da96a 337 --version print version number
bb18e755 338 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
bbd6f4ba 339 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
2a951cd2 340 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
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341 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
342 --port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
b5accaba 343 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
93689aa5 344 --no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
c95da96a 345 --stats give some file transfer stats
eb86d661 346 --progress show progress during transfer
b6062654 347 --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
9ef53907 348 --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
ef5d23eb 349 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
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350 --write-batch=FILE write a batch to FILE
351 --read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE
c8d895de 352 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed
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353 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
354 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
c95da96a 355 -h, --help show this help screen
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356
357
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358)
359
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360manpageoptions()
361
362rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
363options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
14d43f1f 364below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
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365The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
366can be used instead.
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367
368startdit()
369dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
370available in rsync
371
372dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit
373
374dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
14d43f1f 375are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
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376single -v will give you information about what files are being
377transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
378information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
379information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
14d43f1f 380you are debugging rsync.
41059f75 381
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382dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
383are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
384from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
385cron.
386
41059f75 387dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
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388already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
389This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
41059f75 390
a03a9f4e 391dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
915dd207 392already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
a03a9f4e 393--size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
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394regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
395after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
396exactly.
397
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398dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps rsync treats
399the timestamps as being equal if they are within the value of
400modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
401set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
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402transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
403with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
5b56cc19 404
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405dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
406a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
407explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
408which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
a03a9f4e 409receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
41059f75 410
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411dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
412way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
413everything.
414
415Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
416finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
417specify bf(-H).
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419dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
420recursively. If you don't specify this then rsync won't copy
421directories at all.
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422
423dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
424names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
425just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
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426you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
427example, if you used the command
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428
429verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
430
431then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
432machine. If instead you used
433
434verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
435
436then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
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437machine -- the full path name is preserved.
438
439dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
440needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
441file processing.
442
443dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
444implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
445of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
446the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
447path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,
448the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
449destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
450the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
451which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
452symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
41059f75 453
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454dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
455renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
456backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
457--backup-dir and --suffix options.
41059f75 458
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459dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
460tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
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461very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
462specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
463(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
464will keep their original filenames).
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465If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
466(which changes in a recursive transfer).
66203a98 467
b5679335 468dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
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469backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
470if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
9ef53907 471
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472dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the
473destination file already exists and has a date later than the source
474file.
475
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476In the currently implementation, a difference of file format is always
477considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
478is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
479symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
480regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
481free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
482
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483dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
484pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
485from the sender.
486
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487dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
488symlink on the destination.
41059f75 489
eb06fa95 490dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
7af4227a 491they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink.
b5313607 492
eb06fa95 493dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
7af4227a 494symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
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495are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
496source path itself when --relative is used.
41059f75 497
d310a212 498dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
7af4227a 499which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
d310a212 500also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
14d43f1f 501give unexpected results.
d310a212 502
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503dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
504the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
505option hard links are treated like regular files.
506
507Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
508are in the list of files being sent.
509
510This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
511
512dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
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513is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
514faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
515target machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
4d888108 516"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
a1a440c2 517the source and target are on the local machine.
41059f75 518
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519dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
520default.
521
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522dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
523permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
524
525Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
526source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
527other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
528(which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
41059f75 529
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530dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
531destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
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532only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
533is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
534circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
41059f75 535
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536dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
537destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
538program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
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539receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
540is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
541circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
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542
543dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
544block device information to the remote system to recreate these
545devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
546
547dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
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548with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
549option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
550modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
551cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, and all files will have
552their checksums compared and show up in log messages even if they haven't
553changed.
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554
555dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
556instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
557
558dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
559up less space on the destination.
560
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561NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
562filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
563correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
564
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565dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
566boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
567contents of only one filesystem.
568
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569dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
570only update files that already exist on the destination.
571
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572dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
573This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
574the destination.
575
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576dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
577files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
578to prevent disasters.
579
41059f75 580dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving
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581side that aren't on the sending side. Files that are excluded from
582transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
41059f75 583
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584This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
585
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586This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
587to run first using the dry run option (-n) to see what files would be
588deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
41059f75 589
b5accaba 590If the sending side detects any I/O errors then the deletion of any
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591files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
592prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
593sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
2c5548d2 594destination. You can override this with the --ignore-errors option.
41059f75 595
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596dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
597receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
598delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
786c3687 599Implies --delete.
b33b791e 600
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601dit(bf(--delete-after)) By default rsync does file deletions on the
602receiving side before transferring files to try to ensure that there is
603sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If you want to delete
604after transferring, use the --delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
57df171b 605
2c5548d2 606dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
b5accaba 607even when there are I/O errors.
2c5548d2 608
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609dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
610they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
611is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
612Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
41059f75 613
e40a46de 614dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in
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615the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details.
616
b5679335 617dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
41059f75 618remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
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619remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
620default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
41059f75 621
bef49340 622If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
4d888108 623remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
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624remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
625shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
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626running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
627TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
bef49340 628
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629Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
630presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
98393ae2 631
ea7f8108 632quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
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633
634(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
635options in their .ssh/config file.)
636
41059f75 637You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
ea7f8108 638environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.
41059f75 639
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640See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
641
b5679335 642dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
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643rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note
644that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that
645the binary is in.
41059f75 646
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647dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
648broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
649systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
650a file should be ignored.
651
652The exclude list is initialized to:
653
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654quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
655.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
656.del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)
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657
658then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
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659files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
660are delimited by whitespace).
661
f177b7cc 662Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
2a383be0 663.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
2a383be0 664See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
f177b7cc 665
b5679335 666dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
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667certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most
668useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
669
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670You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like
671to build up the list of files to exclude.
672
6156e72f 673See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
41059f75 674
b5679335 675dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
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676option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
677FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
678';' or '#' are ignored.
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679If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
680
b5679335 681dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
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682specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to
683build up quite complex exclude/include rules.
684
6156e72f 685See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
43bd68e5 686
b5679335 687dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
43bd68e5 688from a file.
c769702f 689If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
f8a94f0d 690
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691dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
692exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
c769702f 693for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
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694transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
695instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
696is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
697directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
698than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
699behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
700you want it.
701
702The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
703source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
704allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
705command:
706
707quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
708
709If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
710directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
711contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
712or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
713that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
714duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
715force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
716
717In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host
718instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
719(the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
720specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
721transfer". For example:
722
723quote(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
724
725This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
726was located on the remote "src" host.
727
728dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
729file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
730This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, and --files-from.
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731It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
732file are split on whitespace).
41059f75 733
b5679335 734dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
375a4556 735scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
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736transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
737the temporary files in the receiving directory.
738
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739dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR on
740the destination machine as an additional directory to compare destination
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741files against when doing transfers if the files are missing in the
742destination directory. This is useful for doing transfers to a new
743destination while leaving existing files intact, and then doing a
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744flash-cutover when all files have been successfully transferred (for
745example by moving directories around and removing the old directory,
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746although this skips files that haven't changed; see also --link-dest).
747This option increases the usefulness of --partial because partially
748transferred files will remain in the new temporary destination until they
749have a chance to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative
0b79c324 750to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
375a4556 751
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DD
752dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest) but
753also will create hard links from em(DIR) to the destination directory for
754unchanged files. Files with changed ownership or permissions will not be
755linked.
d31c09c8 756Like bf(--compare-dest) if DIR is a relative path, it is relative
0b79c324 757to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
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758An example:
759
760verb(
761 rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
762)
59c95e42 763
41059f75 764dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
089e73f8 765the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
f39281ae 766option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
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767same method that gzip uses.
768
769Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios
770that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a
771compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit
772information sent for matching data blocks.
773
774dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
4d888108 775and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
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776at both ends.
777
4d888108 778By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
41059f75 779what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
14d43f1f 7800 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
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781option is not specified.
782
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783If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
784on the destination system, then the numeric ID
785from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
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WD
786"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
787the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
788users and groups and what you can do about it.
41059f75 789
b5accaba 790dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
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AT
791timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
792then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
41059f75 793
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MP
794dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
795daemon may be accessed using the bf(host::module) or
796bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
797
798If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
799run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
800become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
30e8c8e1 801(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
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802requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
803details.
41059f75 804
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MP
805dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
806rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
807option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
808be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
809bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
810bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
811debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
812sshd.
813
5c9730a4 814dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
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AT
815when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
816rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
817address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
818in conjunction with the --config option.
5c9730a4 819
b5679335 820dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
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DD
821the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified.
822The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
823a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
824the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
41059f75 825
b5679335 826dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
14d43f1f 827rather than the default port 873.
41059f75 828
b5accaba 829dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
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WD
830a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
831rsync defaults to using
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832blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
833ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
64c704f0 834
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835dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
836default.
837
3a64ad1f 838dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
14d43f1f 839rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
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DD
840specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
841rsyncd.conf.
b6062654 842
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AT
843dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
844on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
e19452a9 845algorithm is for your data.
b72f24c7 846
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847dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
848transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
849it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
850--partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
851make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
852
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853dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
854showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
855something to watch.
e2559dbe 856Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
7b10f91d 857
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858When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
859
860verb(
861 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
862)
863
864This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
865is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
866data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
867remaining in this transfer.
868
869After the a file is complete, it the data looks like this:
870
871verb(
872 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
873)
874
875This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
876transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
877the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
878These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
879what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
880
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881dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. I
882found myself typing that combination quite often so I created an
883option to make it easier.
884
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885dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
886in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
bb18e755 887is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
65575e96 888transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
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889must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
890single line.
65575e96 891
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892dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
893transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
894using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
895of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
896transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
4d888108 897result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
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898of zero specifies no limit.
899
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WD
900dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
901anonther identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE"
902section for details.
6902ed17 903
b9f592fb 904dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
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WD
905file previously generated by --write-batch.
906If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
907See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
6902ed17 908
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909dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
910when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
911control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
912rsync daemon, or the incoming sockets that an rsync daemon uses to
913listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
914versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
915an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
916try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
917
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WD
918dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
919NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
920MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
b9f592fb 921by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
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922is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
923applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
924in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
925Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
b9f592fb 926for checksum seed.
c8d895de 927
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928enddit()
929
43bd68e5
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930manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
931
932The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
14d43f1f 933selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip.
43bd68e5 934
be92ac6c 935Rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
98606687 936the command line. Rsync checks each file and directory
43bd68e5 937name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching
23489269 938pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern, then that file is
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939skipped. If it is an include pattern then that filename is not
940skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the
941filename is not skipped.
942
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943The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative
944to the "root of the transfer". If you think of the transfer as a
945subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the root
946is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory.
947This root governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
948
949Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
20af605e 950trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
a4b6f305
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951option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
952changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
953system). The following examples demonstrate this.
954
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WD
955Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
956path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
957Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
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958
959verb(
b5ebe6d9 960 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
a4b6f305 961 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
b5ebe6d9 962 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
a4b6f305 963 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
b5ebe6d9 964 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
a4b6f305 965
b5ebe6d9 966 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
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WD
967 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
968 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
a4b6f305 969 Target file: /dest/foo/bar
b5ebe6d9 970 Target file: /dest/bar/baz
a4b6f305 971
b5ebe6d9 972 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
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WD
973 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
974 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
a4b6f305 975 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
b5ebe6d9 976 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
be92ac6c 977
b5ebe6d9 978 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
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979 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
980 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
be92ac6c 981 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
b5ebe6d9 982 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
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983)
984
985The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just
986look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
987(use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
d1cce1dd 988
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989Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a),
990every subcomponent of
a4b6f305 991every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get
27b9a19b 992applied recursively to each subcomponent.
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WD
993The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
994when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
995parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
996because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
997hierarchy.
27b9a19b
DD
998
999Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern
2fb139c1
AT
1000each. To add multiple patterns use the --include-from and
1001--exclude-from options or multiple --include and --exclude options.
1002
14d43f1f 1003The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
43bd68e5
AT
1004
1005itemize(
d1cce1dd 1006
43bd68e5
AT
1007 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the
1008 start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of
d1cce1dd
S
1009 the filename.
1010 This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regular expressions.
a4b6f305
WD
1011 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root
1012 (see above for how this is different from the filesystem-root).
d1cce1dd 1013 On the other hand, "foo" would match any file called "foo"
27b9a19b
DD
1014 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1015 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1016 end of the file name.
43bd68e5
AT
1017
1018 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
a4b6f305 1019 directory, not a file, link, or device.
43bd68e5
AT
1020
1021 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
a8b9d4ed
DD
1022 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1023 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
43bd68e5 1024
8a7846f9
WD
1025 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1026 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
27b9a19b 1027
38499c1a
WD
1028 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1029 then it is matched against the full filename, including any leading
1030 directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1031 matched only against the final component of the filename. Again,
1032 remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can
8a7846f9 1033 actually be any portion of a path below the starting directory.
43bd68e5
AT
1034
1035 it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
5a554d5b 1036 then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
a03a9f4e 1037 part of an exclude option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
43bd68e5
AT
1038
1039 it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)
5a554d5b 1040 then it is always considered an exclude pattern, even if specified as
a03a9f4e 1041 part of an include option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
de2fd20e
AT
1042
1043 it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current
eb06fa95 1044 include/exclude list is reset, removing all previously defined patterns.
43bd68e5
AT
1045)
1046
b7dc46c0
WD
1047The +/- rules are most useful in a list that was read from a file, allowing
1048you to have a single exclude list that contains both include and exclude
20af605e 1049options in the proper order.
27b9a19b 1050
20af605e
WD
1051Remember that the matching occurs at every step in the traversal of the
1052directory hierarchy, so you must be sure that all the parent directories of
1053the files you want to include are not excluded. This is particularly
1054important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
43bd68e5 1055
20af605e
WD
1056verb(
1057 + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
1058 + /file-is-included
1059 - *
1060)
1061
1062This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule,
1063so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1064directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1065to be included by using a single rule: --include='*/' (put it somewhere
f28bd833 1066before the --exclude='*' rule). Another solution is to add specific
20af605e
WD
1067include rules for all the parent dirs that need to be visited. For
1068instance, this set of rules works fine:
1069
1070verb(
1071 + /some/
1072 + /some/path/
1073 + /some/path/this-file-is-found
1074 + /file-also-included
1075 - *
1076)
1077
1078Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
43bd68e5
AT
1079
1080itemize(
1081 it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
a4b6f305 1082 it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
43bd68e5 1083 it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
a8b9d4ed 1084 it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
a4b6f305 1085 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
a8b9d4ed 1086 it() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
a4b6f305 1087 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
43bd68e5 1088 it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
5d5811f7
DD
1089 directories and C source files
1090 it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
1091 only foo/bar.c (the foo/ directory must be explicitly included or
1092 it would be excluded by the "*")
43bd68e5
AT
1093)
1094
6902ed17
MP
1095manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1096
2e3c1417 1097bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
f28bd833 1098of rsync. The interface or behavior may change before it stabilizes.
088aac85
DD
1099
1100Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1101identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1102number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1103source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1104hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1105write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1106of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
b9f592fb
WD
1107client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1108this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1109
1110To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1111with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1112file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1113using the information stored in the batch file.
1114
1115For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1116option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1117".rsync_argvs" to the batch filename. The .rsync_argvs file contains
1118a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1119batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1120passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1121instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1122path differs from the original destination tree path.
1123
1124Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1125status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
088aac85 1126updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
b9f592fb
WD
1127be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1128at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
088aac85 1129
4602eafa 1130Examples:
088aac85
DD
1131
1132verb(
b9f592fb 1133 $ rsync --write-batch=batch -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
4602eafa
WD
1134 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <batch
1135)
1136
1137verb(
1138 $ rsync --write-batch=batch -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1139 $ scp batch remote:
b9f592fb 1140 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=batch -a /bdest/dir/
4602eafa
WD
1141)
1142
1143verb(
1144 $ rsync --write-batch=batch -a /source/dir/ host:/adest/dir/
1145 $ scp batch* remote:
b9f592fb 1146 $ ssh remote ./batch.rsync_argvs /bdest/dir/
6902ed17
MP
1147)
1148
4602eafa 1149In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ with /source/dir/
b9f592fb 1150and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "batch" and
4602eafa
WD
1151"batch.rsync_argvs". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched
1152update going into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the
1153three examples is in how the batch gets to the remote machine (via remote
1154stdin or by being copied first), whether the initial transfer was local or
1155remote, and in how the batch-reading rsync command is invoked.
088aac85
DD
1156
1157Caveats:
1158
1159The read-batch option expects the destination tree it is meant to update
1160to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1161batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1162is encountered the update will fail at that point, leaving the
1163destination tree in a partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1164be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1165destination tree.
1166
b9f592fb
WD
1167The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1168one used to generate the batch file.
088aac85
DD
1169
1170The -n/--dryrun option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
1171error.
1172
b9f592fb
WD
1173You should use an equivalent set of options when reading a batch file that
1174you used when generating it with a few exceptions. For instance
1175--write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
1176--include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
1177without --delete-excluded. Other options that affect how the update
1178happens should generally remain the same as it is possible to confuse rsync
1179into expecting a different data stream than the one that is contained in
1180the batch file. For example, it would not work to change the setting of
1181the -H or -c option, but it would work to add or remove the --delete
1182option.
1183
6902ed17
MP
1184See bf(http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html) for papers and technical
1185reports.
1186
eb06fa95
MP
1187manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1188
f28bd833 1189Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
eb06fa95
MP
1190link in the source directory.
1191
1192By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1193"skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1194
1195If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1196target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1197bf(--links).
1198
1199If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1200copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1201
1202rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1203example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1204ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1205bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1206bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1207they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
4d888108 1208unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
eb06fa95 1209
7bd0cf5b
MP
1210Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1211(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1212components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1213
d310a212
AT
1214manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
1215
14d43f1f 1216rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
d310a212
AT
1217cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1218version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
1219
1220This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1221facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
14d43f1f 1222for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
d310a212
AT
1223remote shell like this:
1224
1225verb(
43cd760f 1226 ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
d310a212
AT
1227)
1228
1229then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2cfeab21 1230should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
d310a212
AT
1231rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
1232data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
14d43f1f 1233it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
d310a212
AT
1234scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
1235for non-interactive logins.
1236
e6c64e79
MP
1237If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude patterns, then
1238try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
1239show why each individual file is included or excluded.
1240
55b64e4b
MP
1241manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
1242
1243startdit()
a73de5f3
WD
1244dit(bf(0)) Success
1245dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
1246dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
1247dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
1248dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
8212336a 1249was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
f28bd833 1250them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
8212336a 1251not by the server.
a73de5f3 1252dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
b5accaba
WD
1253dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
1254dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
a73de5f3
WD
1255dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
1256dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
1257dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
1258dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
1259dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
1260dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3c1e2ad9
WD
1261dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
1262dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
a73de5f3 1263dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
55b64e4b
MP
1264enddit()
1265
de2fd20e
AT
1266manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
1267
1268startdit()
1269
1270dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
1271ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for
1272more details.
1273
1274dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
ea7f8108
WD
1275override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
1276options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
de2fd20e 1277
4c3b4b25
AT
1278dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
1279redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
1280rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
1281
de2fd20e 1282dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
bb18e755 1283password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
de2fd20e
AT
1284daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
1285password to a shell transport such as ssh.
1286
1287dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
bb18e755 1288are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
4b2f6a7c 1289If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
de2fd20e 1290
14d43f1f 1291dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
de2fd20e
AT
1292default .cvsignore file.
1293
1294enddit()
1295
41059f75
AT
1296manpagefiles()
1297
30e8c8e1 1298/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
41059f75
AT
1299
1300manpageseealso()
1301
1302rsyncd.conf(5)
1303
1304manpagediagnostics()
1305
1306manpagebugs()
1307
1308times are transferred as unix time_t values
1309
f28bd833 1310When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
38843171
DD
1311unmodified files.
1312See the comments on the --modify-window option.
1313
b5accaba 1314file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
41059f75
AT
1315values
1316
a87b3b2a 1317see also the comments on the --delete option
41059f75 1318
38843171
DD
1319Please report bugs! See the website at
1320url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
41059f75
AT
1321
1322manpagesection(CREDITS)
1323
1324rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
1325COPYING for details.
1326
41059f75 1327A WEB site is available at
3cd5eb3b
MP
1328url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
1329includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
1330manual page.
9e3c856a
AT
1331
1332The primary ftp site for rsync is
1333url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
41059f75
AT
1334
1335We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
1336
9e3c856a
AT
1337This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
1338Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
41059f75
AT
1339
1340manpagesection(THANKS)
1341
1342Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
7ff701e8
MP
1343and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
1344I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
1345
ce5f2732
MP
1346Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
1347Martin Pool, Wayne Davison.
41059f75
AT
1348
1349manpageauthor()
1350
ce5f2732
MP
1351rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
1352Many people have later contributed to it.
3cd5eb3b 1353
a5d74a18 1354Mailing lists for support and development are available at
7ff701e8 1355url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)