Mention the open64()/mkstemp64() configure change.
[rsync/rsync.git] / rsync.yo
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1mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Apr 2004)()()
3manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
4manpagesynopsis()
5
6rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
7
8rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
9
10rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
11
12rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
13
14rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
15
16rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
17
18rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
19
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
24greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file already
25exists.
26
27The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
28differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
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(
35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
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
38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
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
47There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
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
54 a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
55 rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
56 single : separator.
57
58 it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
59 using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
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 ::
64 separator or an rsync:// URL.
65
66 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
67 server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
68 separator or an rsync:// URL.
69
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
80 --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
81
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.
85)
86
87Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
88and destination paths must be local.
89
90manpagesection(SETUP)
91
92See the file README for installation instructions.
93
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
96daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
97for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
98different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
99
100You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
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
106Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
107machines.
108
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
114Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
115
116quote(rsync *.c foo:src/)
117
118This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
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
126This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
127machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
128files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
129links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
130in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
131size of data portions of the transfer.
132
133quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
134
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)
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
151quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
152
153This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
154somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
155
156
157manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
158
159It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
160transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
161running on TCP port 873.
162
163You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
164environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
165your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
166proxy connections to port 873.
167
168Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
169that:
170
171itemize(
172 it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
173 separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
174
175 it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
176 connect.
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.
180
181 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
182 specified files on the remote server is provided.
183)
184
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
188the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
189may be useful when scripting rsync.
190
191WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
192users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
193
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
197server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
198rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
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
218manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
219
220An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
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).
226
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
237To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
238in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
239
240manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
241
242Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
243
244To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
245files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
246
247quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
248
249each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
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
264connection. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a
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
274manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
275
276Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
277to the detailed description below for a complete description.
278
279verb(
280 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
281 -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
282 -c, --checksum always checksum
283 -a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
284 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
285 -R, --relative use relative path names
286 --no-relative turn off --relative
287 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
288 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
289 --backup-dir make backups into this directory
290 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
291 -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
292 --inplace update the destination files inplace
293 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
294 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
295 -L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
296 --copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
297 --safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks
298 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
299 -p, --perms preserve permissions
300 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
301 -g, --group preserve group
302 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
303 -t, --times preserve times
304 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
305 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
306 -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
307 --no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
308 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
309 -B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size (default 700)
310 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
311 --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
312 --existing only update files that already exist
313 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
314 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
315 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
316 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
317 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
318 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
319 --partial keep partially transferred files
320 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
321 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
322 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
323 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
324 -I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
325 --size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
326 --modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
327 -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
328 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
329 --link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
330 -P equivalent to --partial --progress
331 -z, --compress compress file data
332 -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
333 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
334 --exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
335 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
336 --include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
337 --files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
338 -0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
339 --version print version number
340 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
341 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
342 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
343 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
344 --port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
345 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
346 --no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
347 --stats give some file transfer stats
348 --progress show progress during transfer
349 --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
350 --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
351 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
352 --write-batch=FILE write a batch to FILE
353 --read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE
354 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed
355 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
356 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
357 -h, --help show this help screen
358
359
360)
361
362manpageoptions()
363
364rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
365options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
366below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
367The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
368can be used instead.
369
370startdit()
371dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
372available in rsync
373
374dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit
375
376dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
377are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
378single -v will give you information about what files are being
379transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
380information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
381information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
382you are debugging rsync.
383
384dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
385are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
386from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
387cron.
388
389dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
390already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
391This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
392
393dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
394already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
395--size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
396regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
397after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
398exactly.
399
400dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps rsync treats
401the timestamps as being equal if they are within the value of
402modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
403set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
404transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
405with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
406
407dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
408a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
409explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
410which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
411receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
412
413dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
414way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
415everything.
416
417Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
418finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
419specify bf(-H).
420
421dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
422recursively. If you don't specify this then rsync won't copy
423directories at all.
424
425dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
426names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
427just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
428you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
429example, if you used the command
430
431verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
432
433then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
434machine. If instead you used
435
436verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
437
438then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
439machine -- the full path name is preserved.
440
441dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
442needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
443file processing.
444
445dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
446implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
447of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
448the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
449path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,
450the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
451destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
452the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
453which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
454symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
455
456dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
457renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
458backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
459--backup-dir and --suffix options.
460
461dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
462tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
463very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
464specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
465(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
466will keep their original filenames).
467If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
468(which changes in a recursive transfer).
469
470dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
471backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
472if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
473
474dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the
475destination file already exists and has a date later than the source
476file.
477
478In the currently implementation, a difference of file format is always
479considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
480is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
481symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
482regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
483free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
484
485dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
486pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
487from the sender.
488
489dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
490and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
491file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't extract the full amount of
492network reduction it might otherwise.
493
494This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based change
495or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound not network bound.
496
497WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
498transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
499should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
500rsync will be unable to update a file inplace that is not writable by the
501receiving user.
502
503dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
504symlink on the destination.
505
506dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
507they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
508versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
509receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
510modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify --keep-dirlinks (-K)
511to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
512an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L option
513will still have the side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
514
515dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
516symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
517are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
518source path itself when --relative is used.
519
520dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
521which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
522also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
523give unexpected results.
524
525dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
526the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
527option hard links are treated like regular files.
528
529Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
530are in the list of files being sent.
531
532This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
533
534dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
535is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
536faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
537destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
538"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
539the source and destination are specified as local paths.
540
541dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
542default.
543
544dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
545permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
546
547Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
548source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
549other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
550(which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
551
552dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
553destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
554only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
555is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
556circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
557
558dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
559destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
560program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
561receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
562is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
563circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
564
565dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
566block device information to the remote system to recreate these
567devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
568
569dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
570with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
571option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
572modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
573cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, and all files will have
574their checksums compared and show up in log messages even if they haven't
575changed.
576
577dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
578instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
579
580dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
581up less space on the destination.
582
583NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
584filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
585correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
586
587dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
588boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
589contents of only one filesystem.
590
591dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
592only update files that already exist on the destination.
593
594dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
595This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
596the destination.
597
598dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
599files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
600to prevent disasters.
601
602dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving
603side that aren't on the sending side. Files that are excluded from
604transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
605
606This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
607
608This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
609to run first using the dry run option (-n) to see what files would be
610deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
611
612If the sending side detects any I/O errors then the deletion of any
613files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
614prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
615sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
616destination. You can override this with the --ignore-errors option.
617
618dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
619receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
620delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
621Implies --delete.
622
623dit(bf(--delete-after)) By default rsync does file deletions on the
624receiving side before transferring files to try to ensure that there is
625sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If you want to delete
626after transferring, use the --delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
627
628dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
629even when there are I/O errors.
630
631dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
632they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
633is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
634Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
635
636dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in
637the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details.
638
639dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
640remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
641remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
642default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
643
644If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
645remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
646remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
647shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
648running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
649TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
650
651Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
652presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
653
654quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
655
656(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
657options in their .ssh/config file.)
658
659You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
660environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.
661
662See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
663
664dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
665rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note
666that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that
667the binary is in.
668
669dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
670broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
671systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
672a file should be ignored.
673
674The exclude list is initialized to:
675
676quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
677.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
678.del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)
679
680then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
681files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
682are delimited by whitespace).
683
684Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
685.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
686See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
687
688dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
689certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most
690useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
691
692You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like
693to build up the list of files to exclude.
694
695See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
696
697dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
698option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
699FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
700';' or '#' are ignored.
701If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
702
703dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
704specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to
705build up quite complex exclude/include rules.
706
707See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
708
709dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
710from a file.
711If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
712
713dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
714exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
715for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
716transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
717instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
718is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
719directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
720than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
721behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
722you want it.
723
724The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
725source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
726allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
727command:
728
729quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
730
731If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
732directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
733contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
734or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
735that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
736duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
737force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
738
739In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host
740instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
741(the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
742specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
743transfer". For example:
744
745quote(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
746
747This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
748was located on the remote "src" host.
749
750dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
751file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
752This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, and --files-from.
753It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
754file are split on whitespace).
755
756dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
757scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
758transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
759the temporary files in the receiving directory.
760
761dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR on
762the destination machine as an additional directory to compare destination
763files against when doing transfers if the files are missing in the
764destination directory. This is useful for doing transfers to a new
765destination while leaving existing files intact, and then doing a
766flash-cutover when all files have been successfully transferred (for
767example by moving directories around and removing the old directory,
768although this skips files that haven't changed; see also --link-dest).
769This option increases the usefulness of --partial because partially
770transferred files will remain in the new temporary destination until they
771have a chance to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative
772to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
773
774dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest) but
775also will create hard links from em(DIR) to the destination directory for
776unchanged files. Files with changed ownership or permissions will not be
777linked.
778Like bf(--compare-dest) if DIR is a relative path, it is relative
779to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
780An example:
781
782verb(
783 rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
784)
785
786dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
787the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
788option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
789same method that gzip uses.
790
791Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios
792that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a
793compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit
794information sent for matching data blocks.
795
796dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
797and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
798at both ends.
799
800By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
801what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
8020 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
803option is not specified.
804
805If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
806on the destination system, then the numeric ID
807from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
808"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
809the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
810users and groups and what you can do about it.
811
812dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
813timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
814then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
815
816dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
817daemon may be accessed using the bf(host::module) or
818bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
819
820If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
821run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
822become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
823(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
824requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
825details.
826
827dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
828rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
829option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
830be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
831bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
832bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
833debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
834sshd.
835
836dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
837when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
838rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
839address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
840in conjunction with the --config option.
841
842dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
843the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified.
844The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
845a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
846the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
847
848dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
849rather than the default port 873.
850
851dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
852a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
853rsync defaults to using
854blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
855ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
856
857dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
858default.
859
860dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
861rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
862specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
863rsyncd.conf.
864
865dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
866on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
867algorithm is for your data.
868
869dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
870transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
871it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
872--partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
873make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
874
875dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to
876put a partially transferred file into DIR instead of writing out the
877file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this
878dir as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after
879rsync creates a partial file) and delete such a file after it has served
880its purpose.
881
882Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
883whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
884"--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory
885in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to remove the DIR
886if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the
887DIR was specified as a relative path).
888
889If you are deleting files on the destination and your partial-dir is
890inside the destination hierarchy, make sure you specify an exclude to
891prevent the partial file from being deleted (it could get deleted at the
892end of the transfer when using --delete-after, or at the beginning of the
893transfer when using --delete). E.g. "--exclude=.rsync-partial/".
894
895IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users to
896avoid a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
897
898dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
899showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
900something to watch.
901Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
902
903When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
904
905verb(
906 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
907)
908
909This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
910is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
911data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
912remaining in this transfer.
913
914After the a file is complete, it the data looks like this:
915
916verb(
917 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
918)
919
920This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
921transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
922the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
923These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
924what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
925
926dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. I
927found myself typing that combination quite often so I created an
928option to make it easier.
929
930dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
931in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
932is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
933transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
934must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
935single line.
936
937dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
938transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
939using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
940of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
941transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
942result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
943of zero specifies no limit.
944
945dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
946another identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE"
947section for details.
948
949dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
950file previously generated by --write-batch.
951If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
952See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
953
954dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
955when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
956control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
957rsync daemon, or the incoming sockets that an rsync daemon uses to
958listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
959versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
960an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
961try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
962
963dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
964NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
965MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
966by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
967is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
968applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
969in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
970Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
971for checksum seed.
972
973enddit()
974
975manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
976
977The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
978selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip.
979
980Rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
981the command line. Rsync checks each file and directory
982name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching
983pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern, then that file is
984skipped. If it is an include pattern then that filename is not
985skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the
986filename is not skipped.
987
988The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative
989to the "root of the transfer". If you think of the transfer as a
990subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the root
991is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory.
992This root governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
993
994Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
995trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
996option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
997changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
998system). The following examples demonstrate this.
999
1000Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1001path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1002Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1003
1004verb(
1005 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
1006 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
1007 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
1008 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1009 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1010
1011 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
1012 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
1013 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
1014 Target file: /dest/foo/bar
1015 Target file: /dest/bar/baz
1016
1017 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
1018 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
1019 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
1020 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
1021 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
1022
1023 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
1024 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
1025 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
1026 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1027 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1028)
1029
1030The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just
1031look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
1032(use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1033
1034Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a),
1035every subcomponent of
1036every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get
1037applied recursively to each subcomponent.
1038The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1039when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1040parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1041because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1042hierarchy.
1043
1044Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern
1045each. To add multiple patterns use the --include-from and
1046--exclude-from options or multiple --include and --exclude options.
1047
1048The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
1049
1050itemize(
1051
1052 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the
1053 start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of
1054 the filename.
1055 This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regular expressions.
1056 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root
1057 (see above for how this is different from the filesystem-root).
1058 On the other hand, "foo" would match any file called "foo"
1059 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1060 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1061 end of the file name.
1062
1063 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1064 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1065
1066 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1067 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1068 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1069
1070 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1071 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1072
1073 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1074 then it is matched against the full filename, including any leading
1075 directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1076 matched only against the final component of the filename. Again,
1077 remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can
1078 actually be any portion of a path below the starting directory.
1079
1080 it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
1081 then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
1082 part of an exclude option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
1083
1084 it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)
1085 then it is always considered an exclude pattern, even if specified as
1086 part of an include option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
1087
1088 it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current
1089 include/exclude list is reset, removing all previously defined patterns.
1090)
1091
1092The +/- rules are most useful in a list that was read from a file, allowing
1093you to have a single exclude list that contains both include and exclude
1094options in the proper order.
1095
1096Remember that the matching occurs at every step in the traversal of the
1097directory hierarchy, so you must be sure that all the parent directories of
1098the files you want to include are not excluded. This is particularly
1099important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
1100
1101verb(
1102 + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
1103 + /file-is-included
1104 - *
1105)
1106
1107This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule,
1108so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1109directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1110to be included by using a single rule: --include='*/' (put it somewhere
1111before the --exclude='*' rule). Another solution is to add specific
1112include rules for all the parent dirs that need to be visited. For
1113instance, this set of rules works fine:
1114
1115verb(
1116 + /some/
1117 + /some/path/
1118 + /some/path/this-file-is-found
1119 + /file-also-included
1120 - *
1121)
1122
1123Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1124
1125itemize(
1126 it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1127 it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1128 it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1129 it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1130 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1131 it() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1132 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1133 it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
1134 directories and C source files
1135 it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
1136 only foo/bar.c (the foo/ directory must be explicitly included or
1137 it would be excluded by the "*")
1138)
1139
1140manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1141
1142bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
1143of rsync. The interface and behavior have now stabilized, though, so
1144feel free to try this out.
1145
1146Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1147identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1148number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1149source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1150hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1151write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1152of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1153client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1154this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1155
1156To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1157with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1158file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1159using the information stored in the batch file.
1160
1161For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1162option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1163".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1164a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1165batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1166passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1167instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1168path differs from the original destination tree path.
1169
1170Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1171status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1172updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1173be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1174at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1175
1176Examples:
1177
1178verb(
1179 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1180 $ scp foo* remote:
1181 $ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
1182)
1183
1184verb(
1185 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1186 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
1187)
1188
1189In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1190and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1191"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1192into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1193reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1194
1195itemize(
1196
1197 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1198 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1199 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1200
1201 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1202 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1203
1204 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1205 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1206 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1207 --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1208 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1209 standard input, such as the "--exclude-from=-" option).
1210
1211)
1212
1213Caveats:
1214
1215The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1216to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1217batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1218is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
1219appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1220and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1221error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1222if the command got updated. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1223always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I
1224option. If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1225partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1226be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1227destination tree.
1228
1229The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1230one used to generate the batch file.
1231
1232The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
1233error.
1234
1235When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
1236to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
1237as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
1238For instance
1239--write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
1240--include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
1241without --delete-excluded.
1242
1243The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude
1244options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
1245shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
1246list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A normal
1247user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
1248to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
1249
1250See bf(http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html) for papers and technical
1251reports.
1252
1253manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1254
1255Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
1256link in the source directory.
1257
1258By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1259"skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1260
1261If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1262target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1263bf(--links).
1264
1265If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1266copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1267
1268rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1269example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1270ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1271bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1272bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1273they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
1274unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
1275
1276Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1277(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1278components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1279
1280manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
1281
1282rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
1283cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1284version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
1285
1286This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1287facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
1288for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
1289remote shell like this:
1290
1291verb(
1292 ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
1293)
1294
1295then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
1296should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
1297rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
1298data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
1299it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
1300scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
1301for non-interactive logins.
1302
1303If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude patterns, then
1304try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
1305show why each individual file is included or excluded.
1306
1307manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
1308
1309startdit()
1310dit(bf(0)) Success
1311dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
1312dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
1313dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
1314dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
1315was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
1316them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
1317not by the server.
1318dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
1319dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
1320dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
1321dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
1322dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
1323dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
1324dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
1325dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
1326dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
1327dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
1328dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
1329dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
1330enddit()
1331
1332manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
1333
1334startdit()
1335
1336dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
1337ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for
1338more details.
1339
1340dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
1341override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
1342options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
1343
1344dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
1345redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
1346rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
1347
1348dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
1349password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
1350daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
1351password to a shell transport such as ssh.
1352
1353dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
1354are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
1355If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
1356
1357dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
1358default .cvsignore file.
1359
1360enddit()
1361
1362manpagefiles()
1363
1364/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
1365
1366manpageseealso()
1367
1368rsyncd.conf(5)
1369
1370manpagediagnostics()
1371
1372manpagebugs()
1373
1374times are transferred as unix time_t values
1375
1376When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
1377unmodified files.
1378See the comments on the --modify-window option.
1379
1380file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
1381values
1382
1383see also the comments on the --delete option
1384
1385Please report bugs! See the website at
1386url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
1387
1388manpagesection(CREDITS)
1389
1390rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
1391COPYING for details.
1392
1393A WEB site is available at
1394url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
1395includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
1396manual page.
1397
1398The primary ftp site for rsync is
1399url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
1400
1401We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
1402
1403This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
1404Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
1405
1406manpagesection(THANKS)
1407
1408Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
1409and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
1410I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
1411
1412Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
1413Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
1414
1415manpageauthor()
1416
1417rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
1418Many people have later contributed to it.
1419
1420Mailing lists for support and development are available at
1421url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)