Changed d_name() to be a static inline function.
[rsync/rsync.git] / rsync.yo
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1mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2manpage(rsync)(1)(1 Mar 2008)()()
3manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
4manpagesynopsis()
5
6verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
7
8Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
11
12Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
17
18Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
19instead of copying.
20
21manpagedescription()
22
23Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31improved copy command for everyday use.
32
33Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
38
39Some of the additional features of rsync are:
40
41itemization(
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
49 mirroring)
50)
51
52manpagesection(GENERAL)
53
54Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
56
57There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65an exception to this latter rule).
66
67As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
69
70As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
72
73manpagesection(SETUP)
74
75See the file README for installation instructions.
76
77Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
78a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
79daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
80for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
81different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
82
83You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
84command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
85
86Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
87machines.
88
89manpagesection(USAGE)
90
91You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
92and a destination, one of which may be remote.
93
94Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
95
96quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
97
98This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
99current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
100the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
101remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
102differences. See the tech report for details.
103
104quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
105
106This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
107machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
108files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
109links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
110in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
111size of data portions of the transfer.
112
113quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
114
115A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
116additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
117/ on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
118to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
119containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
120destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
121files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
122/dest/foo:
123
124quote(
125tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
126tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
127)
128
129Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
130copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
131copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
132
133quote(
134tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
135tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
136)
137
138You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
139destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
140an improved copy command.
141
142Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
143particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
144
145quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
146
147See the following section for more details.
148
149manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
150
151The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
152specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
153or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
154
155quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
156tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
157tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
158
159Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
160examples:
161
162quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
163tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
164
165This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
166not as easy to use as the first method.
167
168If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
169specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
170the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
171instance:
172
173quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
174
175manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
176
177It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
178In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
179using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
180the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
181CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
182
183Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
184that:
185
186itemization(
187 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
188 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
189 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
190 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
191 connect.
192 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
193 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
194 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
195 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
196 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
197)
198
199An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
200
201verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
202
203Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
204you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
205password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
206the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
207may be useful when scripting rsync.
208
209WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
210users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
211
212You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
213environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
214your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
215proxy connections to port 873.
216
217You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
218setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
219wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
220contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
221command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
222example:
223
224verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
225 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
226 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
227
228The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
229which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
230(%H).
231
232manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
233
234It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
235named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
236system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
237Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
238a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
239home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
240daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
241the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
242change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
243transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
244configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
245connections from "localhost".)
246
247From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
248connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
249rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
250explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
251bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
252will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
253
254verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
255
256If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
257user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
258module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
259give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
260this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
261
262verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
263
264The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
265used to log-in to the "module".
266
267manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
268
269In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
270daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
271to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
272For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
273socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
274file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
275daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
276
277If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
278no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
279
280manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
281
282Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
283
284To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
285files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
286
287quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
288
289each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
290"arvidsjaur".
291
292To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
293targets:
294
295verb( get:
296 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
297 put:
298 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
299 sync: get put)
300
301this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
302connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
303lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
304
305I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
306command:
307
308tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
309
310This is launched from cron every few hours.
311
312manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
313
314Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
315to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
316 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
317 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
318 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
319 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
320 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
321 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
322 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
323 -R, --relative use relative path names
324 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
325 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
326 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
327 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
328 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
329 --inplace update destination files in-place
330 --append append data onto shorter files
331 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
332 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
333 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
334 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
335 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
336 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
337 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
338 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
339 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
340 -p, --perms preserve permissions
341 -E, --executability preserve executability
342 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
343 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
344 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
345 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
346 -g, --group preserve group
347 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
348 --specials preserve special files
349 -D same as --devices --specials
350 -t, --times preserve modification times
351 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
352 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
353 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
354 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
355 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
356 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
357 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
358 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
359 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
360 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
361 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
362 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
363 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
364 --del an alias for --delete-during
365 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
366 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
367 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
368 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
369 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
370 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
371 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
372 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
373 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
374 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
375 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
376 --partial keep partially transferred files
377 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
378 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
379 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
380 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
381 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
382 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
383 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
384 --size-only skip files that match in size
385 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
386 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
387 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
388 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
389 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
390 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
391 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
392 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
393 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
394 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
395 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
396 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
397 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
398 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
399 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
400 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
401 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
402 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
403 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
404 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
405 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
406 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
407 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
408 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
409 --stats give some file-transfer stats
410 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
411 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
412 --progress show progress during transfer
413 -P same as --partial --progress
414 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
415 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
416 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
417 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
418 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
419 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
420 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
421 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
422 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
423 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
424 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
425 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
426 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
427 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
428 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
429 --version print version number
430(-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
431
432Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
433accepted: verb(
434 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
435 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
436 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
437 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
438 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
439 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
440 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
441 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
442 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
443 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
444 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
445 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
446 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
447
448manpageoptions()
449
450rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
451options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
452below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
453The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
454can be used instead.
455
456startdit()
457dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
458available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
459versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
460option without any other args.
461
462dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
463
464dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
465are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
466single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
467transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
468information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
469information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
470you are debugging rsync.
471
472Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
473a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
474file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
475level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
476changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
477bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
478output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
479any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
480
481dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
482are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
483from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
484cron.
485
486dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
487by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
488message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
489that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
490a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
491request the list of modules from the daemon.
492
493dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
494already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
495This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
496be updated.
497
498dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
499finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
500transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
501time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
502when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
503not preserve timestamps exactly.
504
505dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
506timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
507value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
508to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
509transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
510times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
511(allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
512
513dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
514been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
515uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
516of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
517changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a
518matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
519a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
520this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
521so this can slow things down significantly.
522
523The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
524scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
525its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
526file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
527either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
528
529Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
530correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
531checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
532automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
533option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
534
535dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
536way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
537everything (with -H being a notable omission).
538The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
539specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
540
541Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
542finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
543specify bf(-H).
544
545dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
546the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
547only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
548bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
549(e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
550specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
551(e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
552
553For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
554bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
555could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
556
557The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
558bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
559Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
560positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
561changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
562details).
563
564dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
565recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
566
567Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
568incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
569transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
570completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
571does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
572both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
573
574Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
575disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
576bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
577Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
578bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
579(use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
580explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
581than using bf(--delete-after).
582
583Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
584option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
585
586dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
587names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
588just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
589you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
590example, if you used this command:
591
592quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
593
594... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
595machine. If instead you used
596
597quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
598
599then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
600machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
601"implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
602above example).
603
604Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
605real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
606symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
607behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
608a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
609include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
610path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
611need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
612
613It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
614implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
615sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
616the source path, like this:
617
618quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
619
620That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
621dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
622(2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
623source path. For example, when pushing files:
624
625quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
626
627(Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
628"cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
629If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
630for a non-daemon transfer):
631
632quote(
633tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
634tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
635)
636
637dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
638bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
639directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
640means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
641left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
642created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
643elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
644the receiving side.
645
646For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
647transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
648are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
649"bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
650delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
651the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
652"path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
653ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
654preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
655affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
656
657When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
658option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
659wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
660
661dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
662renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
663backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
664bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
665
666Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
667bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
668also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
669filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
670(e.g. bf(-f "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
671deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
672need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
673in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
674your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
675rule would never be reached).
676
677dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
678tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
679side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
680specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
681(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
682will keep their original filenames).
683
684dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
685backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
686if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
687
688dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
689the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
690file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
691source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
692
693Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
694files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
695is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
696date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
697where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
698the timestamps.
699
700dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
701and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
702file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
703network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
704to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
705with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
706basis file for the transfer.
707
708This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
709or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
710bound.
711
712The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
713the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
714Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
715and bf(--link-dest).
716
717WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
718transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
719should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
720rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
721receiving user.
722
723dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
724the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
725the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
726side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
727the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
728does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
729(e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
730transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
731Implies bf(--inplace),
732but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
733file's length).
734
735dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
736the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
737checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
738final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
739bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
740
741Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
742bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
743transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
744will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
745
746dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
747are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
748unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
749(e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
750bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
751output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
752bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
753
754This option is implied by the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
755bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
756directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
757if you want to override this. This option is also implied by
758bf(--files-from).
759
760dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
761symlink on the destination.
762
763dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
764they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
765versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
766receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
767modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
768to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
769an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
770will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
771
772dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
773symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
774are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
775source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
776additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
777
778dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
779which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
780also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
781give unexpected results.
782
783dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
784a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
785useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
786they would be using bf(--copy-links).
787
788Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
789symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
790the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
791bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
792
793See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
794side.
795
796dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
797a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
798matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
799receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
800
801For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
802"file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
803bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
804directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
805bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
806"bar".
807
808One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
809the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
810create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
811subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
812content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
813you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
814to modify your receiving hierarchy.
815
816See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
817
818dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
819the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
820side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
821as though they were separate files.
822
823When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
824that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
825together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
826already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
827the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
828have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
829are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
830
831Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
832the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
833connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
834you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
835very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
836certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
837see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
838
839If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
840a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
841exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
842the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
843incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
844
845dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
846destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
847also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
848be the source permissions.)
849
850When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
851
852quote(itemization(
853 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
854 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
855 the execute permission for the file.
856 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
857 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
858 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
859 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
860 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
861 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
862))
863
864Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
865rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
866such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
867
868In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
869permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
870permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
871bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
872all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
873behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
874putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
875and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
876
877quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
878
879You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
880
881quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
882
883(Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
884the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
885
886The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
887directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
888versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
889newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
890destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
891observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
892non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
893(Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
894these behaviors.)
895
896dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
897executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
898not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
899'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
900executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
901modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
902
903quote(itemization(
904 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
905 permissions.
906 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
907 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
908))
909
910If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
911
912dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
913ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
914The option also implies bf(--perms).
915
916The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
917option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
918and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
919
920dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
921extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
922
923For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
924super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
925the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
926a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
927
928dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
929comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
930transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
931that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
932can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
933
934In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
935manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
936prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
937file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
938
939quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
940
941It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
942additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
943
944See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
945permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
946
947dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
948destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
949receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
950and bf(--fake-super) options).
951Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
952the invoking user on the receiving side.
953
954The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
955may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
956bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
957
958dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
959destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
960program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
961specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
962is a member of will be preserved.
963Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
964user on the receiving side.
965
966The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
967default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
968(see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
969
970dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
971block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
972This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
973super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
974
975dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
976such as named sockets and fifos.
977
978dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
979
980dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
981with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
982option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
983modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
984cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
985updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
986if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
987
988dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
989it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
990the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
991This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
992
993dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
994activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
995activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
996all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
997option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
998for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
999also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1000being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1001super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1002
1003dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1004super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1005special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1006includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1007device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1008any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1009the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1010access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1011files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1012This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1013extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1014
1015This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1016ACLs from incompatible systems.
1017
1018The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1019To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1020path:
1021
1022quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1023
1024Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
1025the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
1026"localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1027script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1028shell (see bf(--rsh)).
1029
1030This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1031
1032See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1033
1034dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1035up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1036not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1037
1038NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1039filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1040correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1041
1042dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1043make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1044is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1045bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1046to do before one actually runs it.
1047
1048The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1049dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1050call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1051extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1052send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1053the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1054statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1055where no file transfers are needed.
1056
1057dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the delta-transfer algorithm
1058is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1059faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1060destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1061"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1062the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1063
1064dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1065filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1066to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1067through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1068the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1069in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1070same filesystem.
1071
1072If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1073the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1074encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1075the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1076
1077If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1078bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1079treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1080by this option.
1081
1082dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1083creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1084yet on the destination. If this option is
1085combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1086(which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1087
1088dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1089already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1090directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1091
1092This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1093option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1094a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1095used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1096already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1097permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1098is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1099
1100dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1101side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1102and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1103
1104dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1105receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1106directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1107send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1108for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1109by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1110the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
1111also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1112option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1113include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1114
1115Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1116was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1117(bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1118
1119This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1120first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1121going to be deleted.
1122
1123If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1124files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1125prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1126sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
1127destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1128
1129The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1130without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1131--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1132bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to an rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1133the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1134bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1135
1136dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1137side be done before the transfer starts.
1138See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1139
1140Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1141and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1142However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1143and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1144specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1145algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1146memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1147
1148dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1149receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
1150a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
1151but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
1152See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1153
1154dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1155side be computed during the transfer, and then removed after the transfer
1156completes. If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1157temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1158is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1159the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1160using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1161incremental scan).
1162
1163dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1164side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1165are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1166you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1167current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1168recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1169transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1170See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1171
1172dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1173receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1174delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1175See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1176this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1177bf(--delete-excluded).
1178See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1179
1180dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1181even when there are I/O errors.
1182
1183dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1184when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1185deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1186
1187Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1188using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1189bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1190
1191dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1192files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1193and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1194
1195Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1196about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1197Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1198version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1199a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1200older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1201
1202dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1203file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1204suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1205may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1206
1207The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1208"M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1209gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1210If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1211"MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1212Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1213be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1214
1215Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
12162147483649 bytes.
1217
1218dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1219file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1220transferring small, junk files.
1221See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
1222
1223dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1224the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1225the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1226
1227dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1228remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1229remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1230default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1231
1232If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1233remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1234remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1235shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1236running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1237RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1238
1239Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1240presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1241or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1242and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1243argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1244inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1245double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1246shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1247
1248quote(
1249tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1250tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1251)
1252
1253(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1254options in their .ssh/config file.)
1255
1256You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1257environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1258
1259See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1260
1261dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1262on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1263the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1264Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1265program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1266not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1267communicate.
1268
1269One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1270machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1271
1272quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1273
1274dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1275broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1276systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1277a file should be ignored.
1278
1279The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1280initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1281
1282quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1283.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1284*.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1285
1286then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1287files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1288are delimited by whitespace).
1289
1290Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1291.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1292rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1293See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1294
1295If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1296note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1297regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1298a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1299control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1300should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1301bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1302putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1303The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1304file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1305mentioned above.
1306
1307dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1308exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1309most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1310
1311You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1312to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1313be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1314argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1315replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1316
1317See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1318
1319dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1320your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1321
1322quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1323
1324This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1325been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1326files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1327rule:
1328
1329quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1330
1331This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1332
1333See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1334work.
1335
1336dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1337bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1338the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1339
1340See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1341
1342dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1343option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1344Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1345If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1346
1347dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1348bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1349the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1350
1351See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1352
1353dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1354option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1355Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1356If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1357
1358dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1359exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1360for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1361transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1362
1363quote(itemization(
1364 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1365 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1366 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1367 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1368 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1369 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1370 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1371 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1372 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1373 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1374 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1375 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1376))
1377
1378The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1379source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1380allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1381command:
1382
1383quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1384
1385If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1386directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1387contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1388the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1389mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1390if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1391also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1392explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1393Also note
1394that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1395duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1396force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1397
1398In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1399instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1400(the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1401specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1402transfer". For example:
1403
1404quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1405
1406This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1407was located on the remote "src" host.
1408
1409dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1410file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1411This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1412merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1413It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1414file are split on whitespace).
1415
1416If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1417bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1418filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1419receiving host's charset.
1420
1421dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1422the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1423means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1424characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1425expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1426
1427If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
1428from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1429wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1430
1431dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1432scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1433on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1434file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1435
1436This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1437have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1438In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1439partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1440over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1441into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1442destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1443truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1444the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1445temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1446it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1447someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1448new version on the disk at the same time.
1449
1450If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1451space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1452which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1453destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1454have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1455partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1456about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1457path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1458single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1459partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1460rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1461an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1462
1463dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1464basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1465looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1466has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1467found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1468
1469Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1470fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1471filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1472
1473dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1474the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1475files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1476directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1477sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1478directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1479have changed from an earlier backup.
1480
1481Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1482provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1483for an exact match.
1484If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1485and the attributes updated.
1486If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1487selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1488
1489If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1490See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1491
1492dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1493rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1494directory using a local copy.
1495This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1496existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1497been successfully transferred.
1498
1499Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1500rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1501If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1502selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1503
1504If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1505See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1506
1507dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1508unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1509The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1510possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1511An example:
1512
1513quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1514
1515Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1516provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1517for an exact match.
1518If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1519and the attributes updated.
1520If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1521selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1522
1523This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1524rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1525dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1526change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1527versions).
1528
1529Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1530link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1531substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1532file is updated.
1533
1534If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1535See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1536
1537Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1538bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1539specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1540the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1541
1542dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1543as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1544being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1545
1546Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1547be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1548because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1549blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1550
1551See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1552that will not be compressed.
1553
1554dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1555(see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1556the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1557
1558dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1559not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1560(without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1561
1562You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1563
1564Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1565of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1566"[:alpha:]", are supported).
1567
1568The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1569
1570Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1571matches 2 suffixes):
1572
1573verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1574
1575The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1576of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1577
1578verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1579
1580This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1581situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1582its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1583different default).
1584
1585dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1586and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1587at both ends.
1588
1589By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1590what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
15910 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1592option is not specified.
1593
1594If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1595on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1596from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1597"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1598the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1599users and groups and what you can do about it.
1600
1601dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1602timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1603then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1604
1605dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1606that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1607If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1608
1609dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1610connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1611specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1612option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1613
1614dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1615rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1616double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1617syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1618option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1619
1620dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1621who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1622sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1623slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1624details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1625special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1626connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1627bf(--daemon) mode section.
1628
1629dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1630a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1631rsync defaults to using
1632blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1633ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1634
1635dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1636changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1637This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1638If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1639if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1640with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1641verbose messages).
1642
1643The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1644format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1645type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1646other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1647modified.
1648
1649The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1650
1651quote(itemization(
1652 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1653 (sent).
1654 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1655 (received).
1656 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1657 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1658 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1659 bf(--hard-links)).
1660 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1661 have attributes that are being modified).
1662 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1663 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1664))
1665
1666The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1667directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1668special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1669
1670The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1671will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1672a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1673item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1674dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1675a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1676
1677The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1678
1679quote(itemization(
1680 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1681 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1682 a changed value.
1683 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1684 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1685 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1686 by the file transfer.
1687 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1688 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1689 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1690 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1691 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1692 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1693 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1694 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1695 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1696 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1697 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1698 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1699 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1700 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1701 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1702 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1703))
1704
1705One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1706the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1707you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1708outputting them as a verbose message).
1709
1710dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1711rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text
1712string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1713a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1714the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1715
1716Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1717in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1718touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is
1719included in the string, the logging of names increases to mention any
1720item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
17212.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1722output of "%i".
1723
1724The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1725bf(--out-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1726the format of its per-file output using this option.
1727
1728Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1729one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1730logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1731is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1732the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1733(followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1734
1735dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1736to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1737requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1738transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1739enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1740option if you wish to override this.
1741
1742Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1743happening:
1744
1745verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1746
1747This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1748unexpectedly.
1749
1750dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1751per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1752(which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1753specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1754For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1755in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1756
1757dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1758on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1759algorithm is for your data.
1760
1761The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1762 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1763 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1764 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1765 were updated via the rsync algorithm, which does not include created
1766 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1767 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1768 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1769 include the size of symlinks.
1770 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1771 for just the transferred files.
1772 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1773 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1774 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1775 recreating the updated files.
1776 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1777 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1778 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1779 list.
1780 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1781 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1782 sending side for this to be present.
1783 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1784 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1785 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1786 from the client side to the server side.
1787 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1788 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1789 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1790 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1791))
1792
1793dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1794unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1795valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1796characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1797setting.
1798
1799The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1800and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1801would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1802escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1803
1804dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1805This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1806this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1807G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1808instead of 1000.
1809
1810dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1811transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1812it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1813bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1814make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1815
1816dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1817bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1818partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1819On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1820dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1821after it has served its purpose.
1822
1823Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1824file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1825(since
1826rsync is sending files without using the delta transfer algorithm).
1827
1828Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1829the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1830"bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1831partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1832remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1833
1834If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1835rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1836sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1837will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1838receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1839the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1840filter rules.
1841
1842If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1843exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1844rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1845to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1846rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1847should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1848bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1849bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1850left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1851
1852IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1853is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1854
1855You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1856variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1857enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1858specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1859along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1860environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1861.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1862option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1863specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1864bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1865
1866For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1867bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1868refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1869of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1870safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1871
1872dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1873updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1874transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1875succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1876atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1877each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1878bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1879comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1880".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1881you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1882Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1883
1884This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1885transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1886side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1887you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1888there is no
1889chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1890the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1891absolute)
1892and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1893delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1894
1895See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1896update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1897parallel hierarchy of files).
1898
1899dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1900rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1901that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1902creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1903recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1904rules.
1905
1906Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1907what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1908mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1909being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1910destination files).
1911
1912You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1913by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1914that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1915
1916quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1917
1918Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1919the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1920that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1921(note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1922
1923quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1924
1925If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1926time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
1927in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
1928
1929dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1930showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1931something to watch.
1932Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1933
1934While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
1935looks like this:
1936
1937verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1938
1939In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
1940sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
1941per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
1942is maintained until the end.
1943
1944These statistics can be misleading if the delta transfer algorithm is
1945in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
1946followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
1947dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
1948will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
1949was finishing the matched part of the file.
1950
1951When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
1952summary line that looks like this:
1953
1954verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
1955
1956In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
1957of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
1958seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
1959during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
1960receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
1961the 396 total files in the file-list.
1962
1963dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1964purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1965transfer that may be interrupted.
1966
1967dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
1968file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
1969It should contain just the password as a single line.
1970
1971This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
1972ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
1973When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
1974option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
1975authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
1976config file).
1977
1978dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1979instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
1980arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
1981command that includes a
1982destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
1983more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
1984Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
1985shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
1986without using this option. For example:
1987
1988verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
1989
1990Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
1991that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
1992non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
1993option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
1994avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
1995need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
1996the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
1997
1998dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1999transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2000using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2001of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2002transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2003result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2004of zero specifies no limit.
2005
2006dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2007another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2008section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2009
2010dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2011no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2012This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2013other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2014
2015Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2016media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2017can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2018whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2019partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2020happening).
2021
2022Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2023system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2024into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2025(when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2026
2027dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2028file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2029If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2030See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2031
2032dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2033is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2034version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2035bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2036bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2037batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2038file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2039
2040dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2041sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2042the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2043fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2044separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2045bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2046will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2047Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2048to turn off any conversion.
2049The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2050affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2051
2052For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2053run "iconv --list".
2054
2055If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2056the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2057remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2058
2059Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2060(including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2061specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2062For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2063filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2064
2065When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2066daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2067regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2068specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2069
2070dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2071when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2072control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2073rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2074
2075If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2076will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2077is the case.
2078
2079dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
2080NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2081MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2082by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2083is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2084applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2085in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2086Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2087for checksum seed.
2088enddit()
2089
2090manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2091
2092The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2093
2094startdit()
2095dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2096daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2097the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2098
2099If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2100run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2101become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2102(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2103requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2104details.
2105
2106dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2107run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2108allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2109makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2110See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2111
2112dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2113transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2114The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2115requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2116client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2117
2118dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2119the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2120The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2121a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2122the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2123
2124dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2125rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2126option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2127be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2128bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2129bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2130debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2131sshd.
2132
2133dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2134daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2135global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2136
2137dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2138given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2139file.
2140
2141dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2142given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2143file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2144case transfer logging is turned off.
2145
2146dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2147rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2148
2149dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2150daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2151daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2152used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2153
2154dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2155when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2156listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2157versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2158an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2159try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2160
2161If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2162will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2163is the case.
2164
2165dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2166page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2167enddit()
2168
2169manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2170
2171The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2172(include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2173specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2174include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2175
2176As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2177name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2178turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2179pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2180filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2181filename is not skipped.
2182
2183Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2184command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2185
2186quote(
2187tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2188tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2189)
2190
2191You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2192below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2193MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2194must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2195Here are the available rule prefixes:
2196
2197quote(
2198bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2199bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2200bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2201bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2202bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2203bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2204bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2205bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2206bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2207)
2208
2209When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2210comment lines that start with a "#".
2211
2212Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2213full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2214specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2215list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2216If a pattern
2217does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2218rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2219an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2220the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2221start of the rule.
2222
2223Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2224rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2225the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2226the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2227
2228manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2229
2230You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2231"-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2232The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2233the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2234can take several forms:
2235
2236itemization(
2237 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2238 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2239 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2240 regular expressions.
2241 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2242 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2243 per-directory rule).
2244 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2245 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2246 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2247 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2248 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2249 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2250 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2251 of the transfer.
2252 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2253 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2254 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2255 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2256 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2257 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
2258 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2259 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2260 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2261 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2262 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2263 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2264 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2265 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2266 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2267 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2268 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2269 down.)
2270 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2271 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2272 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2273 version 2.6.7.
2274)
2275
2276Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2277bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2278include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2279full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2280"/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2281The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2282when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2283parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2284because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2285hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2286For instance, this won't work:
2287
2288quote(
2289tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2290tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2291tt(- *)nl()
2292)
2293
2294This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2295rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2296directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2297to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2298"- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2299solution is to add specific include rules for all
2300the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2301works fine:
2302
2303quote(
2304tt(+ /some/)nl()
2305tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2306tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2307tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2308tt(- *)nl()
2309)
2310
2311Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2312
2313itemization(
2314 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2315 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2316 transfer-root directory
2317 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2318 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2319 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2320 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2321 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2322 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2323 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2324 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2325 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2326 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2327 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2328)
2329
2330manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2331
2332You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2333merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2334section above).
2335
2336There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2337per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2338its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2339rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2340it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2341into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2342must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2343being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2344also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2345affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2346below).
2347
2348Some examples:
2349
2350quote(
2351tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2352tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2353tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2354tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2355tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2356)
2357
2358The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2359
2360itemization(
2361 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2362 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2363 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2364 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2365 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2366 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2367 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2368 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2369 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2370 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2371 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2372 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2373 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2374 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2375 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2376 also disabled).
2377 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2378 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2379 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2380 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2381 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2382 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
2383)
2384
2385The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2386
2387itemization(
2388 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2389 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2390 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2391 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2392 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2393 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2394 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2395 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2396 non-directories.
2397 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2398 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2399 follow.
2400 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2401 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2402 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2403 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2404 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2405 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2406 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2407 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2408 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2409 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2410 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2411 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2412 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2413 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2414 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2415 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2416)
2417
2418Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2419where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2420subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2421from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2422inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2423the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2424dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2425rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2426file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2427
2428Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2429anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2430merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2431would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2432file was found.
2433
2434Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2435
2436quote(
2437tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2438tt(- *.gz)nl()
2439tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2440tt(+ *.[ch])nl()
2441tt(- *.o)nl()
2442)
2443
2444This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2445start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2446filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2447follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2448of the transfer).
2449
2450If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2451directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2452dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2453per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2454
2455quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2456
2457That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2458directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2459transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2460the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2461rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2462
2463Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2464
2465quote(
2466tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2467tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2468tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2469)
2470
2471The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2472"/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2473and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2474and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2475a part of the transfer.
2476
2477If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2478you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2479file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2480use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2481per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2482":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2483add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2484rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2485example:
2486
2487quote(
2488tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2489tt(+ foo.o)nl()
2490tt(:C)nl()
2491tt(- *.old)nl()
2492tt(EOT)nl()
2493tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2494)
2495
2496Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2497the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2498at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2499that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2500affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2501the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2502omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2503your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2504
2505manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2506
2507You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2508rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2509list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2510parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2511inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2512out the parent's rules).
2513
2514manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2515
2516As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2517"root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2518anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2519a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2520transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2521directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2522
2523Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2524trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2525option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2526changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2527host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2528
2529Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2530path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2531Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2532
2533quote(
2534 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2535 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2536 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2537 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2538 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2539)
2540
2541quote(
2542 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2543 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2544 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2545 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2546 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2547)
2548
2549quote(
2550 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2551 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2552 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2553 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2554 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2555)
2556
2557quote(
2558 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2559 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2560 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2561 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2562 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2563)
2564
2565The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2566look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2567(use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2568
2569manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2570
2571Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2572sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2573without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2574this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2575
2576quote(
2577tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2578tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2579)
2580
2581However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2582files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2583receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2584the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2585because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2586rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2587
2588quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2589
2590However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2591either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2592line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2593the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2594remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2595
2596verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2597 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2598
2599In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2600transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2601merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2602per-directory merge rule.
2603
2604In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2605files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2606to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2607specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2608deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2609should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2610
2611verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2612 host:src/dir /dest
2613 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2614
2615manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2616
2617Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2618identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2619number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2620source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2621hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2622write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2623of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2624client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2625this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2626
2627To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2628with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2629file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2630using the information stored in the batch file.
2631
2632For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2633option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2634".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2635a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2636batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
2637optionally
2638passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2639instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2640path differs from the original destination tree path.
2641
2642Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2643status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2644updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2645be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2646at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2647
2648Examples:
2649
2650quote(
2651tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2652tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2653tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2654)
2655
2656quote(
2657tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2658tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2659)
2660
2661In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2662and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2663"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2664into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2665reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2666
2667itemization(
2668 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2669 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2670 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2671 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2672 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2673 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2674 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2675 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2676 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2677 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2678 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2679)
2680
2681Caveats:
2682
2683The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2684to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2685batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2686is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2687appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2688and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2689error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2690if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2691always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2692option (when reading the batch).
2693If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2694partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2695be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2696destination tree.
2697
2698The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2699one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2700protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2701to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2702creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2703(Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2704older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2705
2706When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2707to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2708as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2709For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2710bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2711bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2712one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2713
2714The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2715options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2716shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2717list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2718user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2719to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2720
2721The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2722version uses a new implementation.
2723
2724manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2725
2726Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2727link in the source directory.
2728
2729By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2730"skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2731
2732If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2733target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2734bf(--links).
2735
2736If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2737copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2738
2739rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2740example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2741ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2742bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2743bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2744they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2745unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2746bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2747
2748Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2749(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2750components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2751
2752Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2753in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2754use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2755
2756dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2757symlinks for any other options to affect).
2758
2759dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2760and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2761
2762dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2763skip all safe symlinks.
2764
2765dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2766ones.
2767
2768dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2769
2770manpagediagnostics()
2771
2772rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2773cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2774version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2775
2776This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2777facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2778for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2779remote shell like this:
2780
2781quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2782
2783then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2784should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2785rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2786data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2787it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2788scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2789for non-interactive logins.
2790
2791If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2792try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2793show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2794
2795manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2796
2797startdit()
2798dit(bf(0)) Success
2799dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2800dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2801dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2802dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2803was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2804them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2805not by the server.
2806dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2807dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2808dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2809dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2810dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2811dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2812dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2813dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2814dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2815dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2816dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2817dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2818dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2819dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2820dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2821enddit()
2822
2823manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2824
2825startdit()
2826dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2827ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2828more details.
2829dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2830environment variable.
2831dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2832override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2833options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2834dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2835redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2836rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2837dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2838password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2839daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2840password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2841consult the remote shell's documentation.
2842dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2843are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2844If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2845dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2846default .cvsignore file.
2847enddit()
2848
2849manpagefiles()
2850
2851/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2852
2853manpageseealso()
2854
2855bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
2856
2857manpagebugs()
2858
2859times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2860
2861When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2862unmodified files.
2863See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2864
2865file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2866values
2867
2868see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2869
2870Please report bugs! See the web site at
2871url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2872
2873manpagesection(VERSION)
2874
2875This man page is current for version 3.0.0 of rsync.
2876
2877manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2878
2879The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2880and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2881awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2882when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2883the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2884named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2885ssh login.
2886
2887manpagesection(CREDITS)
2888
2889rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2890COPYING for details.
2891
2892A WEB site is available at
2893url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2894includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2895manual page.
2896
2897The primary ftp site for rsync is
2898url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2899
2900We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2901Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
2902
2903This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2904Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2905
2906manpagesection(THANKS)
2907
2908Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
2909David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
2910gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
2911
2912Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2913and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2914
2915manpageauthor()
2916
2917rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2918Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
2919by Wayne Davison.
2920
2921Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2922url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)