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