| 1 | mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au) |
| 2 | manpage(rsync)(1)(11 Nov 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::module[/path] path |
| 13 | |
| 14 | rsync [options] path [user@]host::module[/path] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | rsync [options] rsync://[user@]host[:port]/module/path path |
| 17 | |
| 18 | manpagedescription() |
| 19 | |
| 20 | rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does, |
| 21 | but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to |
| 22 | greatly speedup file transfers when the destination file already |
| 23 | exists. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the |
| 26 | differences between two sets of files across the network link, using |
| 27 | an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical |
| 28 | report that accompanies this package. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | Some of the additional features of rsync are: |
| 31 | |
| 32 | itemize( |
| 33 | it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups and permissions |
| 34 | it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar |
| 35 | it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore |
| 36 | it() can use any transparent remote shell, including rsh or ssh |
| 37 | it() does not require root privileges |
| 38 | it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs |
| 39 | it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for |
| 40 | mirroring) |
| 41 | ) |
| 42 | |
| 43 | manpagesection(GENERAL) |
| 44 | |
| 45 | There are six different ways of using rsync. They are: |
| 46 | |
| 47 | itemize( |
| 48 | it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither |
| 49 | source nor destination path contains a : separator |
| 50 | |
| 51 | it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using |
| 52 | a remote shell program as the transport (such as rsh or |
| 53 | ssh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a |
| 54 | single : separator. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine |
| 57 | using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the local path |
| 58 | contains a : separator. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local |
| 61 | machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a :: |
| 62 | separator or a rsync:// URL. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync |
| 65 | server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a :: |
| 66 | separator. |
| 67 | |
| 68 | it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the |
| 69 | same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the |
| 70 | local destination. |
| 71 | ) |
| 72 | |
| 73 | Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source |
| 74 | and destination paths must be local. |
| 75 | |
| 76 | manpagesection(SETUP) |
| 77 | |
| 78 | See the file README for installation instructions. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | Once installed you can use rsync to any machine that you can use rsh |
| 81 | to. rsync uses rsh for its communications, unless both the source and |
| 82 | destination are local. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | You can also specify an alternative to rsh, by either using the -e |
| 85 | command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of |
| 88 | security. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination |
| 91 | machines. |
| 92 | |
| 93 | manpagesection(USAGE) |
| 94 | |
| 95 | You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source |
| 96 | and a destination, one of which may be remote. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is some examples: |
| 99 | |
| 100 | quote(rsync *.c foo:src/) |
| 101 | |
| 102 | this would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the |
| 103 | current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of |
| 104 | the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync |
| 105 | remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the |
| 106 | differences. See the tech report for details. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp) |
| 109 | |
| 110 | this would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the |
| 111 | machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The |
| 112 | files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic |
| 113 | links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships etc are preserved |
| 114 | in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the |
| 115 | size of data portions of the transfer. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp) |
| 118 | |
| 119 | a trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to transfer |
| 120 | all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the |
| 121 | /data/tmp/. A trailing / on a source name means "copy the |
| 122 | contents of this directory". Without a trailing slash it means "copy |
| 123 | the directory". This difference becomes particularly important when |
| 124 | using the --delete option. |
| 125 | |
| 126 | You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and |
| 127 | destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like |
| 128 | an improved copy command. |
| 129 | |
| 130 | quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::) |
| 131 | |
| 132 | this would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host |
| 133 | somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.) |
| 134 | |
| 135 | |
| 136 | manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER) |
| 137 | |
| 138 | It is also possible to use rsync without using rsh or ssh as the |
| 139 | transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server |
| 140 | running on TCP port 873. |
| 141 | |
| 142 | Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with rsh or ssh except |
| 143 | that: |
| 144 | |
| 145 | itemize( |
| 146 | it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to |
| 147 | separate the hostname from the path. |
| 148 | |
| 149 | it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you |
| 150 | connect. |
| 151 | |
| 152 | it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the |
| 153 | list of accessible paths on the server will be shown. |
| 154 | |
| 155 | it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the |
| 156 | specified files on the remote server is provided. |
| 157 | ) |
| 158 | |
| 159 | Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then |
| 160 | you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the |
| 161 | password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to |
| 162 | the password you want to use. This may be useful when scripting rsync. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER) |
| 165 | |
| 166 | An rsync server is configured using a config file which by default is |
| 167 | called /etc/rsyncd.conf. Please see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more |
| 168 | information. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | manpagesection(EXAMPLES) |
| 171 | |
| 172 | Here are some examples of how I use rsync. |
| 173 | |
| 174 | To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word |
| 175 | files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs |
| 176 | |
| 177 | quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup) |
| 178 | |
| 179 | each night over a PPP link to a duplicate directory on my machine |
| 180 | "arvidsjaur". |
| 181 | |
| 182 | To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile |
| 183 | targets: |
| 184 | |
| 185 | quote( get:nl() |
| 186 | rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ . |
| 187 | |
| 188 | put:nl() |
| 189 | rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/ |
| 190 | |
| 191 | sync: get put) |
| 192 | |
| 193 | this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the |
| 194 | link. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a |
| 195 | lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very efficient. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the |
| 198 | command |
| 199 | |
| 200 | quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba") |
| 201 | |
| 202 | this is launched from cron every few hours. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY) |
| 205 | |
| 206 | Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer |
| 207 | to the detailed description below for a complete description. |
| 208 | |
| 209 | verb( |
| 210 | Usage: rsync [OPTION]... SRC [USER@]HOST:DEST |
| 211 | or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST |
| 212 | or rsync [OPTION]... SRC DEST |
| 213 | or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST] |
| 214 | or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [USER@]HOST::DEST |
| 215 | or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST] |
| 216 | |
| 217 | Options |
| 218 | -v, --verbose increase verbosity |
| 219 | -c, --checksum always checksum |
| 220 | -a, --archive archive mode |
| 221 | -r, --recursive recurse into directories |
| 222 | -R, --relative use relative path names |
| 223 | -b, --backup make backups (default ~ extension) |
| 224 | -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files) |
| 225 | -l, --links preserve soft links |
| 226 | -L, --copy-links treat soft links like regular files |
| 227 | --safe-links ignore links outside the destination tree |
| 228 | -H, --hard-links preserve hard links |
| 229 | -p, --perms preserve permissions |
| 230 | -o, --owner preserve owner (root only) |
| 231 | -g, --group preserve group |
| 232 | -D, --devices preserve devices (root only) |
| 233 | -t, --times preserve times |
| 234 | -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently |
| 235 | -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred |
| 236 | -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks |
| 237 | -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries |
| 238 | -B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size |
| 239 | -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify rsh replacement |
| 240 | --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine |
| 241 | -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does |
| 242 | --delete delete files that don't exist on the sending side |
| 243 | --partial keep partially transferred files |
| 244 | --force force deletion of directories even if not empty |
| 245 | --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name |
| 246 | --timeout=TIME set IO timeout in seconds |
| 247 | -I, --ignore-times don't exclude files that match length and time |
| 248 | -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR |
| 249 | --compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR |
| 250 | -z, --compress compress file data |
| 251 | --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN |
| 252 | --exclude-from=FILE exclude files listed in FILE |
| 253 | --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN |
| 254 | --include-from=FILE don't exclude files listed in FILE |
| 255 | --suffix=SUFFIX override backup suffix |
| 256 | --version print version number |
| 257 | --daemon run as a rsync daemon |
| 258 | --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file |
| 259 | --port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number |
| 260 | --stats give some file transfer stats |
| 261 | --progress show progress during transfer |
| 262 | --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format |
| 263 | -h, --help show this help screen |
| 264 | ) |
| 265 | |
| 266 | manpageoptions() |
| 267 | |
| 268 | rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line |
| 269 | options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown |
| 270 | below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant. |
| 271 | |
| 272 | startdit() |
| 273 | dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options |
| 274 | available in rsync |
| 275 | |
| 276 | dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit |
| 277 | |
| 278 | dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you |
| 279 | are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A |
| 280 | single -v will give you information about what files are being |
| 281 | transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you |
| 282 | information on what files are being skipped and slightly more |
| 283 | information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if |
| 284 | you are debugging rsync. |
| 285 | |
| 286 | dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are |
| 287 | already the same length and have the same time-stamp. This option turns |
| 288 | off this behavior. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using |
| 291 | a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then |
| 292 | explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name |
| 293 | which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the |
| 294 | receiver are skipped. This option can be quite slow. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptDg. It is a quick way |
| 297 | of saying you want recursion and want to preserve everything. |
| 298 | |
| 299 | Note: if the user launching rsync is root then the -o option (preserve |
| 300 | uid) is also implied. |
| 301 | |
| 302 | dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. |
| 303 | |
| 304 | dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path |
| 305 | names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than |
| 306 | just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when |
| 307 | you want to send several different directories at the same time. For |
| 308 | example, if you used the command |
| 309 | |
| 310 | verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/) |
| 311 | |
| 312 | then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote |
| 313 | machine. If instead you used |
| 314 | |
| 315 | verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/) |
| 316 | |
| 317 | then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote |
| 318 | machine. The full path name is preserved. |
| 319 | |
| 320 | dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option preexisting destination files are |
| 321 | renamed with a ~ extension as each file is transferred. You can |
| 322 | control the backup suffix using the --suffix option. |
| 323 | |
| 324 | dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the |
| 325 | destination file already exists and has a date later than the source |
| 326 | file. |
| 327 | |
| 328 | dit(bf(-l, --links)) This tells rsync to recreate symbolic links on the |
| 329 | remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this |
| 330 | option, all symbolic links are skipped. |
| 331 | |
| 332 | dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links just |
| 333 | like ordinary files. |
| 334 | |
| 335 | dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links |
| 336 | which point outside the destination tree. All absolute symlinks are |
| 337 | also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may |
| 338 | give unexpected results. |
| 339 | |
| 340 | dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on |
| 341 | the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this |
| 342 | option hard links are treated like regular files. |
| 343 | |
| 344 | Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link |
| 345 | are in the list of files being sent. |
| 346 | |
| 347 | This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it. |
| 348 | |
| 349 | dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm |
| 350 | is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. This may be |
| 351 | useful when using rsync with a local machine. |
| 352 | |
| 353 | dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially |
| 354 | transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances |
| 355 | it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the |
| 356 | --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should |
| 357 | make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster. |
| 358 | |
| 359 | dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to update the remote |
| 360 | permissions to be the same as the local permissions. |
| 361 | |
| 362 | dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to update the remote owner |
| 363 | of the file to be the same as the local owner. This is only available |
| 364 | to the super-user. Note that if the source system is a daemon using chroot, |
| 365 | the --numeric-ids option is implied because the source system cannot get |
| 366 | access to the usernames. |
| 367 | |
| 368 | dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group |
| 369 | of the file to be the same as the local group. Note that if the source |
| 370 | system is a daemon using chroot, the --numeric-ids option is implied because |
| 371 | the source system cannot get access to the group names. |
| 372 | |
| 373 | dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and |
| 374 | block device information to the remote system to recreate these |
| 375 | devices. This option is only available to the super-user. |
| 376 | |
| 377 | dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along |
| 378 | with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this |
| 379 | option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been |
| 380 | modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will |
| 381 | cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, and all files will have |
| 382 | their checksums compared and show up in log messages even if they haven't |
| 383 | changed. |
| 384 | |
| 385 | dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, |
| 386 | instead it will just report the actions it would have taken. |
| 387 | |
| 388 | dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take |
| 389 | up less space on the destination. |
| 390 | |
| 391 | NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs" |
| 392 | filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions |
| 393 | correctly and ends up corrupting the files. |
| 394 | |
| 395 | dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem |
| 396 | boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the |
| 397 | contents of only one filesystem. |
| 398 | |
| 399 | dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving |
| 400 | side that aren't on the sending side. This option can be dangerous if |
| 401 | used incorrectly! |
| 402 | |
| 403 | It is a very good idea to run first using the dry run option (-n) to |
| 404 | see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't |
| 405 | listed. |
| 406 | |
| 407 | rsync 1.6.4 changed the behavior of --delete to make it less |
| 408 | dangerous. rsync now only scans directories on the receiving side |
| 409 | that are explicitly transferred from the sending side. Only files in |
| 410 | these directories are deleted. |
| 411 | |
| 412 | Still, it is probably easy to get burnt with this option. The moral |
| 413 | of the story is to use the -n option until you get used to the |
| 414 | behavior of --delete. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | If the sending side detects any IO errors then the deletion of any |
| 417 | files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to |
| 418 | prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the |
| 419 | sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the |
| 420 | destination. |
| 421 | |
| 422 | dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if |
| 423 | they are not empty. This applies to both the --delete option and to |
| 424 | cases where rsync tries to copy a normal file but the destination |
| 425 | contains a directory of the same name. Normally rsync will refuse to |
| 426 | do a recursive directory deletion in such cases, by using --force |
| 427 | the recursive deletion will be done. |
| 428 | |
| 429 | Use this option with caution! |
| 430 | |
| 431 | dit(bf(-B , --block_size BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in |
| 432 | the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details. |
| 433 | |
| 434 | dit(bf(-e, --rsh COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative |
| 435 | remote shell program to use for communication between the local and |
| 436 | remote copies of rsync. By default, rsync will use rsh, but you may |
| 437 | like to instead use ssh because of its high security. |
| 438 | |
| 439 | You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH |
| 440 | environment variable. |
| 441 | |
| 442 | dit(bf(--rsync-path PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of |
| 443 | rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. |
| 444 | |
| 445 | dit(bf(--exclude pattern)) This option allows you to selectively exclude |
| 446 | certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most |
| 447 | useful in combination with a recursive transfer. |
| 448 | |
| 449 | You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like |
| 450 | to build up the list of files to exclude. |
| 451 | |
| 452 | See the section on exclude patterns for information on the syntax of |
| 453 | this option. |
| 454 | |
| 455 | dit(bf(--exclude-from FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude |
| 456 | option, but instead it adds all filenames listed in the file FILE to |
| 457 | the exclude list. |
| 458 | |
| 459 | dit(bf(--include pattern)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the |
| 460 | specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to |
| 461 | build up quite complex exclude/include rules. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | See the section of exclude patterns for information on the syntax of |
| 464 | this option. |
| 465 | |
| 466 | dit(bf(--include-from FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns |
| 467 | from a file. |
| 468 | |
| 469 | dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a |
| 470 | broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between |
| 471 | systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if |
| 472 | a file should be ignored. |
| 473 | |
| 474 | The exclude list is initialized to: |
| 475 | |
| 476 | quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state |
| 477 | .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* |
| 478 | *.a *.o *.obj *.so *.Z *.elc *.ln core) |
| 479 | |
| 480 | then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any |
| 481 | files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (space delimited). |
| 482 | |
| 483 | Finally in each directory any files listed in the .cvsignore file in |
| 484 | that directory are added to the list. |
| 485 | |
| 486 | dit(bf(--suffix SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default |
| 487 | backup suffix used with the -b option. The default is a ~. |
| 488 | |
| 489 | dit(bf(--csum-length LENGTH)) By default the primary checksum used in |
| 490 | rsync is a very strong 16 byte MD4 checksum. In most cases you will |
| 491 | find that a truncated version of this checksum is quite efficient, and |
| 492 | this will decrease the size of the checksum data sent over the link, |
| 493 | making things faster. |
| 494 | |
| 495 | You can choose the number of bytes in the truncated checksum using the |
| 496 | --csum-length option. Any value less than or equal to 16 is valid. |
| 497 | |
| 498 | Note that if you use this option then you run the risk of ending up |
| 499 | with an incorrect target file. The risk with a value of 16 is |
| 500 | microscopic and can be safely ignored (the universe will probably end |
| 501 | before it fails) but with smaller values the risk is higher. |
| 502 | |
| 503 | Current versions of rsync actually use an adaptive algorithm for the |
| 504 | checksum length by default, using a 16 byte file checksum to determine |
| 505 | if a 2nd pass is required with a longer block checksum. Only use this |
| 506 | option if you have read the source code and know what you are doing. |
| 507 | |
| 508 | dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a |
| 509 | scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files |
| 510 | transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create |
| 511 | the temporary files in the receiving directory. |
| 512 | |
| 513 | dit(bf(--compare-dest DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as an |
| 514 | additional directory to compare destination files against when doing |
| 515 | transfers. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while |
| 516 | leaving existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all |
| 517 | files have been successfully transferred (for example by moving directories |
| 518 | around and removing the old directory, although this requires also doing |
| 519 | the transfer with -I to avoid skipping files that haven't changed). This |
| 520 | option increases the usefulness of --partial because partially transferred |
| 521 | files will remain in the new temporary destination until they have a chance |
| 522 | to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the |
| 523 | destination directory. |
| 524 | |
| 525 | dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from |
| 526 | the source file(s) which it sends to the destination machine. This |
| 527 | option is useful on slow links. The compression method used is the |
| 528 | same method that gzip uses. |
| 529 | |
| 530 | Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios |
| 531 | that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a |
| 532 | compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit |
| 533 | information sent for matching data blocks. |
| 534 | |
| 535 | dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group |
| 536 | and user ids rather than using user and group names and mapping them |
| 537 | at both ends. |
| 538 | |
| 539 | By default rsync will use the user name and group name to determine |
| 540 | what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group |
| 541 | 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids |
| 542 | option is not specified. |
| 543 | |
| 544 | If the source system is a daemon using chroot, or if a user or group name |
| 545 | does not exist on the destination system, then the numeric id from the |
| 546 | source system is used instead. |
| 547 | |
| 548 | dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum IO |
| 549 | timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time |
| 550 | then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout. |
| 551 | |
| 552 | dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a rsync |
| 553 | daemon. If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it |
| 554 | is being run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current |
| 555 | terminal and become a background daemon. The daemon will read the |
| 556 | config file (/etc/rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and |
| 557 | respond to requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more |
| 558 | details. |
| 559 | |
| 560 | dit(bf(--config FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than |
| 561 | the default /etc/rsyncd.conf. This is only relevant when --daemon is |
| 562 | specified. |
| 563 | |
| 564 | dit(bf(--port PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use |
| 565 | rather than the default port 873. |
| 566 | |
| 567 | dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the |
| 568 | rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is |
| 569 | specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in |
| 570 | rsyncd.conf. |
| 571 | |
| 572 | dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics |
| 573 | on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync |
| 574 | algorithm is for your data. This option only works in conjunction with |
| 575 | the -v (verbose) option. |
| 576 | |
| 577 | dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information |
| 578 | showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user |
| 579 | something to watch. |
| 580 | |
| 581 | enddit() |
| 582 | |
| 583 | manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS) |
| 584 | |
| 585 | The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible |
| 586 | selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip. |
| 587 | |
| 588 | rsync builds a ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on |
| 589 | the command line. When a filename is encountered, rsync checks the |
| 590 | name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching |
| 591 | pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern than that file is |
| 592 | skipped. If it is an include pattern then that filename is not |
| 593 | skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the |
| 594 | filename is not skipped. |
| 595 | |
| 596 | The patterns can take several forms. The rules are: |
| 597 | |
| 598 | itemize( |
| 599 | it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the |
| 600 | start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of |
| 601 | the filename. Thus /foo would match a file called foo |
| 602 | at the base of the tree whereas foo would match any file |
| 603 | called foo anywhere in the tree. |
| 604 | |
| 605 | it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a |
| 606 | directory, not a file, link or device. |
| 607 | |
| 608 | it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set |
| 609 | *?[ then regular expression matching is applied using the |
| 610 | normal shell filename matching rules. Otherwise a simple string |
| 611 | match is used. |
| 612 | |
| 613 | it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) then it |
| 614 | is matched against the full filename, including any leading |
| 615 | directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / then it is matched |
| 616 | only against the final component of the filename. |
| 617 | |
| 618 | it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space) |
| 619 | then it is always considered a include pattern, even if specified as |
| 620 | part of an exclude option. The "+ " part is discarded before matching. |
| 621 | |
| 622 | it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space) |
| 623 | then it is always considered a exclude pattern, even if specified as |
| 624 | part of an include option. The "- " part is discarded before matching. |
| 625 | |
| 626 | it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current |
| 627 | exclude list is reset, removing all previous exclude patterns. |
| 628 | ) |
| 629 | |
| 630 | The +/- rules are most useful in exclude lists, allowing you to have a |
| 631 | single exclude list that contains both include and exclude options. |
| 632 | |
| 633 | Here are some examples: |
| 634 | |
| 635 | itemize( |
| 636 | it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o |
| 637 | it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file in the base directory called foo |
| 638 | it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo |
| 639 | it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all |
| 640 | directories and C source files. |
| 641 | ) |
| 642 | |
| 643 | manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS) |
| 644 | |
| 645 | rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little |
| 646 | cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol |
| 647 | version mismatch - is your shell clean?". |
| 648 | |
| 649 | This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell |
| 650 | facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using |
| 651 | for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your |
| 652 | remote shell like this: |
| 653 | |
| 654 | verb( |
| 655 | rsh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat |
| 656 | ) |
| 657 | |
| 658 | then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat |
| 659 | should be a zero length file. You you are getting the above error from |
| 660 | rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or |
| 661 | data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing |
| 662 | it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup |
| 663 | scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements |
| 664 | for non-interactive logins. |
| 665 | |
| 666 | manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES) |
| 667 | |
| 668 | startdit() |
| 669 | |
| 670 | dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any |
| 671 | ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for |
| 672 | more details. |
| 673 | |
| 674 | dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to |
| 675 | override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. This can |
| 676 | be used instead of the -e option. |
| 677 | |
| 678 | dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required |
| 679 | password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to a rsync |
| 680 | daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a |
| 681 | password to a shell transport such as ssh. |
| 682 | |
| 683 | dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables |
| 684 | are used to determine the default username sent to a rsync server. |
| 685 | |
| 686 | dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's |
| 687 | default .cvsignore file. |
| 688 | |
| 689 | enddit() |
| 690 | |
| 691 | manpagefiles() |
| 692 | |
| 693 | /etc/rsyncd.conf |
| 694 | |
| 695 | manpageseealso() |
| 696 | |
| 697 | rsyncd.conf(5) |
| 698 | |
| 699 | manpagediagnostics() |
| 700 | |
| 701 | manpagebugs() |
| 702 | |
| 703 | times are transferred as unix time_t values |
| 704 | |
| 705 | file permissions, devices etc are transferred as native numerical |
| 706 | values |
| 707 | |
| 708 | see also the comments on the --delete option |
| 709 | |
| 710 | Please report bugs! The rsync bug tracking system is online at |
| 711 | url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/) |
| 712 | |
| 713 | manpagesection(VERSION) |
| 714 | This man page is current for version 2.0 of rsync |
| 715 | |
| 716 | manpagesection(CREDITS) |
| 717 | |
| 718 | rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file |
| 719 | COPYING for details. |
| 720 | |
| 721 | The primary ftp site for rsync is |
| 722 | url(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync)(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync). |
| 723 | |
| 724 | A WEB site is available at |
| 725 | url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/) |
| 726 | |
| 727 | We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program. |
| 728 | |
| 729 | This program uses the zlib compression library written by Jean-loup |
| 730 | Gailly and Mark Adler. |
| 731 | |
| 732 | manpagesection(THANKS) |
| 733 | |
| 734 | Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell |
| 735 | and David Bell for helpful suggestions and testing of rsync. I've |
| 736 | probably missed some people, my apologies if I have. |
| 737 | |
| 738 | |
| 739 | manpageauthor() |
| 740 | |
| 741 | rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. They may be |
| 742 | contacted via email at tridge@samba.anu.edu.au and |
| 743 | Paul.Mackerras@cs.anu.edu.au |
| 744 | |