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1mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2manpage(rsync)(1)(2 Aug 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) options will give you
468information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
469information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options 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 option 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 option changes how rsync transfers a file when the
701file's data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
702a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
703instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
704
705This has several effects: (1) in-use binaries cannot be updated (either the
706OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in
707their data will misbehave or crash), (2) the file's data will be in an
708inconsistent state during the transfer, (3) a file's data may be left in an
709inconsistent state after the transfer if the transfer is interrupted or if
710an update fails, (4) a file that does not have write permissions can not be
711updated, and (5) the efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be
712reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
713be copied to a position later in the file (one exception to this is if you
714combine this option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use
715the backup file as the basis file for the transfer).
716
717WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
718accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
719
720This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
721or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
722bound.
723
724The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
725the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
726Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
727and bf(--link-dest).
728
729dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
730the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
731the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
732side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
733the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
734does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
735(e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
736transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
737Implies bf(--inplace),
738but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
739file's length).
740
741dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
742the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
743checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
744final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
745bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
746
747Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
748bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
749transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
750will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
751
752dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
753are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
754unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
755(e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
756bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
757output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
758bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
759
760The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
761or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
762bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
763directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
764if you want to turn this off.
765
766There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
767bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
768an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
769
770dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
771symlink on the destination.
772
773dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
774they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
775versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
776receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
777modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
778to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
779an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
780will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
781
782dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
783symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
784are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
785source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
786additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
787
788dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
789which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
790also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
791give unexpected results.
792
793dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
794a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
795useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
796they would be using bf(--copy-links).
797
798Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
799symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
800the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
801bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
802
803See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
804side.
805
806dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
807a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
808matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
809receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
810
811For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
812"file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
813bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
814directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
815bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
816"bar".
817
818One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
819the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
820create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
821subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
822content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
823you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
824to modify your receiving hierarchy.
825
826See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
827
828dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
829the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
830side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
831as though they were separate files.
832
833When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
834that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
835together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
836already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
837the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
838have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
839are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
840
841Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
842the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
843connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
844you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
845very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
846certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
847see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
848
849If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
850a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
851exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
852the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
853incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
854
855dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
856destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
857also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
858be the source permissions.)
859
860When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
861
862quote(itemization(
863 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
864 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
865 the execute permission for the file.
866 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
867 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
868 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
869 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
870 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
871 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
872))
873
874Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
875rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
876such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
877
878In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
879permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
880permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
881bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
882all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
883behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
884putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
885and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
886
887quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
888
889You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
890
891quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
892
893(Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
894the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
895
896The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
897directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
898versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
899newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
900destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
901observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
902non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
903(Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
904these behaviors.)
905
906dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
907executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
908not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
909'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
910executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
911modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
912
913quote(itemization(
914 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
915 permissions.
916 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
917 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
918))
919
920If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
921
922dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
923ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
924The option also implies bf(--perms).
925
926The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
927option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
928and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
929
930dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
931extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
932
933For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
934super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
935the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
936a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
937
938dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
939comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
940transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
941that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
942can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
943
944In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
945manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
946prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
947file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
948
949quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
950
951It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
952additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
953
954See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
955permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
956
957dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
958destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
959receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
960and bf(--fake-super) options).
961Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
962the invoking user on the receiving side.
963
964The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
965may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
966bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
967
968dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
969destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
970program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
971specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
972is a member of will be preserved.
973Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
974user on the receiving side.
975
976The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
977default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
978(see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
979
980dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
981block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
982This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
983super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
984
985dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
986such as named sockets and fifos.
987
988dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
989
990dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
991with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
992option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
993modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
994cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
995updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
996if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
997
998dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
999it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1000the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1001This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1002
1003dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1004activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1005activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1006all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1007option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1008for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1009also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1010being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1011super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1012
1013dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1014super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1015special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1016includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1017device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1018any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1019the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1020access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1021files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1022This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1023extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1024
1025This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1026ACLs from incompatible systems.
1027
1028The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1029To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1030path:
1031
1032quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1033
1034Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
1035the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
1036"localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1037script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1038shell (see bf(--rsh)).
1039
1040This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1041
1042See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1043
1044dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1045up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1046not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1047
1048NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1049filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1050correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1051
1052dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1053make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1054is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1055bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1056to do before one actually runs it.
1057
1058The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1059dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1060call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1061extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1062send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1063the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1064statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1065where no file transfers are needed.
1066
1067dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1068is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1069faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1070destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1071"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1072the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1073
1074dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1075filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1076to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1077through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1078the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1079in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1080same filesystem.
1081
1082If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1083the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1084encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1085the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1086
1087If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1088bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1089treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1090by this option.
1091
1092dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1093creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1094yet on the destination. If this option is
1095combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1096(which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1097
1098dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1099already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1100directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1101
1102This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1103option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1104a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1105used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1106already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1107permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1108is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1109
1110dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1111side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1112and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1113
1114dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1115receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1116directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1117send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1118for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1119by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1120the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1121also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1122option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1123include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1124
1125Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1126was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1127(bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1128
1129This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1130first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1131going to be deleted.
1132
1133If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1134files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1135prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1136sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
1137destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1138
1139The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1140without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1141--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1142bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1143the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1144bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1145
1146dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1147side be done before the transfer starts.
1148See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1149
1150Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1151and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1152However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1153and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1154specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1155algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1156memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1157
1158dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1159receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1160per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1161for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1162including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1163being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1164See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1165
1166dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1167side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1168removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1169bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1170bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1171computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1172If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1173temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1174is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1175the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1176using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1177incremental scan).
1178See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1179
1180dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1181side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1182are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1183you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1184current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1185recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1186transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1187See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1188
1189dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1190receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1191delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1192See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1193this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1194bf(--delete-excluded).
1195See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1196
1197dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1198even when there are I/O errors.
1199
1200dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1201when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1202deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1203
1204Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1205using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1206bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1207
1208dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1209files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1210and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1211
1212Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1213about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1214Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1215version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1216a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1217older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1218
1219dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1220file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1221suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1222may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1223
1224The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1225"M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1226gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1227If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1228"MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1229Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1230be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1231
1232Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
12332147483649 bytes.
1234
1235dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1236file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1237transferring small, junk files.
1238See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
1239
1240dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1241rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1242the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1243
1244dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1245remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1246remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1247default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1248
1249If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1250remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1251remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1252shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1253running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1254RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1255
1256Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1257presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1258or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1259and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1260argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1261inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1262double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1263shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1264
1265quote(
1266tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1267tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1268)
1269
1270(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1271options in their .ssh/config file.)
1272
1273You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1274environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1275
1276See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1277
1278dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1279on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1280the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1281Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1282program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1283not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1284communicate.
1285
1286One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1287machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1288
1289quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1290
1291dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1292broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1293systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1294a file should be ignored.
1295
1296The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1297initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1298
1299quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1300.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1301*.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1302
1303then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1304files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1305are delimited by whitespace).
1306
1307Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1308.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1309rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1310See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1311
1312If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1313note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1314regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1315a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1316control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1317should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1318bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1319putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1320The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1321file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1322mentioned above.
1323
1324dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1325exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1326most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1327
1328You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1329to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1330be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1331argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1332replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1333
1334See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1335
1336dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1337your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1338
1339quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1340
1341This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1342been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1343files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1344rule:
1345
1346quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1347
1348This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1349
1350See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1351work.
1352
1353dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1354bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1355the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1356
1357See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1358
1359dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1360option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1361Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1362If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1363
1364dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1365bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1366the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1367
1368See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1369
1370dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1371option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1372Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1373If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1374
1375dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1376exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1377for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1378transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1379
1380quote(itemization(
1381 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1382 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1383 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1384 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1385 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1386 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1387 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1388 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1389 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1390 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1391 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1392 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1393))
1394
1395The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1396source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1397allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1398command:
1399
1400quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1401
1402If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1403directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1404contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1405the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1406mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1407if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1408also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1409explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1410Also note
1411that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1412duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1413force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1414
1415In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1416instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1417(the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1418specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1419transfer". For example:
1420
1421quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1422
1423This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1424was located on the remote "src" host.
1425
1426dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1427file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1428This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1429merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1430It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1431file are split on whitespace).
1432
1433If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1434bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1435filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1436receiving host's charset.
1437
1438dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1439the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1440means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1441characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1442expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1443
1444If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
1445from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1446wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1447
1448dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1449scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1450on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1451file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1452
1453This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1454have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1455In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1456partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1457over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1458into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1459destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1460truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1461the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1462temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1463it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1464someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1465new version on the disk at the same time.
1466
1467If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1468space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1469which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1470destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1471have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1472partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1473about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1474path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1475single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1476partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1477rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1478an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1479
1480dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1481basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1482looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1483has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1484found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1485
1486Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1487fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1488filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1489
1490dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1491the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1492files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1493directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1494sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1495directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1496have changed from an earlier backup.
1497
1498Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1499provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1500for an exact match.
1501If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1502and the attributes updated.
1503If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1504selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1505
1506If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1507See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1508
1509dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1510rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1511directory using a local copy.
1512This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1513existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1514been successfully transferred.
1515
1516Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1517rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1518If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1519selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1520
1521If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1522See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1523
1524dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1525unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1526The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1527possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1528An example:
1529
1530quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1531
1532If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1533attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1534that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1535ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1536
1537Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1538provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1539for an exact match.
1540If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1541and the attributes updated.
1542If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1543selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1544
1545This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1546rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1547dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1548change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1549versions).
1550
1551Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1552link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1553substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1554file is updated.
1555
1556If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1557See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1558
1559Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1560bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1561specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1562the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1563
1564dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1565as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1566being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1567
1568Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1569be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1570because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1571blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1572
1573See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1574that will not be compressed.
1575
1576dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1577(see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1578the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1579
1580dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1581not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1582(without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1583
1584You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1585
1586Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1587of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1588"[:alpha:]", are supported).
1589
1590The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1591
1592Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1593matches 2 suffixes):
1594
1595verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1596
1597The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1598of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1599
1600verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1601
1602This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1603situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1604its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1605different default).
1606
1607dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1608and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1609at both ends.
1610
1611By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1612what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
16130 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1614option is not specified.
1615
1616If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1617on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1618from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1619"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1620the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1621users and groups and what you can do about it.
1622
1623dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1624timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1625then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1626
1627dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1628that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1629If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1630
1631dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1632connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1633specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1634option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1635
1636dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1637rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1638double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1639syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1640option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1641
1642dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1643who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1644sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1645slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1646details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1647special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1648connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1649bf(--daemon) mode section.
1650
1651dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1652a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1653rsync defaults to using
1654blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1655ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1656
1657dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1658changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1659This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1660If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1661if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1662with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1663verbose messages).
1664
1665The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1666format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1667type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1668other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1669modified.
1670
1671The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1672
1673quote(itemization(
1674 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1675 (sent).
1676 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1677 (received).
1678 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1679 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1680 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1681 bf(--hard-links)).
1682 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1683 have attributes that are being modified).
1684 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1685 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1686))
1687
1688The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1689directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1690special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1691
1692The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1693will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1694a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1695item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1696dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1697a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1698
1699The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1700
1701quote(itemization(
1702 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1703 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1704 a changed value.
1705 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1706 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1707 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1708 by the file transfer.
1709 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1710 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1711 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1712 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1713 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1714 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1715 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1716 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1717 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1718 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1719 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1720 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1721 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1722 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1723 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1724 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1725))
1726
1727One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1728the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1729you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1730outputting them as a verbose message).
1731
1732dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1733rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
1734text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
1735with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
1736bf(-v) is specified (which reports the name
1737of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
1738of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
1739rsyncd.conf manpage.
1740
1741Specifying the bf(--out-format) option
1742will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
1743way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
1744directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1745the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
1746of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
1747as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
1748option for a description of the output of "%i".
1749
1750Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1751one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1752logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1753is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1754the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1755(followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1756
1757dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1758to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1759requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1760transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1761enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1762option if you wish to override this.
1763
1764Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1765happening:
1766
1767verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1768
1769This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1770unexpectedly.
1771
1772dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1773per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1774(which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1775specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1776For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1777in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1778
1779dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1780on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
1781algorithm is for your data.
1782
1783The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1784 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1785 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1786 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1787 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
1788 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1789 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1790 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1791 include the size of symlinks.
1792 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1793 for just the transferred files.
1794 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1795 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1796 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1797 recreating the updated files.
1798 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1799 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1800 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1801 list.
1802 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1803 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1804 sending side for this to be present.
1805 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1806 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1807 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1808 from the client side to the server side.
1809 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1810 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1811 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1812 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1813))
1814
1815dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1816unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1817valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1818characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1819setting.
1820
1821The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1822and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1823would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1824escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1825
1826dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1827This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1828this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1829G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1830instead of 1000.
1831
1832dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1833transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1834it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1835bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1836make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1837
1838dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1839bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1840partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1841On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1842dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1843after it has served its purpose.
1844
1845Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1846file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1847(since
1848rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
1849
1850Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1851the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1852"bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1853partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1854remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1855
1856If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1857rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1858sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1859will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1860receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1861the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1862filter rules.
1863
1864If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1865exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1866rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1867to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1868rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1869should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1870bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1871bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1872left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1873
1874IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1875is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1876
1877You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1878variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1879enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1880specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1881along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1882environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1883.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1884option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1885specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1886bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1887
1888For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1889bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1890refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1891of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1892safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1893
1894dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1895updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1896transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1897succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1898atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1899each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1900bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1901comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1902".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1903you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1904Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1905
1906This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1907transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1908side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1909you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1910there is no
1911chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1912the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1913absolute)
1914and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1915delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1916
1917See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1918update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1919parallel hierarchy of files).
1920
1921dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1922rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1923that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1924creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1925recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1926rules.
1927
1928Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1929what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1930mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1931being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1932destination files).
1933
1934You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1935by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1936that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1937
1938quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1939
1940Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1941the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1942that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1943(note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1944
1945quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1946
1947If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1948time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
1949in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
1950
1951dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1952showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1953something to watch.
1954Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1955
1956While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
1957looks like this:
1958
1959verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1960
1961In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
1962sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
1963per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
1964is maintained until the end.
1965
1966These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
1967in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
1968followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
1969dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
1970will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
1971was finishing the matched part of the file.
1972
1973When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
1974summary line that looks like this:
1975
1976verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
1977
1978In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
1979of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
1980seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
1981during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
1982receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
1983the 396 total files in the file-list.
1984
1985dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1986purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1987transfer that may be interrupted.
1988
1989dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
1990file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
1991It should contain just the password as a single line.
1992
1993This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
1994ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
1995When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
1996option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
1997authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
1998config file).
1999
2000dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2001instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2002arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2003command that includes a
2004destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2005more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2006Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2007shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2008without using this option. For example:
2009
2010verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2011
2012Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2013that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2014non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2015option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2016avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2017need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2018the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2019
2020dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2021transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2022using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2023of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2024transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2025result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2026of zero specifies no limit.
2027
2028dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2029another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2030section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2031
2032dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2033no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2034This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2035other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2036
2037Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2038media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2039can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2040whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2041partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2042happening).
2043
2044Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2045system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2046into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2047(when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2048
2049dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2050file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2051If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2052See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2053
2054dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2055is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2056version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2057bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2058bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2059batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2060file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2061
2062dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2063sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2064the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2065fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2066separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2067bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2068will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2069Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2070to turn off any conversion.
2071The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2072affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2073
2074For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2075run "iconv --list".
2076
2077If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2078the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2079remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2080
2081Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2082(including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2083specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2084For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2085filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2086
2087When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2088daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2089regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2090specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2091
2092dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2093when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2094control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2095rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2096
2097If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2098will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2099is the case.
2100
2101dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
2102NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2103MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2104by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2105is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2106applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2107in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2108Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2109for checksum seed.
2110enddit()
2111
2112manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2113
2114The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2115
2116startdit()
2117dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2118daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2119the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2120
2121If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2122run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2123become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2124(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2125requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2126details.
2127
2128dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2129run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2130allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2131makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2132See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2133
2134dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2135transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2136The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2137requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2138client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2139
2140dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2141the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2142The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2143a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2144the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2145
2146dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2147rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2148option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2149be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2150bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2151bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2152debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2153sshd.
2154
2155dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2156daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2157global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2158
2159dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2160given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2161file.
2162
2163dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2164given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2165file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2166case transfer logging is turned off.
2167
2168dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2169rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2170
2171dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2172daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2173daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2174used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2175
2176dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2177when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2178listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2179versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2180an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2181try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2182
2183If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2184will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2185is the case.
2186
2187dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2188page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2189enddit()
2190
2191manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2192
2193The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2194(include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2195specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2196include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2197
2198As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2199name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2200turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2201pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2202filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2203filename is not skipped.
2204
2205Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2206command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2207
2208quote(
2209tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2210tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2211)
2212
2213You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2214below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2215MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2216must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2217Here are the available rule prefixes:
2218
2219quote(
2220bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2221bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2222bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2223bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2224bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2225bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2226bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2227bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2228bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2229)
2230
2231When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2232comment lines that start with a "#".
2233
2234Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2235full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2236specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2237list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2238If a pattern
2239does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2240rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2241an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2242the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2243start of the rule.
2244
2245Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2246rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2247the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2248the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2249
2250manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2251
2252You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2253"-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2254The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2255the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2256can take several forms:
2257
2258itemization(
2259 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2260 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2261 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2262 regular expressions.
2263 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2264 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2265 per-directory rule).
2266 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2267 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2268 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2269 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2270 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2271 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2272 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2273 of the transfer.
2274 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2275 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2276 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2277 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2278 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2279 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
2280 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2281 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2282 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2283 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2284 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2285 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2286 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2287 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2288 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2289 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2290 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2291 down.)
2292 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2293 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2294 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2295 version 2.6.7.
2296)
2297
2298Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2299bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2300include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2301full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2302"/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2303The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2304when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2305parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2306because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2307hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2308For instance, this won't work:
2309
2310quote(
2311tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2312tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2313tt(- *)nl()
2314)
2315
2316This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2317rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2318directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2319to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2320"- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2321solution is to add specific include rules for all
2322the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2323works fine:
2324
2325quote(
2326tt(+ /some/)nl()
2327tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2328tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2329tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2330tt(- *)nl()
2331)
2332
2333Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2334
2335itemization(
2336 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2337 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2338 transfer-root directory
2339 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2340 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2341 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2342 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2343 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2344 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2345 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2346 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2347 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2348 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2349 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2350)
2351
2352manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2353
2354You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2355merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2356section above).
2357
2358There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2359per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2360its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2361rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2362it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2363into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2364must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2365being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2366also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2367affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2368below).
2369
2370Some examples:
2371
2372quote(
2373tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2374tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2375tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2376tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2377tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2378)
2379
2380The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2381
2382itemization(
2383 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2384 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2385 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2386 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2387 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2388 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2389 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2390 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2391 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2392 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2393 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2394 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2395 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2396 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2397 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2398 also disabled).
2399 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2400 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2401 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2402 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2403 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2404 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
2405)
2406
2407The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2408
2409itemization(
2410 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2411 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2412 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2413 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2414 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2415 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2416 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2417 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2418 non-directories.
2419 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2420 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2421 follow.
2422 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2423 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2424 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2425 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2426 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2427 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2428 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2429 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2430 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2431 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2432 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2433 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2434 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2435 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2436 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2437 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2438)
2439
2440Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2441where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2442subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2443from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2444inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2445the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2446dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2447rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2448file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2449
2450Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2451anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2452merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2453would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2454file was found.
2455
2456Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2457
2458quote(
2459tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2460tt(- *.gz)nl()
2461tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2462tt(+ *.[ch])nl()
2463tt(- *.o)nl()
2464)
2465
2466This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2467start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2468filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2469follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2470of the transfer).
2471
2472If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2473directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2474dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2475per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2476
2477quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2478
2479That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2480directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2481transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2482the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2483rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2484
2485Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2486
2487quote(
2488tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2489tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2490tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2491)
2492
2493The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2494"/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2495and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2496and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2497a part of the transfer.
2498
2499If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2500you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2501file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2502use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2503per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2504":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2505add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2506rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2507example:
2508
2509quote(
2510tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2511tt(+ foo.o)nl()
2512tt(:C)nl()
2513tt(- *.old)nl()
2514tt(EOT)nl()
2515tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2516)
2517
2518Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2519the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2520at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2521that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2522affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2523the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2524omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2525your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2526
2527manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2528
2529You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2530rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2531list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2532parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2533inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2534out the parent's rules).
2535
2536manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2537
2538As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2539"root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2540anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2541a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2542transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2543directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2544
2545Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2546trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2547option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2548changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2549host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2550
2551Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2552path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2553Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2554
2555quote(
2556 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2557 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2558 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2559 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2560 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2561)
2562
2563quote(
2564 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2565 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2566 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2567 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2568 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2569)
2570
2571quote(
2572 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2573 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2574 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2575 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2576 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2577)
2578
2579quote(
2580 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2581 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2582 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2583 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2584 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2585)
2586
2587The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2588look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2589(use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2590
2591manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2592
2593Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2594sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2595without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2596this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2597
2598quote(
2599tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2600tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2601)
2602
2603However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2604files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2605receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2606the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2607because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2608rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2609
2610quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2611
2612However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2613either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2614line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2615the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2616remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2617
2618verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2619 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2620
2621In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2622transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2623merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2624per-directory merge rule.
2625
2626In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2627files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2628to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2629specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2630deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2631should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2632
2633verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2634 host:src/dir /dest
2635 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2636
2637manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2638
2639Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2640identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2641number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2642source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2643hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2644write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2645of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2646client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2647this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2648
2649To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2650with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2651file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2652using the information stored in the batch file.
2653
2654For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2655option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2656".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2657a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2658batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
2659optionally
2660passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2661instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2662path differs from the original destination tree path.
2663
2664Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2665status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2666updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2667be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2668at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2669
2670Examples:
2671
2672quote(
2673tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2674tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2675tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2676)
2677
2678quote(
2679tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2680tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2681)
2682
2683In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2684and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2685"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2686into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2687reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2688
2689itemization(
2690 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2691 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2692 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2693 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2694 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2695 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2696 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2697 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2698 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2699 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2700 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2701)
2702
2703Caveats:
2704
2705The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2706to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2707batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2708is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2709appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2710and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2711error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2712if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2713always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2714option (when reading the batch).
2715If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2716partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2717be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2718destination tree.
2719
2720The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2721one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2722protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2723to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2724creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2725(Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2726older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2727
2728When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2729to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2730as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2731For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2732bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2733bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2734one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2735
2736The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2737options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2738shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2739list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2740user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2741to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2742
2743The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2744version uses a new implementation.
2745
2746manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2747
2748Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2749link in the source directory.
2750
2751By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2752"skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2753
2754If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2755target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2756bf(--links).
2757
2758If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2759copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2760
2761rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2762example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2763ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2764bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2765bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2766they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2767unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2768bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2769
2770Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2771(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2772components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2773
2774Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2775in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2776use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2777
2778dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2779symlinks for any other options to affect).
2780
2781dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2782and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2783
2784dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2785skip all safe symlinks.
2786
2787dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2788ones.
2789
2790dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2791
2792manpagediagnostics()
2793
2794rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2795cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2796version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2797
2798This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2799facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2800for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2801remote shell like this:
2802
2803quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2804
2805then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2806should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2807rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2808data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2809it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2810scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2811for non-interactive logins.
2812
2813If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2814try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2815show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2816
2817manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2818
2819startdit()
2820dit(bf(0)) Success
2821dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2822dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2823dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2824dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2825was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2826them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2827not by the server.
2828dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2829dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2830dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2831dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2832dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2833dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2834dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2835dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2836dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2837dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2838dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2839dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2840dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2841dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2842dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2843enddit()
2844
2845manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2846
2847startdit()
2848dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2849ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2850more details.
2851dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2852environment variable.
2853dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2854override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2855options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2856dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2857redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2858rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2859dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2860password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2861daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2862password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2863consult the remote shell's documentation.
2864dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2865are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2866If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2867dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2868default .cvsignore file.
2869enddit()
2870
2871manpagefiles()
2872
2873/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2874
2875manpageseealso()
2876
2877bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
2878
2879manpagebugs()
2880
2881times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2882
2883When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2884unmodified files.
2885See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2886
2887file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2888values
2889
2890see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2891
2892Please report bugs! See the web site at
2893url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2894
2895manpagesection(VERSION)
2896
2897This man page is current for version 3.0.4pre2 of rsync.
2898
2899manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2900
2901The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2902and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2903awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2904when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2905the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2906named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2907ssh login.
2908
2909manpagesection(CREDITS)
2910
2911rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2912COPYING for details.
2913
2914A WEB site is available at
2915url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2916includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2917manual page.
2918
2919The primary ftp site for rsync is
2920url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2921
2922We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2923Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
2924
2925This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2926Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2927
2928manpagesection(THANKS)
2929
2930Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
2931David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
2932gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
2933
2934Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2935and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2936
2937manpageauthor()
2938
2939rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2940Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
2941by Wayne Davison.
2942
2943Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2944url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)