1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Sep 2004)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
6 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
22 rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
23 but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
24 greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
27 The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
28 differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
29 an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
30 report that accompanies this package.
32 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
36 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
37 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
39 it() does not require root privileges
40 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
41 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
50 it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
51 source nor destination path contains a : separator
53 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
54 a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
55 rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
58 it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
59 using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
60 contains a : separator.
62 it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
63 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
64 separator or an rsync:// URL.
66 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
67 server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
68 separator or an rsync:// URL.
70 it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
71 program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
72 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
73 separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is
76 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
77 using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
78 server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
79 destination path contains a :: separator and the
80 --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
82 it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
83 same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
87 Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
88 and destination paths must be local.
92 See the file README for installation instructions.
94 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
95 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
96 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
97 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
98 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
100 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
101 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
103 One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
106 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
109 manpagesection(USAGE)
111 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
112 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
114 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
116 quote(rsync -t *.c foo:src/)
118 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
119 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
120 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
121 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
122 differences. See the tech report for details.
124 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
126 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
127 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
128 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
129 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
130 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
131 size of data portions of the transfer.
133 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
135 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
136 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
137 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
138 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
139 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
140 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
141 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
144 quote(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)
145 quote(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
147 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
148 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
149 an improved copy command.
151 quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
153 This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
154 somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
157 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
159 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
160 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
162 quote(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest)
164 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
165 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
166 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
167 to be a part of the filenames.
169 quote(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)
171 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
172 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
173 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
174 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
175 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
176 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
177 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
179 quote(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)
180 quote(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)
182 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
183 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
186 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
188 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
189 transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
190 running on TCP port 873.
192 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
193 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
194 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
195 proxy connections to port 873.
197 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
201 it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
202 separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
204 it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
207 it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
208 list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
210 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
211 specified files on the remote server is provided.
214 Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
215 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
216 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
217 the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
218 may be useful when scripting rsync.
220 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
221 users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
223 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
225 It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
226 server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
227 rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
228 to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
229 firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
230 features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
233 From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
234 using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
235 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
236 --rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
239 In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
240 server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
242 quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
244 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
245 used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
247 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
249 An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
250 rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
251 file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
252 shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
253 is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
256 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
258 See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
259 server configuration file.
261 Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
262 user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
263 configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port
264 if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
266 To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
267 in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
269 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
271 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
273 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
274 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
276 quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
278 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
281 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
285 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
288 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
292 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
293 connection. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a
294 lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very efficient.
296 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
299 quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba")
301 this is launched from cron every few hours.
303 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
305 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
306 to the detailed description below for a complete description.
309 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
310 -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
311 -c, --checksum always checksum
312 -a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
313 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
314 -R, --relative use relative path names
315 --no-relative turn off --relative
316 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
317 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
318 --backup-dir make backups into this directory
319 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
320 -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
321 --inplace update the destination files inplace
322 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
323 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
324 -L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
325 --copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
326 --safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks
327 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
328 -p, --perms preserve permissions
329 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
330 -g, --group preserve group
331 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
332 -t, --times preserve times
333 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
334 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
335 -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
336 --no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
337 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
338 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
339 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
340 --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
341 --existing only update files that already exist
342 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
343 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
344 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
345 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
346 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
347 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
348 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
349 --partial keep partially transferred files
350 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
351 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
352 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
353 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
354 -I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
355 --size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
356 --modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
357 -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
358 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
359 --link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
360 -P equivalent to --partial --progress
361 -z, --compress compress file data
362 -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
363 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
364 --exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
365 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
366 --include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
367 --files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
368 -0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
369 --version print version number
370 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
371 --no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
372 --stats give some file transfer stats
373 --progress show progress during transfer
374 --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
375 --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
376 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
377 --write-batch=FILE write a batch to FILE
378 --read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE
379 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed
380 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
381 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
382 -h, --help show this help screen
385 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are accepted:
388 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
389 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
390 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
391 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
392 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
393 --port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
394 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
395 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
396 -h, --help show this help screen
401 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
402 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
403 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
404 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
408 dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
411 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
413 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
414 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
415 single -v will give you information about what files are being
416 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
417 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
418 information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
419 you are debugging rsync.
421 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
422 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
423 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
426 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
427 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
428 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
430 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
431 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
432 --size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
433 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
434 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
437 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps rsync treats
438 the timestamps as being equal if they are within the value of
439 modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
440 set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
441 transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
442 with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
444 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
445 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
446 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
447 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
448 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
450 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
451 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
454 Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
455 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
458 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
459 recursively. If you don't specify this then rsync won't copy
462 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
463 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
464 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
465 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
466 example, if you used the command
468 verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
470 then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
471 machine. If instead you used
473 verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
475 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
476 machine -- the full path name is preserved.
478 dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
479 needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
482 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
483 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
484 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
485 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
486 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,
487 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
488 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
489 the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
490 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
491 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
493 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
494 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
495 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
496 --backup-dir and --suffix options.
498 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
499 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
500 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
501 specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
502 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
503 will keep their original filenames).
504 If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
505 (which changes in a recursive transfer).
507 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
508 backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
509 if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
511 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the
512 destination file already exists and has a date later than the source
515 In the currently implementation, a difference of file format is always
516 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
517 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
518 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
519 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
520 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
522 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
523 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
526 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
527 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
528 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't extract the full amount of
529 network reduction it might otherwise (since it does not yet try to sort
530 data matches -- a future version may improve this).
532 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
533 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
536 The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
537 the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir, --compare-dest, and
538 --link-dest (a future rsync version will hopefully update the protocol to
539 remove these restrictions).
541 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
542 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
543 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
544 rsync will be unable to update a file inplace that is not writable by the
547 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
548 symlink on the destination.
550 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
551 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
552 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
553 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
554 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify --keep-dirlinks (-K)
555 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
556 an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L option
557 will still have the side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
559 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
560 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
561 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
562 source path itself when --relative is used.
564 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
565 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
566 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
567 give unexpected results.
569 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
570 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
571 option hard links are treated like regular files.
573 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
574 are in the list of files being sent.
576 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
578 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
579 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
580 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
581 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
582 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
583 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
585 dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
588 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
589 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
591 Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
592 source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
593 other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
594 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
596 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
597 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
598 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
599 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
600 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
602 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
603 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
604 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
605 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
606 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
607 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
609 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
610 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
611 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
613 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
614 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
615 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
616 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
617 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, causing all files to be
618 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
619 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using -t).
621 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
622 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
624 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
625 up less space on the destination.
627 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
628 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
629 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
631 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
632 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
633 contents of only one filesystem.
635 dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
636 only update files that already exist on the destination.
638 dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
639 This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
642 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
643 files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
644 to prevent disasters.
646 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
647 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
648 suffixed with a letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
649 may be a fractional value (e.g. "--max-size=1.5m").
651 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving
652 side that aren't on the sending side. Files that are excluded from
653 transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
655 This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
657 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
658 to run first using the dry run option (-n) to see what files would be
659 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
661 If the sending side detects any I/O errors then the deletion of any
662 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
663 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
664 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
665 destination. You can override this with the --ignore-errors option.
667 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
668 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
669 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
672 dit(bf(--delete-after)) By default rsync does file deletions on the
673 receiving side before transferring files to try to ensure that there is
674 sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If you want to delete
675 after transferring, use the --delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
677 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
678 even when there are I/O errors.
680 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
681 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
682 is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
683 Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
685 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
686 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
687 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
689 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
690 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
691 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
692 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
694 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
695 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
696 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
697 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
698 running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
699 TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
701 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
702 presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
704 quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
706 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
707 options in their .ssh/config file.)
709 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
710 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.
712 See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
714 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
715 rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note
716 that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that
719 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
720 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
721 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
722 a file should be ignored.
724 The exclude list is initialized to:
726 quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
727 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
728 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)
730 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
731 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
732 are delimited by whitespace).
734 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
735 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
736 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
738 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
739 certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most
740 useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
742 You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like
743 to build up the list of files to exclude.
745 See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
747 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
748 option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
749 FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
750 ';' or '#' are ignored.
751 If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
753 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
754 specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to
755 build up quite complex exclude/include rules.
757 See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
759 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
761 If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
763 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
764 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
765 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
766 transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
767 instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
768 is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
769 directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
770 than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
771 behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
774 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
775 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
776 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
779 quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
781 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
782 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
783 contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
784 or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
785 that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
786 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
787 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
789 In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host
790 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
791 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
792 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
793 transfer". For example:
795 quote(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
797 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
798 was located on the remote "src" host.
800 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
801 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
802 This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, and --files-from.
803 It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
804 file are split on whitespace).
806 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
807 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
808 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
809 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
811 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR on
812 the destination machine as an additional directory to compare destination
813 files against when doing transfers if the files are missing in the
814 destination directory. This is useful for doing transfers to a new
815 destination while leaving existing files intact, and then doing a
816 flash-cutover when all files have been successfully transferred (for
817 example by moving directories around and removing the old directory,
818 although this skips files that haven't changed; see also --link-dest).
819 This option increases the usefulness of --partial because partially
820 transferred files will remain in the new temporary destination until they
821 have a chance to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative
822 to the destination directory.
824 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest) but
825 also will create hard links from em(DIR) to the destination directory for
826 unchanged files. Files with changed ownership or permissions will not be
831 rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
834 Like bf(--compare-dest) if DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the
835 destination directory.
836 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
837 --link-dest from working properly for a non-root user when -o was specified
838 (or implied by -a). If the receiving rsync is not new enough, you can work
839 around this bug by avoiding the -o option.
841 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
842 the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
843 option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
844 same method that gzip uses.
846 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios
847 that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a
848 compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit
849 information sent for matching data blocks.
851 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
852 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
855 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
856 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
857 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
858 option is not specified.
860 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
861 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
862 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
863 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
864 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
865 users and groups and what you can do about it.
867 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
868 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
869 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
871 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
872 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
873 rsync defaults to using
874 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
875 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
877 dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
880 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
881 rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
882 specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
885 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
886 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
887 algorithm is for your data.
889 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
890 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
891 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
892 --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
893 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
895 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to
896 put a partially transferred file into DIR instead of writing out the
897 file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this
898 dir as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after
899 rsync creates a partial file) and delete such a file after it has served
900 its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied) that an
901 existing partial-dir file will not be used to speedup the transfer (since
902 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
904 Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
905 whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
906 "--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory
907 in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to remove the DIR
908 if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the
909 DIR was specified as a relative path).
911 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an
912 --exclude of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
913 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
914 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
915 the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
916 rule at the end of any other include/exclude rules. Note that if you are
917 supplying your own include/exclude rules, you may need to manually insert a
918 rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
919 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
920 a trailing --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
922 IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users or it
923 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
925 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
926 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force --partial to be
927 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when --partial (or
928 -P) is used. For instance, instead of specifying --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp
929 along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
930 environment and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the
931 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time the --partial option
932 does not look for this environment value is when --inplace was also
933 specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir).
935 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
936 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
938 Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
940 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
943 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
946 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
947 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
948 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
949 remaining in this transfer.
951 After the a file is complete, it the data looks like this:
954 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
957 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
958 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
959 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
960 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
961 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
963 dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its
964 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
965 transfer that may be interrupted.
967 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
968 in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
969 is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
970 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
971 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
974 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
975 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
976 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
977 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
978 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
979 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
980 of zero specifies no limit.
982 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
983 another identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE"
986 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
987 file previously generated by --write-batch.
988 If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
989 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
991 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
992 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
993 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
994 rsync daemon (see also these options in the --daemon mode section).
996 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
997 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
998 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
999 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1000 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1001 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1002 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1003 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1008 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1012 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1013 daemon may be accessed using the bf(host::module) or
1014 bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1016 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1017 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1018 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1019 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1020 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1023 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
1024 when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
1025 rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
1026 address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
1027 in conjunction with the --config option.
1029 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1030 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1031 The client can still specify a smaller --bwlimit value, but their
1032 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1033 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1035 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1036 the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified.
1037 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1038 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1039 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1041 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1042 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1043 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1044 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1045 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1046 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1047 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1050 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1051 rather than the default port 873.
1053 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1054 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1055 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1056 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1057 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1058 try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
1060 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after --daemon, print a short help
1061 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1065 manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1067 The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
1068 selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip.
1070 Rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
1071 the command line. Rsync checks each file and directory
1072 name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching
1073 pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern, then that file is
1074 skipped. If it is an include pattern then that filename is not
1075 skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the
1076 filename is not skipped.
1078 The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative
1079 to the "root of the transfer". If you think of the transfer as a
1080 subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the root
1081 is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory.
1082 This root governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
1084 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1085 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
1086 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1087 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1088 system). The following examples demonstrate this.
1090 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1091 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1092 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1095 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
1096 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
1097 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
1098 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1099 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1101 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
1102 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
1103 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
1104 Target file: /dest/foo/bar
1105 Target file: /dest/bar/baz
1107 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
1108 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
1109 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
1110 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
1111 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
1113 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
1114 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
1115 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
1116 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1117 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1120 The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just
1121 look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
1122 (use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1124 Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a),
1125 every subcomponent of
1126 every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get
1127 applied recursively to each subcomponent.
1128 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1129 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1130 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1131 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1134 Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern
1135 each. To add multiple patterns use the --include-from and
1136 --exclude-from options or multiple --include and --exclude options.
1138 The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
1142 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the
1143 start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of
1145 This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regular expressions.
1146 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root
1147 (see above for how this is different from the filesystem-root).
1148 On the other hand, "foo" would match any file called "foo"
1149 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1150 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1151 end of the file name.
1153 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1154 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1156 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1157 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1158 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1160 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1161 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1163 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1164 then it is matched against the full filename, including any leading
1165 directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1166 matched only against the final component of the filename. Again,
1167 remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can
1168 actually be any portion of a path below the starting directory.
1170 it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
1171 then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
1172 part of an exclude option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
1174 it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)
1175 then it is always considered an exclude pattern, even if specified as
1176 part of an include option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
1178 it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current
1179 include/exclude list is reset, removing all previously defined patterns.
1182 The +/- rules are most useful in a list that was read from a file, allowing
1183 you to have a single exclude list that contains both include and exclude
1184 options in the proper order.
1186 Remember that the matching occurs at every step in the traversal of the
1187 directory hierarchy, so you must be sure that all the parent directories of
1188 the files you want to include are not excluded. This is particularly
1189 important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
1192 + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
1197 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule,
1198 so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1199 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1200 to be included by using a single rule: --include='*/' (put it somewhere
1201 before the --exclude='*' rule). Another solution is to add specific
1202 include rules for all the parent dirs that need to be visited. For
1203 instance, this set of rules works fine:
1208 + /some/path/this-file-is-found
1209 + /file-also-included
1213 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1216 it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1217 it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1218 it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1219 it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1220 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1221 it() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1222 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1223 it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
1224 directories and C source files
1225 it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
1226 only foo/bar.c (the foo/ directory must be explicitly included or
1227 it would be excluded by the "*")
1230 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1232 bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
1233 of rsync. The interface and behavior have now stabilized, though, so
1234 feel free to try this out.
1236 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1237 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1238 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1239 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1240 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1241 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1242 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1243 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1244 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1246 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1247 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1248 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1249 using the information stored in the batch file.
1251 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1252 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1253 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1254 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1255 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1256 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1257 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1258 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1260 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1261 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1262 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1263 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1264 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1269 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1271 $ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
1275 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1276 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
1279 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1280 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1281 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1282 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1283 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1287 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1288 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1289 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1291 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1292 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1294 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1295 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1296 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1297 --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1298 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1299 standard input, such as the "--exclude-from=-" option).
1305 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1306 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1307 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1308 is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
1309 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1310 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1311 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1312 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1313 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I
1314 option (when reading the batch).
1315 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1316 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1317 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1320 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1321 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
1322 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
1325 The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
1328 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
1329 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
1330 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
1332 --write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
1333 --include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
1334 without --delete-excluded.
1336 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude
1337 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
1338 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
1339 list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A normal
1340 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
1341 to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
1343 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
1344 version uses a new implementation.
1346 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1348 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
1349 link in the source directory.
1351 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1352 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1354 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1355 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1358 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1359 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1361 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1362 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1363 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1364 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1365 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1366 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
1367 unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
1369 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1370 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1371 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1373 manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
1375 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
1376 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1377 version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
1379 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1380 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
1381 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
1382 remote shell like this:
1385 ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
1388 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
1389 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
1390 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
1391 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
1392 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
1393 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
1394 for non-interactive logins.
1396 If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude patterns, then
1397 try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
1398 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
1400 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
1404 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
1405 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
1406 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
1407 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
1408 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
1409 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
1411 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
1412 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
1413 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
1414 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
1415 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
1416 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
1417 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
1418 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
1419 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
1420 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
1421 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
1422 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
1425 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
1429 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
1430 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for
1433 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
1434 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
1435 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
1437 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
1438 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
1439 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
1441 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
1442 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
1443 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
1444 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
1446 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
1447 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
1448 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
1450 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
1451 default .cvsignore file.
1457 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
1463 manpagediagnostics()
1467 times are transferred as unix time_t values
1469 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
1471 See the comments on the --modify-window option.
1473 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
1476 see also the comments on the --delete option
1478 Please report bugs! See the website at
1479 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
1481 manpagesection(CREDITS)
1483 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
1484 COPYING for details.
1486 A WEB site is available at
1487 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
1488 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
1491 The primary ftp site for rsync is
1492 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
1494 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
1496 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
1497 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
1499 manpagesection(THANKS)
1501 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
1502 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
1503 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
1505 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
1506 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
1510 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
1511 Many people have later contributed to it.
1513 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
1514 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)