1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Jul 2005)()()
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 daemons (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
48 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
50 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
51 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
52 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
53 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
54 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
55 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
56 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
57 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
58 an exception to this latter rule).
60 As a special case, if a remote source is specified without a destination,
61 the remote files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
63 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
64 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
68 See the file README for installation instructions.
70 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
71 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
72 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
73 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
74 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
76 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
77 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
79 One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
82 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
87 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
88 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
90 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
92 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
94 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
95 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
96 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
97 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
98 differences. See the tech report for details.
100 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
102 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
103 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
104 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
105 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
106 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
107 size of data portions of the transfer.
109 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
111 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
112 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
113 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
114 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
115 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
116 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
117 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
121 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
122 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
125 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
126 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
127 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
130 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
131 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
134 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
135 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
136 an improved copy command.
138 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
140 This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
141 somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
143 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
145 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
146 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
148 quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
150 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
151 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
152 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
153 to be a part of the filenames.
155 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
157 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
158 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
159 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
160 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
161 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
162 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
163 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
166 tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
167 tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
170 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
171 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
173 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
175 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
176 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
177 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
178 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
179 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
181 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
185 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
186 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
187 it() the first word after the :: is a module name.
188 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
190 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
191 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
192 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
193 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
196 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
198 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
200 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
201 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
202 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
203 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
204 may be useful when scripting rsync.
206 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
207 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
209 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
210 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
211 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
212 proxy connections to port 873.
214 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
216 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
217 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
218 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
219 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
220 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
221 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
222 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
223 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
224 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
225 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
226 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
227 connections from "localhost".)
229 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
230 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
231 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
232 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
233 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
234 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
236 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
238 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
239 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
240 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
241 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell:
243 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
245 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
246 used to log-in to the "module".
248 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
250 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
251 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
252 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
253 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
254 socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config
255 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
256 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
258 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
259 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
261 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
263 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
265 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
266 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
268 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
270 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
273 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
277 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
279 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
282 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
283 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
284 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
286 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
289 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
291 This is launched from cron every few hours.
293 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
295 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
296 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
297 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
298 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
299 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
300 -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
301 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
302 -R, --relative use relative path names
303 --no-relative turn off --relative
304 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
305 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
306 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
307 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
308 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
309 --inplace update destination files in-place
310 --append append data onto shorter files
311 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
312 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
313 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
314 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
315 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
316 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
317 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
318 -p, --perms preserve permissions
319 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
320 -g, --group preserve group
321 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
322 -t, --times preserve times
323 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
324 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
325 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
326 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
327 --no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
328 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
329 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
330 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
331 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
332 --existing only update files that already exist
333 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
334 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
335 --del an alias for --delete-during
336 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
337 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
338 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
339 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
340 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
341 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
342 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
343 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
344 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
345 --partial keep partially transferred files
346 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
347 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
348 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
349 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
350 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
351 --size-only skip files that match in size
352 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
353 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
354 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
355 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
356 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
357 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
358 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
359 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
360 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
361 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
362 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
363 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
364 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
365 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
366 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
367 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
368 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
369 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
370 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
371 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
372 --no-blocking-io turn off blocking I/O when it is default
373 --stats give some file-transfer stats
374 --progress show progress during transfer
375 -P same as --partial --progress
376 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
377 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format
378 --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
379 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
380 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
381 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
382 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
383 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
384 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
385 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
386 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
387 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
388 --version print version number
389 -h, --help show this help screen)
391 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
393 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
394 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
395 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
396 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
397 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
398 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
399 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
400 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
401 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
402 -h, --help show this help screen)
406 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
407 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
408 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
409 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
413 dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
416 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
418 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
419 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
420 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
421 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
422 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
423 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
424 you are debugging rsync.
426 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
427 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
428 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
429 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
430 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
431 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
432 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
433 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
435 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
436 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
437 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
440 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
441 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
442 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
444 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
445 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
446 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
447 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
448 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
451 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
452 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
453 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
454 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
455 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
456 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
457 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
459 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
460 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
461 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
462 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
463 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
465 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
466 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
467 everything. The only exception to this is if bf(--files-from) was
468 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
470 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
471 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
474 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
475 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
477 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
478 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
479 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
480 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
481 example, if you used the command
483 quote(tt( rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
485 then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
486 machine. If instead you used
488 quote(tt( rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
490 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
491 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
492 path information that is sent, do something like this:
496 tt( rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)nl()
499 That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
501 dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the bf(--relative) option. This is only
502 needed if you want to use bf(--files-from) without its implied bf(--relative)
505 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
506 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
507 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
508 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
509 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
510 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
511 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
512 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
513 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
514 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
516 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
517 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
518 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
519 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
520 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), the bf(--omit-dir-times)
521 option will be enabled.
523 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
524 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
525 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
526 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
527 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
528 will keep their original filenames).
530 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
531 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
532 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
534 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
535 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
536 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
537 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
539 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
540 between the sender and receiver is always
541 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
542 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
543 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
544 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
545 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
547 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
548 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
549 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
550 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
551 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
552 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
553 basis file for the transfer.
555 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
556 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
559 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
560 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
561 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
564 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
565 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
566 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
567 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
570 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
571 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
572 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
573 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
574 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatch. Any
575 file on the receiving side that is longer than a file on the sending side
576 is skipped. Implies bf(--inplace).
578 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
579 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
580 unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
581 name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
582 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
583 output a message to that effect for each one).
585 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
586 symlink on the destination.
588 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
589 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
590 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
591 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
592 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
593 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
594 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
595 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
597 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
598 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
599 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
600 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
602 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
603 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
604 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
605 give unexpected results.
607 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
608 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
609 option hard links are treated like regular files.
611 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
612 are in the list of files being sent.
614 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
616 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
617 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
620 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
621 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
622 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
623 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
624 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
625 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
627 dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off bf(--whole-file), for use when it is the
630 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
631 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
633 Without this option, all existing files (including updated files) retain
634 their existing permissions, while each new file gets its permissions set
635 based on the source file's permissions, but masked by the receiving end's
637 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
639 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
640 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
641 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
642 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
643 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
645 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
646 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
647 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
648 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
649 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
650 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
652 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
653 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
654 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
656 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
657 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
658 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
659 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
660 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
661 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
662 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
664 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
665 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
666 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
667 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
669 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
670 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
672 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
673 up less space on the destination.
675 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
676 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
677 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
679 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
680 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
681 contents of only one filesystem.
683 dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files --
684 only update files that already exist on the destination.
686 dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
687 This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
690 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
691 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
692 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
693 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
695 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
696 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
697 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
698 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
699 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
700 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
701 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
702 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
703 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
704 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
706 This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.
708 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
709 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
710 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
712 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
713 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
714 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
715 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
716 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
718 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
719 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
720 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
721 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
722 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
724 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
725 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
726 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
727 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
729 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
730 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
731 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
732 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
735 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
736 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
737 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
738 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
739 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
741 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
742 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
743 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
744 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
746 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
748 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
749 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
750 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
751 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
752 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
753 bf(--delete-excluded).
754 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
756 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
757 even when there are I/O errors.
759 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
760 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
761 is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
762 Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-a)) to have any effect.
764 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
765 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
766 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
768 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
769 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
770 suffixed with a letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
771 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
773 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
774 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
775 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
777 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
778 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
779 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
780 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
782 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
783 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
784 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
785 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
786 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
787 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
789 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
790 presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
792 quote(tt( -e "ssh -p 2234"))
794 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
795 options in their .ssh/config file.)
797 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
798 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
800 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
802 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
803 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
804 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
805 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
806 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
807 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
810 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
811 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
813 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
815 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
816 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
817 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
818 a file should be ignored.
820 The exclude list is initialized to:
822 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
823 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
824 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
826 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
827 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
828 are delimited by whitespace).
830 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
831 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
832 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
833 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
835 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
836 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
837 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
838 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
839 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
840 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
841 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
842 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
843 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
844 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
847 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
848 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
849 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
851 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
852 to build up the list of files to exclude.
854 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
856 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
857 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
859 quote(tt( --filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
861 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
862 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
863 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
866 quote(tt( --filter='- .rsync-filter'))
868 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
870 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
873 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
874 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
875 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
877 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
879 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the bf(--exclude)
880 option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
881 FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
882 ';' or '#' are ignored.
883 If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
885 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
886 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
887 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
889 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
891 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
893 If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
895 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
896 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
897 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
898 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
901 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
902 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
903 bf(--no-relative) if you want to turn that off).
904 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
905 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
907 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
908 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
911 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
912 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
913 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
916 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
918 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
919 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
920 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
921 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
922 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
923 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
924 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
925 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
927 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
928 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
929 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
931 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
932 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
933 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
934 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
935 transfer". For example:
937 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
939 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
940 was located on the remote "src" host.
942 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
943 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
944 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
945 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
946 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
947 file are split on whitespace).
949 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
950 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
951 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
952 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
954 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
955 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
956 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
957 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
958 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
960 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
961 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
962 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
964 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
965 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
966 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
967 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
968 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
969 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
970 have changed from an earlier backup.
972 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
973 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
975 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
976 and the attributes updated.
977 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
978 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
980 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
981 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
983 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
984 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
985 directory using a local copy.
986 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
987 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
988 been successfully transferred.
990 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
991 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
992 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
993 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
995 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
996 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
998 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
999 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1000 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1001 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1004 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1006 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1007 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1009 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1010 and the attributes updated.
1011 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1012 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1014 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1015 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1017 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1018 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-root user when bf(-o) was specified
1019 (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option
1020 when sending to an old rsync.
1022 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1023 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1024 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1026 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can
1027 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1028 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1029 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1031 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1032 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1035 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1036 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1037 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1038 option is not specified.
1040 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1041 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1042 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1043 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1044 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1045 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1047 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1048 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1049 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1051 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1052 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1053 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1054 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1056 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1057 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1058 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1059 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1060 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1062 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1063 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1064 rsync defaults to using
1065 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1066 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1068 dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off bf(--blocking-io), for use when it is the
1071 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1072 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1073 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1075 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1076 format is like the string bf(UXcstpoga)), where bf(U) is replaced by the
1077 kind of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1078 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1081 The update types that replace the bf(U) are as follows:
1084 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1086 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1088 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1089 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1090 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard-link to another item (requires
1092 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1093 have attributes that are being modified).
1096 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1097 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, and a bf(D) for a device.
1099 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1100 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1101 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1102 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1103 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1104 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1106 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1109 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1110 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1111 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1112 by the file transfer.
1113 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1114 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1115 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1116 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1117 without bf(--times).
1118 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1119 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1120 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1121 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and root privileges).
1122 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1123 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1124 it() The bf(a) is reserved for a future enhanced version that supports
1125 extended file attributes, such as ACLs.
1128 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1129 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1130 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1131 outputting them as a verbose message).
1133 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1134 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1135 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1136 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1137 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1138 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1140 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1141 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1142 touched directory) unless the itemized-changes escape (%i) is included in
1143 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1144 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1145 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemized-changes) option for a description of the
1148 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1149 bf(--log-format) without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1150 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1152 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1153 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1154 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1155 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1156 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1157 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1159 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1160 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1161 algorithm is for your data.
1163 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1164 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1165 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1166 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1167 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1169 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1170 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1171 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1172 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1173 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
1174 after it has served its purpose.
1175 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1176 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1178 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1180 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1181 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1182 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1183 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1184 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1186 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add a directory
1187 bf(--exclude) of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1188 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1189 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1190 the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
1191 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1192 supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert a
1193 rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
1194 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1195 a trailing bf(--exclude='*') rule, the auto-added rule would never be
1198 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1199 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1201 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1202 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1203 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1204 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1205 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1206 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1207 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the bf(--partial)
1208 option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1209 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
1210 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1212 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1213 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1214 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1215 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1216 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1218 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1219 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1220 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1221 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1222 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1223 each file's destination directory, but you can override this by specifying
1224 the bf(--partial-dir) option. (Note that RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR has no effect
1225 on this value, nor is bf(--partial-dir) considered to be implied for the
1226 purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting.)
1227 Conflicts with bf(--inplace).
1229 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1230 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1231 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1232 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless there is no
1233 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1234 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1237 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1238 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1239 parallel hierarchy of files).
1241 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1242 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1244 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1246 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1248 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1250 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1251 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1252 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1253 remaining in this transfer.
1255 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1257 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1259 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1260 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1261 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1262 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1263 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1265 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1266 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1267 transfer that may be interrupted.
1269 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1270 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1271 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1272 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1273 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1276 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1277 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1278 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1279 come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
1280 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1281 non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
1282 copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
1283 must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
1285 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1286 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1287 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1288 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1289 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1290 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1291 of zero specifies no limit.
1293 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1294 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1295 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1297 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1298 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1299 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1300 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1302 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1303 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1304 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1305 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1306 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1309 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1310 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1311 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1312 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1314 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1315 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1316 If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
1317 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1319 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1320 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1321 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1322 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1323 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1324 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1325 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1327 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1328 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1329 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1330 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1332 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1333 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1334 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1335 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1336 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1337 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1338 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1339 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1343 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1345 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1348 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1349 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1350 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1352 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1353 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1354 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1355 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1356 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1359 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1360 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1361 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1362 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1363 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1365 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1366 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1367 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1368 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1369 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1371 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1372 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1373 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1374 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1375 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1377 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1378 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1379 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1380 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1381 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1382 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1383 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1386 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1387 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1388 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1390 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1391 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1392 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1393 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1395 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1396 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1397 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1398 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1399 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1400 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1402 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1403 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1406 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1408 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1409 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1410 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1411 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1413 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1414 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1415 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1416 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1417 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1418 filename is not skipped.
1420 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1421 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1424 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1425 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1428 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1429 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1430 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1431 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1432 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1435 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1436 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1437 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1438 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1439 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1440 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1441 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1442 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1443 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1446 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1447 comment lines that start with a "#".
1449 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1450 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1451 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1452 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1454 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1455 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1456 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1457 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1460 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1461 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1462 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1463 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1465 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1467 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1468 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1469 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1470 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1471 can take several forms:
1474 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1475 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1476 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1477 regular expressions.
1478 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1479 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1480 per-directory rule).
1481 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1482 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1484 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1485 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1486 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1487 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1488 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1490 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1491 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1492 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1493 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1494 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1495 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1496 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1497 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1498 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1499 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1500 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1501 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1502 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1506 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1507 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1508 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1509 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1510 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1511 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1512 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1513 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1514 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1515 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1516 For instance, this won't work:
1519 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1520 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1524 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1525 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1526 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1527 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1528 "- *" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1529 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1534 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1535 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1536 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1540 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1543 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1544 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1545 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1546 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1547 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1548 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1549 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1550 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1551 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1552 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1553 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1554 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1557 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1559 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1560 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1563 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1564 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1565 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1566 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1567 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1568 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1569 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1570 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1571 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1572 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1578 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1579 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1580 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1581 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1582 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1585 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1588 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1589 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1590 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1591 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1592 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1593 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1594 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1595 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1596 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1597 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1598 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1599 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1600 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1601 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1602 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1604 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1605 (below) in order to have the rules that are read-in from the file
1606 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1607 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1608 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1609 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1612 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1615 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude should be treated as an
1616 absolute path, relative to the root of the filesystem. For example,
1617 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1618 was sending files from the "/etc" directory.
1619 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1620 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1622 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1623 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1625 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1626 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1627 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1628 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1629 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1630 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1631 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1632 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1633 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1634 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1635 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1638 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1639 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1640 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1641 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1642 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1643 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1644 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1645 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1646 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1648 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
1649 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1650 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1651 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
1654 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
1657 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
1659 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
1664 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1665 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1666 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1667 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1670 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1671 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1672 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1673 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
1675 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
1677 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1678 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1679 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1680 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1681 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1683 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1686 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1687 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1688 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1691 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1692 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1693 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1694 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1695 a part of the transfer.
1697 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1698 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
1699 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
1700 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
1701 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
1702 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1703 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
1704 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1708 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
1713 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
1716 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1717 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1718 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1719 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
1720 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
1721 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
1722 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
1723 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
1725 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1727 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1728 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1729 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1730 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1731 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1732 out the parent's rules).
1734 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1736 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1737 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1738 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1739 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1740 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1741 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1743 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1744 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
1745 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1746 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1747 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1749 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1750 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1751 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1754 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
1755 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
1756 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
1757 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1758 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1762 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
1763 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
1764 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
1765 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
1766 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
1770 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
1771 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
1772 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1773 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
1774 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
1778 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
1779 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
1780 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1781 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1782 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1785 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1786 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
1787 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1789 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1791 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1792 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1793 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1794 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1797 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1798 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1801 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1802 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1803 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1804 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
1805 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1806 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1808 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
1810 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1811 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1812 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1813 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1814 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1816 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1817 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1819 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1820 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1821 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1822 per-directory merge rule.
1824 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1825 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1826 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1827 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1828 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1829 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1831 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
1833 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1835 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1837 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1838 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1839 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1840 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1841 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1842 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1843 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1844 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1845 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1847 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1848 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1849 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1850 using the information stored in the batch file.
1852 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1853 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1854 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1855 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1856 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1857 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1858 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1859 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1861 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1862 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1863 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1864 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1865 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1870 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
1871 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
1872 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
1876 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
1877 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
1880 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1881 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1882 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1883 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1884 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1887 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1888 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1889 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1890 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1891 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1892 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1893 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1894 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1895 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1896 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1897 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
1902 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1903 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1904 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1905 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
1906 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1907 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1908 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1909 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1910 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
1911 option (when reading the batch).
1912 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1913 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1914 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1917 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1918 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
1919 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
1920 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
1921 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
1922 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
1923 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
1925 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
1926 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
1927 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
1928 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
1929 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
1930 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
1931 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
1933 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
1934 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
1935 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
1936 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
1937 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
1938 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
1940 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
1941 version uses a new implementation.
1943 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1945 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
1946 link in the source directory.
1948 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1949 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1951 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1952 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1955 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1956 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1958 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1959 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1960 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1961 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1962 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1963 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
1964 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
1965 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
1967 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1968 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1969 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1971 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
1972 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
1973 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
1975 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
1976 symlinks for any other options to affect).
1978 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
1979 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
1981 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
1982 skip all safe symlinks.
1984 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
1987 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
1989 manpagediagnostics()
1991 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
1992 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1993 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
1995 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1996 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
1997 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
1998 remote shell like this:
2000 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2002 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2003 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2004 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2005 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2006 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2007 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2008 for non-interactive logins.
2010 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2011 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2012 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2014 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2018 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2019 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2020 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2021 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2022 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2023 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2025 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2026 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2027 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2028 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2029 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2030 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2031 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2032 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2033 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2034 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2035 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2036 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2037 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2038 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2041 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2044 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2045 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2047 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2048 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2049 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2050 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2051 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2052 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2053 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2054 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2055 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2056 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2057 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2058 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2059 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2060 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2061 default .cvsignore file.
2066 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2074 times are transferred as unix time_t values
2076 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2078 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2080 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2083 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2085 Please report bugs! See the website at
2086 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2088 manpagesection(VERSION)
2090 This man page is current for version 2.6.6 of rsync.
2092 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2094 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2095 COPYING for details.
2097 A WEB site is available at
2098 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2099 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2102 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2103 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2105 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2107 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2108 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2110 manpagesection(THANKS)
2112 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2113 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2114 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2116 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2117 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2121 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2122 Many people have later contributed to it.
2124 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2125 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)