1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Sep 2004)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
6 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
22 rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
23 but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
24 greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
27 The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
28 differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
29 an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
30 report that accompanies this package.
32 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
36 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
37 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
39 it() does not require root privileges
40 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
41 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
50 it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
51 source nor destination path contains a : separator
53 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
54 a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
55 rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
58 it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
59 using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
60 contains a : separator.
62 it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
63 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
64 separator or an rsync:// URL.
66 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
67 server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
68 separator or an rsync:// URL.
70 it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
71 program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
72 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
73 separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is
76 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
77 using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
78 server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
79 destination path contains a :: separator and the
80 --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
82 it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
83 same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
87 Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
88 and destination paths must be local.
92 See the file README for installation instructions.
94 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
95 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
96 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
97 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
98 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
100 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
101 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
103 One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
106 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
109 manpagesection(USAGE)
111 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
112 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
114 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
116 quote(rsync -t *.c foo:src/)
118 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
119 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
120 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
121 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
122 differences. See the tech report for details.
124 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
126 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
127 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
128 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
129 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
130 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
131 size of data portions of the transfer.
133 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
135 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
136 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
137 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
138 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
139 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
140 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
141 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
144 quote(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)
145 quote(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
147 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
148 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
149 an improved copy command.
151 quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
153 This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
154 somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
157 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
159 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
160 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
162 quote(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest)
164 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
165 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
166 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
167 to be a part of the filenames.
169 quote(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)
171 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
172 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
173 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
174 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
175 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
176 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
177 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
179 quote(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)
180 quote(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)
182 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
183 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
186 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
188 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
189 transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
190 running on TCP port 873.
192 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
193 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
194 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
195 proxy connections to port 873.
197 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
201 it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
202 separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
204 it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
207 it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
208 list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
210 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
211 specified files on the remote server is provided.
214 Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
215 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
216 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
217 the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
218 may be useful when scripting rsync.
220 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
221 users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
223 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
225 It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
226 server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
227 rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
228 to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
229 firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
230 features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
233 From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
234 using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
235 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
236 --rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
239 In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
240 server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
242 quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
244 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
245 used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
247 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
249 An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
250 rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
251 file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
252 shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
253 is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
256 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
258 See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
259 server configuration file.
261 Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
262 user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
263 configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port
264 if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
266 To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
267 in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
269 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
271 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
273 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
274 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
276 quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
278 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
281 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
285 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
288 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
292 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
293 connection. I then do cvs operations on the remote machine, which saves a
294 lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very efficient.
296 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
299 quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba")
301 this is launched from cron every few hours.
303 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
305 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
306 to the detailed description below for a complete description.
309 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
310 -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
311 -c, --checksum always checksum
312 -a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
313 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
314 -R, --relative use relative path names
315 --no-relative turn off --relative
316 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
317 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
318 --backup-dir make backups into this directory
319 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
320 -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
321 --inplace update the destination files in-place
322 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
323 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
324 -L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
325 --copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
326 --safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks
327 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
328 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
329 -p, --perms preserve permissions
330 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
331 -g, --group preserve group
332 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
333 -t, --times preserve times
334 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
335 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
336 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
337 -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
338 --no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
339 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
340 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
341 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
342 --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
343 --existing only update files that already exist
344 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
345 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
346 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
347 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
348 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
349 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
350 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
351 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
352 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
353 --partial keep partially transferred files
354 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
355 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
356 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
357 -I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
358 --size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
359 --modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
360 -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
361 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
362 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
363 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
364 -P equivalent to --partial --progress
365 -z, --compress compress file data
366 -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
367 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
368 -F same as --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
369 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
370 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
371 --exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
372 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
373 --include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
374 --files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
375 -0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
376 --version print version number
377 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
378 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
379 --no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
380 --stats give some file transfer stats
381 --progress show progress during transfer
382 --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
383 --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
384 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
385 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
386 --write-batch=FILE write a batch to FILE
387 --read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE
388 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed
389 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
390 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
391 -h, --help show this help screen
394 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are accepted:
397 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
398 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
399 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
400 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
401 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
402 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
403 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
404 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
405 -h, --help show this help screen
410 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
411 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
412 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
413 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
417 dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
420 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
422 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
423 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
424 single -v will give you information about what files are being
425 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
426 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
427 information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
428 you are debugging rsync.
430 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
431 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
432 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
435 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
436 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
437 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
439 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
440 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
441 --size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
442 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
443 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
446 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps rsync treats
447 the timestamps as being equal if they are within the value of
448 modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
449 set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
450 transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
451 with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
453 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
454 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
455 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
456 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
457 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
459 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
460 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
463 Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
464 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
467 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
468 recursively. See also --dirs (-d).
470 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
471 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
472 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
473 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
474 example, if you used the command
476 verb(rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
478 then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
479 machine. If instead you used
481 verb(rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
483 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
484 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
485 path information that is sent, do something like this:
488 rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
490 That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
492 dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
493 needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
496 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
497 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
498 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
499 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
500 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,
501 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
502 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
503 the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
504 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
505 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
507 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
508 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
509 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
510 --backup-dir and --suffix options.
512 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
513 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
514 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
515 specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
516 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
517 will keep their original filenames).
518 If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
519 (which changes in a recursive transfer).
521 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
522 backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
523 if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
525 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
526 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
527 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
528 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
530 In the current implementation of --update, a difference of file format
531 between the sender and receiver is always
532 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
533 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
534 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
535 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
536 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
538 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
539 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
540 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
541 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
542 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
543 with --backup, since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
544 basis file for the transfer.
546 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
547 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
550 The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
551 the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir. Prior to rsync 2.6.4
552 --inplace was also incompatible with --compare-dest, --copy-dest, and
555 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
556 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
557 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
558 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
561 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
562 are encountered. Unlike --recursive, a directory's contents are not copied
563 unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
564 name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
565 --recursive option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
566 output a message to that effect for each one).
568 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
569 symlink on the destination.
571 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
572 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
573 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
574 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
575 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify --keep-dirlinks (-K)
576 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
577 an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L option
578 will still have the side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
580 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
581 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
582 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
583 source path itself when --relative is used.
585 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
586 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
587 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
588 give unexpected results.
590 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
591 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
592 option hard links are treated like regular files.
594 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
595 are in the list of files being sent.
597 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
599 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
600 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
603 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
604 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
605 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
606 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
607 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
608 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
610 dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
613 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
614 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
616 Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
617 source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
618 other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
619 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
621 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
622 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
623 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
624 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
625 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
627 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
628 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
629 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
630 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
631 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
632 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
634 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
635 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
636 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
638 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
639 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
640 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
641 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
642 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, causing all files to be
643 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
644 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using -t).
646 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
647 it is preserving modification times (see --times). If NFS is sharing
648 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use -O.
650 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
651 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
653 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
654 up less space on the destination.
656 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
657 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
658 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
660 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
661 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
662 contents of only one filesystem.
664 dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
665 only update files that already exist on the destination.
667 dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
668 This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
671 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
672 files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
673 to prevent disasters.
675 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
676 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
677 suffixed with a letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
678 may be a fractional value (e.g. "--max-size=1.5m").
680 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
681 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
682 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
683 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
684 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
685 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer those files, not
686 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
687 excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
689 This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.
691 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
692 to run first using the --dry-run option (-n) to see what files would be
693 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
695 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
696 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
697 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
698 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
699 destination. You can override this with the --ignore-errors option.
701 Beginning with 2.6.4, rsync does file deletions on the receiving side
702 incrementally as each directory is being transferred (which makes the
703 transfer more efficient than a separate delete pass before or after the
704 transfer). If you are sending files to an older rsync, --delete will
705 behave as --delete-before (see below). See also --delete-after.
707 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receving
708 side be done prior to starting the transfer, not incrementally as the
709 transfer happens. Implies --delete.
711 One reason to use --delete-before is if the filesystem is tight for space
712 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
713 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer (while
714 the receiving side is being scanned for deletions) and this delay might
715 cause the transfer to timeout.
717 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receving
718 side be done after the transfer has completed, not incrementally as the
719 transfer happens. Implies --delete.
721 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
722 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
723 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
726 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
727 even when there are I/O errors.
729 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
730 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
731 is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
732 Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
734 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
735 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
736 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
738 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
739 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
740 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
741 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
743 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
744 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
745 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
746 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
747 running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
748 TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
750 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
751 presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
753 quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
755 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
756 options in their .ssh/config file.)
758 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
759 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.
761 See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
763 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
764 rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note
765 that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that
768 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
769 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
770 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
771 a file should be ignored.
773 The exclude list is initialized to:
775 quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
776 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
777 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)
779 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
780 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
781 are delimited by whitespace).
783 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
784 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
785 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
787 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
788 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
789 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
791 You may use as many --filter options on the command line as you like
792 to build up the list of files to exclude.
794 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
796 dit(bf(-F)) The -F option is a shorthand for adding two --filter rules to
797 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
800 --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
803 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
804 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
805 files in the transfer. If -F is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
809 --filter='- .rsync-filter'
812 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
814 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
817 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
818 --filter option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
819 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
821 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
823 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
824 option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
825 FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
826 ';' or '#' are ignored.
827 If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
829 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
830 --filter option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
831 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
833 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
835 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
837 If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
839 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
840 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
841 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
842 transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
843 instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
844 is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
845 directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
846 than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
847 behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
850 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
851 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
852 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
855 quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
857 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
858 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
859 contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
860 or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
861 that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
862 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
863 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
865 In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host
866 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
867 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
868 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
869 transfer". For example:
871 quote(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
873 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
874 was located on the remote "src" host.
876 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
877 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
878 This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, --files-from, and any
879 merged files specified in a --filter rule.
880 It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
881 file are split on whitespace).
883 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
884 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
885 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
886 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
888 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
889 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
890 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
891 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
892 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
893 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
894 have changed from an earlier backup.
896 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --compare-dest directories may be
897 provided and rsync will search the list in the order specified until it
898 finds an existing file. That first discovery is used as the basis file,
899 and also determines if the transfer needs to happen.
901 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
902 See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.
904 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
905 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
906 directory (using the data in the em(DIR) for an efficient copy). This is
907 useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving existing
908 files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have been
909 successfully transferred.
911 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
912 See also --compare-dest and --link-dest.
914 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
915 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
916 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
917 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
921 rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
924 Beginning with version 2.6.4, if more than one --link-dest option is
925 specified, rsync will try to find an exact match to link with (searching
926 the list in the order specified), and if not found, a basis file from one
927 of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
929 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
930 See also --compare-dest and --copy-dest.
932 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
933 --link-dest from working properly for a non-root user when -o was specified
934 (or implied by -a). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the -o option
935 when sending to an old rsync.
937 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
938 the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
939 option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
940 same method that gzip uses.
942 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios
943 that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a
944 compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit
945 information sent for matching data blocks.
947 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
948 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
951 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
952 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
953 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
954 option is not specified.
956 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
957 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
958 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
959 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
960 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
961 users and groups and what you can do about it.
963 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
964 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
965 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
967 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
968 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
969 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
970 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
971 option in the --daemon mode section.
973 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
974 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
975 rsync defaults to using
976 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
977 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
979 dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
982 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
983 rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
984 specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
987 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
988 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
989 algorithm is for your data.
991 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
992 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
993 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
994 --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
995 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
997 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to
998 put a partially transferred file into em(DIR) instead of writing out the
999 file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this
1000 dir as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after
1001 rsync creates a partial file) and delete such a file after it has served
1002 its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied) that an
1003 existing partial-dir file will not be used to speedup the transfer (since
1004 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1006 Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
1007 whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1008 "--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory
1009 in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to remove the em(DIR)
1010 if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the
1011 DIR was specified as a relative path).
1013 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an
1014 --exclude of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1015 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1016 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1017 the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
1018 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1019 supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert a
1020 rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
1021 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1022 a trailing --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
1024 IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users or it
1025 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1027 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1028 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force --partial to be
1029 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when --partial (or
1030 -P) is used. For instance, instead of specifying --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp
1031 along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1032 environment and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the
1033 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time the --partial option
1034 does not look for this environment value is when --inplace was also
1035 specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir).
1037 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1038 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1040 Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
1042 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1045 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
1048 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1049 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1050 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1051 remaining in this transfer.
1053 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1056 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
1059 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1060 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1061 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1062 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1063 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1065 dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its
1066 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1067 transfer that may be interrupted.
1069 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1070 in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
1071 is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
1072 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1073 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1076 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1077 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1078 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1079 come in handy for a power user that wants to avoid the "-r --exclude="/*/*"
1080 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1081 non-recursive listing.
1083 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1084 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1085 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1086 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1087 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1088 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1089 of zero specifies no limit.
1091 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1092 another identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE"
1093 section for details.
1095 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1096 file previously generated by --write-batch.
1097 If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
1098 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1100 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1101 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1102 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1103 rsync daemon. See also these options in the --daemon mode section.
1105 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1106 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1107 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1108 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1109 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1110 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1111 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1112 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1117 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1121 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1122 daemon may be accessed using the bf(host::module) or
1123 bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1125 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1126 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1127 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1128 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1129 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1132 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
1133 when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
1134 rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
1135 address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
1136 in conjunction with the --config option. See also the "address" global
1137 option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1139 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1140 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1141 The client can still specify a smaller --bwlimit value, but their
1142 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1143 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1145 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1146 the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified.
1147 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1148 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1149 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1151 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1152 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1153 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1154 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1155 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1156 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1157 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1160 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1161 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1162 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1164 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1165 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1166 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1167 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1168 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1169 try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
1171 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after --daemon, print a short help
1172 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1176 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1178 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1179 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1180 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1181 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1183 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1184 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1185 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1186 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1187 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1188 filename is not skipped.
1190 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1191 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1195 it() xMODIFIERS RULE
1199 The 'x' is a single-letter that specifies the kind of rule to create. It
1200 can have trailing modifiers, and is separated from the RULE by one of the
1201 following characters: a single space, an equal-sign (=), or an underscore
1202 (_). Here are the available rule prefixes:
1205 - specifies an exclude pattern.
1206 + specifies an include pattern.
1207 . specifies a merge-file to read for more rules.
1208 : specifies a per-directory merge-file.
1209 ! clears the current include/exclude list
1212 Note that the --include/--exclude command-line options do not allow the
1213 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1214 specification of include/exclude patterns and the "!" token (not to
1215 mention the comment lines when reading rules from a file). If a pattern
1216 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1217 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1218 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A --filter option, on
1219 the other hand, must always contain one of the prefixes above.
1221 Note also that the --filter, --include, and --exclude options take one
1222 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1223 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the --filter option, or
1224 the --include-from/--exclude-from options.
1226 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1227 comment lines that start with a "#".
1229 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1231 You can include and exclude files by specifing patterns using the "+" and
1232 "-" filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). These
1233 rules specify a pattern that is matched against the names of the files
1234 that are going to be transferred. These patterns can take several forms:
1238 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1239 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1240 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1241 regular expressions.
1242 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1243 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1244 per-directory rule).
1245 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1246 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1248 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1249 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1250 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1251 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1252 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1255 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1256 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1258 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1259 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1260 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1262 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1263 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1265 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1266 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1267 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1268 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1269 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1270 can actually be any portion of a path fomr the starting directory on
1275 Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by
1276 -a), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1277 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1278 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1279 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1280 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1281 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1282 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1283 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1284 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1285 For instance, this won't work:
1288 + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
1293 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1294 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1295 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1296 to be included by using a single rule: "+_*/" (put it somewhere before the
1297 "-_*" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1298 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1304 + /some/path/this-file-is-found
1305 + /file-also-included
1309 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1312 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1313 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1314 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1315 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1316 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1317 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1318 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1319 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1320 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1321 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1322 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1323 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1326 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1328 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1329 "." or a ":" filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section
1332 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1333 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1334 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1335 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1336 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1337 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1338 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1339 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1340 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1341 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1347 . /etc/rsync/default.rules
1349 :n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
1352 The following modifiers are accepted after the "." or ":":
1355 it() A "-" specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1356 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for the list-clearing
1359 it() A "+" specifies that the file should consist of only include
1360 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for the list-clearing
1363 it() A "C" is a shorthand for the modifiers "sn-", which makes the
1364 parsing compatible with the way CVS parses their exclude files. If no
1365 filename is specified, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1367 it() A "e" will exclude the merge-file from the transfer; e.g.
1368 ":e_.rules" is like ":_.rules" and "-_.rules".
1370 it() An "n" specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1372 it() An "s" specifies that the rules are split on all whitespace instead
1373 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1374 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1375 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that "-" or "+" was not
1376 specified to turn off the parsing of prefixes).
1379 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1380 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1381 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1382 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1383 inherited rules. The entire set of per-dir rules is grouped together in
1384 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1385 per-dir rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1386 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1387 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1389 Another way to prevent a single per-dir rule from being inherited is to
1390 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1391 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1392 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the per-dir filter
1395 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via --filter=". file":
1398 . /home/user/.global-filter
1405 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1406 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1407 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1408 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1411 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1412 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1413 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1414 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see -F):
1417 --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
1420 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1421 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1422 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1423 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1424 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1426 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1429 rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir
1430 rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
1431 rsync -av --fitler=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
1434 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1435 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1436 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1437 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1438 a part of the transfer.
1440 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1441 you should use the rule ":C" -- this is a short-hand for the rule
1442 ":sn-_.cvsignore", and ensures that the .cvsignore file's contents are
1443 interpreted according to the same parsing rules that CVS uses. You can
1444 use this to affect where the --cvs-exclude (-C) option's inclusion of the
1445 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting a
1446 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1447 add the per-dir rule for the .cvignore file at the end of all your other
1448 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1452 cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b
1458 rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b
1461 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1462 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1463 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1464 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. (The
1465 global rules taken from the $HOME/.cvsignore file and from $CVSIGNORE are
1466 not repositioned from their spot at the end of your rules, however -- feel
1467 free to manually include $HOME/.cvsignore elsewhere in your rules.)
1469 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1471 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1472 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1473 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1474 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1475 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1476 out the parent's rules).
1478 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1480 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1481 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1482 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1483 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1484 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1485 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1487 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1488 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
1489 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1490 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1491 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1493 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1494 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1495 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1498 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
1499 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
1500 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
1501 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1502 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1504 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
1505 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
1506 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
1507 Target file: /dest/foo/bar
1508 Target file: /dest/bar/baz
1510 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
1511 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
1512 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
1513 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
1514 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
1516 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
1517 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
1518 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
1519 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1520 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1523 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1524 look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
1525 (use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1527 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1529 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1530 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1531 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1532 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1535 rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest
1536 rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest
1539 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1540 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1541 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1542 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use --delete-after,
1543 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1544 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1547 rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest
1550 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1551 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1552 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1553 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1554 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1557 rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1558 --delete host:src/dir /dest
1561 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1562 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1563 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1564 per-directory merge rule.
1566 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1567 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1568 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1569 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1570 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1571 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1574 rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete host:src/dir /dest
1575 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest
1578 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1580 bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
1581 of rsync. The interface and behavior have now stabilized, though, so
1582 feel free to try this out.
1584 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1585 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1586 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1587 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1588 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1589 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1590 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1591 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1592 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1594 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1595 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1596 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1597 using the information stored in the batch file.
1599 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1600 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1601 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1602 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1603 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1604 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1605 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1606 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1608 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1609 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1610 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1611 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1612 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1617 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1619 $ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
1623 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1624 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
1627 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1628 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1629 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1630 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1631 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1635 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1636 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1637 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1639 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1640 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1642 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1643 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1644 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1645 --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1646 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1647 standard input, such as the "--exclude-from=-" option).
1653 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1654 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1655 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1656 is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
1657 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1658 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1659 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1660 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1661 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I
1662 option (when reading the batch).
1663 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1664 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1665 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1668 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1669 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
1670 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
1673 The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
1676 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
1677 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
1678 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
1680 --write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
1681 --include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
1682 without --delete-excluded.
1684 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude
1685 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
1686 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
1687 list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A normal
1688 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
1689 to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
1691 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
1692 version uses a new implementation.
1694 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1696 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
1697 link in the source directory.
1699 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1700 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1702 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1703 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1706 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1707 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1709 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1710 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1711 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1712 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1713 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1714 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
1715 unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
1717 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1718 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1719 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1721 manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
1723 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
1724 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1725 version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
1727 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1728 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
1729 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
1730 remote shell like this:
1733 ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
1736 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
1737 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
1738 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
1739 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
1740 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
1741 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
1742 for non-interactive logins.
1744 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
1745 try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
1746 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
1748 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
1752 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
1753 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
1754 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
1755 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
1756 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
1757 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
1759 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
1760 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
1761 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
1762 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
1763 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
1764 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
1765 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
1766 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
1767 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
1768 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
1769 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
1770 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
1773 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
1777 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
1778 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for
1781 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
1782 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
1783 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
1785 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
1786 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
1787 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
1789 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
1790 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
1791 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
1792 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
1794 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
1795 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
1796 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
1798 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
1799 default .cvsignore file.
1805 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
1811 manpagediagnostics()
1815 times are transferred as unix time_t values
1817 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
1819 See the comments on the --modify-window option.
1821 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
1824 see also the comments on the --delete option
1826 Please report bugs! See the website at
1827 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
1829 manpagesection(CREDITS)
1831 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
1832 COPYING for details.
1834 A WEB site is available at
1835 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
1836 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
1839 The primary ftp site for rsync is
1840 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
1842 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
1844 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
1845 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
1847 manpagesection(THANKS)
1849 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
1850 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
1851 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
1853 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
1854 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
1858 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
1859 Many people have later contributed to it.
1861 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
1862 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)