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]... DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
14 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
16 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [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 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
84 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
85 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
87 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
89 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
91 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
92 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
93 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
94 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
95 differences. See the tech report for details.
97 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
99 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
100 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
101 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
102 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
103 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
104 size of data portions of the transfer.
106 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
108 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
109 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
110 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
111 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
112 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
113 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
114 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
118 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
119 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
122 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
123 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
124 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
127 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
128 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
131 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
132 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
133 an improved copy command.
135 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
136 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
138 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
140 See the following section for more details.
142 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
144 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
145 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
147 quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
149 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
150 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
151 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
152 to be a part of the filenames.
154 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
156 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
157 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
158 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
159 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
160 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
161 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
162 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
165 tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
166 tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
169 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
170 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
172 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
174 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
175 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
176 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
177 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
178 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
180 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
184 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
185 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
186 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
187 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
189 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
190 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
191 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
192 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
193 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
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 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
302 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
303 -R, --relative use relative path names
304 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
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 --devices preserve device files (root only)
322 --specials preserve special files
323 -D same as --devices --specials
324 -t, --times preserve times
325 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
326 --chmod=CHMOD change destination permissions
327 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
328 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
329 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
330 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
331 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
332 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
333 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
334 --existing ignore non-existing files on receiving side
335 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
336 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
337 --del an alias for --delete-during
338 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
339 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
340 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
341 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
342 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
343 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
344 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
345 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
346 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
347 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
348 --partial keep partially transferred files
349 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
350 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
351 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
352 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
353 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
354 --size-only skip files that match in size
355 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
356 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
357 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
358 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
359 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
360 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
361 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
362 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
363 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
364 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
365 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
366 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
367 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
368 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
369 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
370 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
371 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
372 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
373 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
374 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
375 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
376 --stats give some file-transfer stats
377 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
378 --si like human-readable, but use powers of 1000
379 --progress show progress during transfer
380 -P same as --partial --progress
381 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
382 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format
383 --password-file=FILE read 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 batched update to FILE
387 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
388 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
389 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
390 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
391 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
392 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
393 --version print version number
394 --help show this help screen)
396 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
398 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
399 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
400 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
401 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
402 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
403 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
404 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
405 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
406 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
407 --help show this help screen)
411 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
412 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
413 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
414 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
418 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
419 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
420 versions of rsync, the same help output can also be requested by using
421 the bf(-h) option without any other args.
423 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
425 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
426 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
427 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
428 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
429 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
430 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
431 you are debugging rsync.
433 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
434 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
435 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
436 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
437 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
438 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
439 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
440 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
442 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
443 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
444 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
447 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
448 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
449 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
451 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
452 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
453 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
454 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
455 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
458 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
459 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
460 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
461 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
462 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
463 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
464 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
466 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
467 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
468 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
469 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
470 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
472 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
473 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
474 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
475 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
476 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
478 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
479 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
482 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
483 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
484 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
485 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
486 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
487 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
488 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
490 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
491 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
492 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
494 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
495 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
496 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
497 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and sligntly
498 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
501 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
502 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
504 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
505 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
506 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
507 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
508 example, if you used this command:
510 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
512 ... this would create a file called baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
513 machine. If instead you used
515 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
517 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
518 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
519 path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With
520 a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can
521 insert a dot dir into the source path, like this:
523 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
525 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
526 dot dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
527 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
528 source path. For example, when pushing files:
530 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
532 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
533 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
534 If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an
538 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
539 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
542 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
543 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
544 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
545 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
546 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
547 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
548 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
549 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
550 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
551 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
553 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
554 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
555 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
556 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
558 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
559 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
560 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a protect
561 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
562 (e.g. -f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
563 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
564 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
565 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
566 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
567 rule would never be reached).
569 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
570 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
571 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
572 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
573 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
574 will keep their original filenames).
576 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
577 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
578 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
580 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
581 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
582 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
583 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
585 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
586 between the sender and receiver is always
587 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
588 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
589 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
590 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
591 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
593 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
594 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
595 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
596 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
597 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
598 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
599 basis file for the transfer.
601 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
602 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
605 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
606 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
607 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
610 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
611 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
612 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
613 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
616 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
617 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
618 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
619 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
620 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.
621 Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding
622 file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
623 Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the
624 bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing
627 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
628 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
629 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
630 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
631 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
632 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
633 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
635 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
636 symlink on the destination.
638 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
639 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
640 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
641 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
642 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
643 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
644 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
645 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
647 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
648 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
649 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
650 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
652 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
653 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
654 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
655 give unexpected results.
657 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
658 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
659 option hard links are treated like regular files.
661 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
662 are in the list of files being sent.
664 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
666 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
667 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
670 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
671 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
672 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
673 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
674 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
675 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
677 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
678 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
680 Without this option, all existing files (including updated files) retain
681 their existing permissions, while each new file gets its permissions set
682 based on the source file's permissions, but masked by the receiving end's
684 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
686 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
687 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
688 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
689 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
690 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
692 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
693 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
694 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
695 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
696 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
697 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
699 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
700 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
701 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
703 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
704 such as named sockets and fifos.
706 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
708 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
709 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
710 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
711 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
712 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
713 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
714 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
716 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
717 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
718 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
719 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
721 dit(bf(--chmod)) This options tells rsync to apply the listed "chmod" pattern
722 to the permission of the files on the destination. In addition to the normal
723 parsing rules specified in the chmod manpage, you can specify an item that
724 should only apply to a directory by prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an
725 item that should only apply to a file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
727 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
729 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options.
731 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
732 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
734 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
735 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
736 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
738 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
739 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
740 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
742 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
743 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
744 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
745 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
746 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
747 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
750 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
751 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
752 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
753 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
755 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
756 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
757 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
760 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
761 updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is
762 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
763 (which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete missing files).
765 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
766 already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
768 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
769 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
770 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
771 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
773 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
774 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
775 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
776 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
777 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
778 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
779 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
780 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
781 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
782 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
784 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
785 was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
786 (bf(-d)) is in effect, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
788 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
789 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
790 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
792 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
793 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
794 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
795 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
796 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
798 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
799 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
800 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
801 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
802 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
804 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
805 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
806 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
807 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
809 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
810 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
811 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
812 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
815 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
816 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
817 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
818 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
819 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
821 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
822 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
823 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
824 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
826 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
828 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
829 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
830 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
831 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
832 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
833 bf(--delete-excluded).
834 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
836 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
837 even when there are I/O errors.
839 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
840 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
841 is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
842 Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-a)) to have any effect.
844 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
845 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
846 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
848 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
849 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
850 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
851 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
853 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
854 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
855 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
856 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
857 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
858 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
859 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
861 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
864 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
865 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
866 transferring small, junk files.
867 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
869 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
870 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
871 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
873 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
874 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
875 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
876 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
878 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
879 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
880 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
881 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
882 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
883 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
885 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
886 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
887 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
888 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
889 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
890 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
891 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
892 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
895 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
896 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
899 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
900 options in their .ssh/config file.)
902 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
903 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
905 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
907 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
908 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
909 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
910 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
911 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
912 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
915 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
916 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
918 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
920 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
921 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
922 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
923 a file should be ignored.
925 The exclude list is initialized to:
927 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
928 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
929 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
931 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
932 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
933 are delimited by whitespace).
935 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
936 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
937 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
938 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
940 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
941 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
942 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
943 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
944 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
945 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
946 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
947 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
948 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
949 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
952 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
953 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
954 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
956 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
957 to build up the list of files to exclude.
959 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
961 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
962 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
964 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
966 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
967 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
968 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
971 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
973 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
975 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
978 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
979 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
980 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
982 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
984 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
985 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
986 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
987 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
989 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
990 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
991 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
993 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
995 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
996 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
997 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
998 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1000 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1001 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1002 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1003 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1006 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1007 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1008 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1009 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1010 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1011 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1012 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1013 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1014 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1015 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1016 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1017 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1020 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1021 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1022 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1025 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1027 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1028 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1029 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1030 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1031 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1032 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1033 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1034 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1036 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1037 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1038 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1040 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1041 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1042 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1043 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1044 transfer". For example:
1046 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1048 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1049 was located on the remote "src" host.
1051 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1052 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1053 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1054 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1055 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1056 file are split on whitespace).
1058 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1059 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
1060 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
1061 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
1063 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1064 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1065 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1066 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1067 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1069 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1070 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1071 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1073 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1074 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1075 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1076 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1077 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1078 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1079 have changed from an earlier backup.
1081 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1082 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1084 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1085 and the attributes updated.
1086 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1087 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1089 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1090 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1092 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1093 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1094 directory using a local copy.
1095 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1096 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1097 been successfully transferred.
1099 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1100 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1101 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1102 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1104 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1105 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1107 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1108 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1109 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1110 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1113 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1115 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1116 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1118 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1119 and the attributes updated.
1120 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1121 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1123 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1124 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1126 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1127 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-root user when bf(-o) was specified
1128 (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option
1129 when sending to an old rsync.
1131 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1132 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1133 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1135 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can
1136 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1137 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1138 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1140 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1141 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1142 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1144 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1145 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1148 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1149 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1150 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1151 option is not specified.
1153 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1154 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1155 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1156 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1157 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1158 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1160 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1161 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1162 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1164 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1165 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1166 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1167 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1169 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1170 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1171 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1172 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1173 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1175 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1176 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1177 rsync defaults to using
1178 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1179 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1181 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1182 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1183 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1184 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1185 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1186 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1189 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1190 format is like the string bf(UXcstpog)), where bf(U) is replaced by the
1191 kind of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1192 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1195 The update types that replace the bf(U) are as follows:
1198 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1200 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1202 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1203 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1204 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard-link to another item (requires
1206 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1207 have attributes that are being modified).
1210 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1211 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1212 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1214 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1215 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1216 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1217 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1218 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1219 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1221 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1224 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1225 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1226 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1227 by the file transfer.
1228 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1229 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1230 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1231 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1232 without bf(--times).
1233 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1234 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1235 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1236 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and root privileges).
1237 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1238 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1241 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1242 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1243 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1244 outputting them as a verbose message).
1246 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1247 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1248 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1249 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1250 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1251 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1253 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1254 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1255 touched directory) unless the itemized-changes escape (%i) is included in
1256 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1257 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1258 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1261 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1262 bf(--log-format) without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1263 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1265 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1266 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1267 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1268 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1269 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1270 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1272 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1273 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1274 algorithm is for your data.
1276 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1277 Large numbers may be output in larger units, with a K (1024), M (1024*1024),
1278 or G (1024*1024*1024) suffix.
1280 dit(bf(--si)) Similar to the bf(--human-readable) option, but using powers
1281 of 1000 instead of 1024.
1283 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1284 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1285 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1286 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1287 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1289 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1290 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1291 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1292 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1293 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
1294 after it has served its purpose.
1295 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1296 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1298 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1300 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1301 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1302 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1303 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1304 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1306 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add a directory
1307 bf(--exclude) of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1308 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1309 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1310 the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
1311 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1312 supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to manually insert your own
1313 exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list so that
1314 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1315 a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added rule would never be
1318 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1319 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1321 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1322 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1323 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1324 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1325 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1326 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1327 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the bf(--partial)
1328 option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1329 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
1330 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1332 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1333 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1334 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1335 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1336 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1338 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1339 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1340 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1341 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1342 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1343 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1344 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead.
1345 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1347 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1348 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1349 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1350 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1352 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1353 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1355 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1356 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1358 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1359 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1360 parallel hierarchy of files).
1362 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1363 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1365 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1367 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1369 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1371 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1372 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1373 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1374 remaining in this transfer.
1376 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1378 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1380 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1381 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1382 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1383 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1384 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1386 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1387 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1388 transfer that may be interrupted.
1390 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1391 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1392 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1393 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1394 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1397 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1398 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1399 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1400 come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
1401 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1402 non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
1403 copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
1404 must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
1406 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1407 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1408 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1409 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1410 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1411 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1412 of zero specifies no limit.
1414 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1415 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1416 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1418 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1419 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1420 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1421 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1423 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1424 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1425 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1426 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1427 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1430 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1431 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1432 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1433 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1435 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1436 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1437 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
1438 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1440 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1441 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1442 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1443 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1444 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1445 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1446 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1448 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1449 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1450 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1451 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1453 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1454 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1455 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1456 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1457 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1458 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1459 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1460 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1464 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1466 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1469 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1470 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1471 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1473 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1474 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1475 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1476 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1477 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1480 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1481 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1482 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1483 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1484 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1486 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1487 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1488 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1489 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1490 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1492 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1493 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1494 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1495 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1496 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1498 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1499 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1500 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1501 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1502 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1503 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1504 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1507 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1508 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1509 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1511 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1512 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1513 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1514 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1516 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1517 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1518 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1519 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1520 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1521 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1523 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1524 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1527 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1529 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1530 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1531 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1532 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1534 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1535 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1536 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1537 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1538 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1539 filename is not skipped.
1541 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1542 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1545 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1546 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1549 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1550 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1551 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1552 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1553 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1556 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1557 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1558 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1559 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1560 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1561 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1562 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1563 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1564 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1567 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1568 comment lines that start with a "#".
1570 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1571 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1572 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1573 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1575 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1576 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1577 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1578 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1581 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1582 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1583 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1584 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1586 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1588 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1589 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1590 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1591 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1592 can take several forms:
1595 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1596 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1597 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1598 regular expressions.
1599 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1600 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1601 per-directory rule).
1602 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1603 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1605 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1606 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1607 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1608 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1609 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1611 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1612 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1614 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
1615 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
1616 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
1617 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
1618 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
1619 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
1620 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
1621 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
1622 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
1623 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
1624 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1625 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1626 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1627 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1628 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1630 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
1631 "dir_name/" had been specified) and all the files in the directory
1632 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). (This behavior is new for
1636 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1637 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1638 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1639 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1640 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1641 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1642 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1643 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1644 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1645 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1646 For instance, this won't work:
1649 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1650 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1654 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1655 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1656 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1657 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1658 "- *" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1659 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1664 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1665 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1666 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1670 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1673 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1674 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1675 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1676 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1677 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1678 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1679 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1680 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1681 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1682 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1683 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1684 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1687 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1689 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1690 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1693 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1694 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1695 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1696 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1697 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1698 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1699 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1700 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1701 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1702 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1708 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1709 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1710 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1711 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1712 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1715 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1718 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1719 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1720 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1721 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1722 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1723 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1724 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1725 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1726 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1727 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1728 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1729 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1730 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1731 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1732 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1734 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1735 (below) in order to have the rules that are read-in from the file
1736 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1737 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1738 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1739 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1742 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1745 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
1746 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
1747 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1748 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
1749 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
1750 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
1751 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1752 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1754 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1755 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1757 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1758 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1759 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1760 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1761 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1762 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1763 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1764 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1765 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1766 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1767 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1770 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1771 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1772 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1773 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1774 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1775 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1776 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1777 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1778 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1780 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
1781 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1782 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1783 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
1786 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
1789 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
1791 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
1796 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1797 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1798 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1799 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1802 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1803 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1804 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1805 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
1807 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
1809 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1810 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1811 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1812 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1813 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1815 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1818 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1819 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1820 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1823 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1824 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1825 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1826 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1827 a part of the transfer.
1829 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1830 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
1831 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
1832 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
1833 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
1834 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1835 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
1836 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1840 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
1845 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
1848 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1849 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1850 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1851 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
1852 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
1853 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
1854 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
1855 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
1857 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1859 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1860 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1861 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1862 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1863 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1864 out the parent's rules).
1866 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1868 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1869 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1870 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1871 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1872 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1873 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1875 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1876 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
1877 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1878 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1879 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1881 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1882 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1883 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1886 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
1887 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
1888 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
1889 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1890 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1894 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
1895 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
1896 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
1897 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
1898 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
1902 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
1903 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
1904 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1905 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
1906 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
1910 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
1911 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
1912 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1913 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1914 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1917 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1918 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
1919 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1921 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1923 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1924 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1925 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1926 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1929 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1930 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1933 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1934 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1935 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1936 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
1937 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1938 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1940 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
1942 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1943 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1944 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1945 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1946 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1948 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1949 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1951 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1952 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1953 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1954 per-directory merge rule.
1956 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1957 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1958 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1959 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1960 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1961 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1963 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
1965 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1967 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1969 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1970 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1971 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1972 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1973 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1974 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1975 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1976 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1977 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1979 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1980 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1981 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1982 using the information stored in the batch file.
1984 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1985 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1986 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1987 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1988 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1989 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1990 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1991 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1993 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1994 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1995 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1996 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1997 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2002 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2003 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2004 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2008 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2009 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2012 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2013 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2014 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2015 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2016 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2019 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2020 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2021 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2022 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2023 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2024 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2025 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2026 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2027 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2028 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2029 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2034 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2035 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2036 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2037 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2038 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2039 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2040 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2041 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2042 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2043 option (when reading the batch).
2044 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2045 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2046 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2049 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2050 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2051 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2052 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2053 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2054 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2055 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2057 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2058 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2059 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2060 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2061 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2062 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2063 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2065 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2066 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2067 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2068 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2069 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2070 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2072 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2073 version uses a new implementation.
2075 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2077 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2078 link in the source directory.
2080 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2081 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2083 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2084 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2087 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2088 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2090 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2091 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2092 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2093 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2094 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2095 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2096 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2097 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2099 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2100 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
2101 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2103 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2104 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2105 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2107 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2108 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2110 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2111 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2113 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2114 skip all safe symlinks.
2116 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2119 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2121 manpagediagnostics()
2123 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2124 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2125 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2127 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2128 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2129 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2130 remote shell like this:
2132 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2134 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2135 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2136 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2137 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2138 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2139 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2140 for non-interactive logins.
2142 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2143 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2144 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2146 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2150 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2151 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2152 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2153 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2154 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2155 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2157 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2158 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2159 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2160 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2161 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2162 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2163 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2164 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2165 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2166 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2167 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2168 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2169 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2170 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2173 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2176 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2177 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2179 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2180 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2181 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2182 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2183 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2184 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2185 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2186 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2187 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2188 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2189 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2190 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2191 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2192 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2193 default .cvsignore file.
2198 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2206 times are transferred as unix time_t values
2208 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2210 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2212 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2215 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2217 Please report bugs! See the website at
2218 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2220 manpagesection(VERSION)
2222 This man page is current for version 2.6.6 of rsync.
2224 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2226 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2227 COPYING for details.
2229 A WEB site is available at
2230 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2231 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2234 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2235 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2237 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2239 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2240 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2242 manpagesection(THANKS)
2244 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2245 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2246 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2248 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2249 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2253 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2254 Many people have later contributed to it.
2256 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2257 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)