1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(29 Jun 2008)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
75 See the file README for installation instructions.
77 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
78 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
79 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
80 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
81 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
83 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
84 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
86 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
91 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
92 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
94 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
96 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
98 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
99 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
100 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
101 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
102 differences. See the tech report for details.
104 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
106 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
107 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
108 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
109 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
110 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
111 size of data portions of the transfer.
113 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
115 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
116 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
117 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
118 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
119 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
120 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
121 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
125 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
126 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
129 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
130 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
131 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
134 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
135 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
138 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
139 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
140 an improved copy command.
142 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
143 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
145 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
147 See the following section for more details.
149 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
151 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
152 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
153 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
155 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
156 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
157 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
159 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
162 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
163 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
165 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
166 not as easy to use as the first method.
168 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
169 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
170 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
173 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
175 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
177 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
178 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
179 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
180 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
181 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
183 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
187 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
188 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
189 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
190 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
192 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
193 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
194 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
195 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
196 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
199 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
201 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
203 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
204 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
205 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
206 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
207 may be useful when scripting rsync.
209 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
210 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
212 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
213 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
214 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
215 proxy connections to port 873.
217 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
218 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
219 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
220 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
221 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
224 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
225 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
226 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
228 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
229 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
232 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
234 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
235 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
236 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
237 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
238 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
239 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
240 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
241 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
242 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
243 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
244 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
245 connections from "localhost".)
247 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
248 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
249 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
250 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
251 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
252 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
254 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
256 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
257 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
258 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
259 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
260 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
262 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
264 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
265 used to log-in to the "module".
267 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
269 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
270 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
271 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
272 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
273 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
274 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
275 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
277 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
278 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
280 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
282 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
284 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
285 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
287 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
289 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
292 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
296 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
298 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
301 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
302 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
303 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
305 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
308 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
310 This is launched from cron every few hours.
312 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
314 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
315 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
316 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
317 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
318 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
319 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
320 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
321 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
322 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
323 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
324 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
325 -R, --relative use relative path names
326 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
327 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
328 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
329 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
330 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
331 --inplace update destination files in-place
332 --append append data onto shorter files
333 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
334 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
335 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
336 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
337 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
338 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
339 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
340 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
341 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
342 -p, --perms preserve permissions
343 -E, --executability preserve executability
344 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
345 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
346 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
347 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
348 -g, --group preserve group
349 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
350 --specials preserve special files
351 -D same as --devices --specials
352 -t, --times preserve modification times
353 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
354 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
355 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
356 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
357 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
358 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
359 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
360 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
361 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
362 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
363 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
364 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
365 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
366 --del an alias for --delete-during
367 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
368 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
369 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
370 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
371 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
372 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
373 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
374 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
375 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
376 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
377 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
378 --partial keep partially transferred files
379 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
380 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
381 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
382 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
383 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
384 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
385 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
386 --size-only skip files that match in size
387 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
388 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
389 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
390 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
391 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
392 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
393 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
394 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
395 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
396 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
397 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
398 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
399 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
400 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
401 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
402 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
403 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
404 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
405 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
406 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
407 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
408 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
409 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
410 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
411 --stats give some file-transfer stats
412 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
413 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
414 --progress show progress during transfer
415 -P same as --partial --progress
416 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
417 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
418 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
419 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
420 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
421 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
422 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
423 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
424 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
425 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
426 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
427 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
428 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
429 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
430 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
431 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
432 --version print version number
433 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
435 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
437 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
438 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
439 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
440 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
441 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
442 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
443 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
444 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
445 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
446 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
447 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
448 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
449 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
450 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
454 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
455 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
456 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
457 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
461 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
462 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
463 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
464 option without any other args.
466 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
468 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
469 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
470 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
471 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
472 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
473 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
474 you are debugging rsync.
476 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
477 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
478 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
479 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
480 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
481 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
483 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
484 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
486 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
487 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
488 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
489 that support higher levels). Use
491 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
492 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
494 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
495 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
497 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
498 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
499 information on what is output and when.
501 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
502 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
503 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
505 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
506 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
508 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
509 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
510 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
511 that support higher levels). Use
513 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
514 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
516 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
517 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
519 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
520 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
521 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
523 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
524 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
525 from the remote server. This option name is useful when invoking rsync from
528 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
529 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
530 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
531 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
532 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
533 request the list of modules from the daemon.
535 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
536 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
537 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
540 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
541 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
542 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
543 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
544 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
545 not preserve timestamps exactly.
547 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
548 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
549 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
550 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
551 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
552 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
553 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
555 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
556 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
557 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
558 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
559 changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a
560 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
561 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
562 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
563 so this can slow things down significantly.
565 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
566 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
567 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
568 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
569 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
571 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
572 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
573 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
574 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
575 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
577 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
578 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
579 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
580 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
581 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
583 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
584 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
587 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
588 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
589 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
590 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
591 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
592 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
593 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
595 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
596 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
597 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
599 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
600 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
601 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
602 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
603 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
606 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
607 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
609 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
610 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
611 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
612 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
613 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
614 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
616 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
617 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
618 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
619 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
620 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
621 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
622 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
623 than using bf(--delete-after).
625 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
626 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
628 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
629 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
630 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
631 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
632 example, if you used this command:
634 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
636 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
637 machine. If instead you used
639 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
641 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
642 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
643 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
646 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
647 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
648 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
649 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
650 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
651 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
652 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
653 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
655 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
656 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
657 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
658 the source path, like this:
660 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
662 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
663 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
664 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
665 source path. For example, when pushing files:
667 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
669 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
670 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
671 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
672 for a non-daemon transfer):
675 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
676 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
679 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
680 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
681 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
682 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
683 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
684 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
685 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
688 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
689 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
690 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
691 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
692 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
693 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
694 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
695 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
696 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
697 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
699 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
700 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
701 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
703 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
704 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
705 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
706 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
708 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
709 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
710 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
711 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
712 (e.g. bf(-f "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
713 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
714 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
715 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
716 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
717 rule would never be reached).
719 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
720 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
721 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
722 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
723 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
724 will keep their original filenames).
726 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
727 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
728 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
730 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
731 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
732 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
733 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
735 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
736 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
737 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
738 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
739 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
742 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when the
743 file's data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
744 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
745 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
747 This has several effects: (1) in-use binaries cannot be updated (either the
748 OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in
749 their data will misbehave or crash), (2) the file's data will be in an
750 inconsistent state during the transfer, (3) a file's data may be left in an
751 inconsistent state after the transfer if the transfer is interrupted or if
752 an update fails, (4) a file that does not have write permissions can not be
753 updated, and (5) the efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be
754 reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
755 be copied to a position later in the file (one exception to this is if you
756 combine this option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use
757 the backup file as the basis file for the transfer).
759 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
760 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
762 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
763 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
766 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
767 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
768 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
771 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
772 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
773 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
774 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
775 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
776 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
777 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
778 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
779 Implies bf(--inplace),
780 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
783 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
784 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
785 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
786 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
787 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
789 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
790 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
791 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
792 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
794 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
795 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
796 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
797 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
798 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
799 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
800 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
802 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
803 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
804 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
805 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
806 if you want to turn this off.
808 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
809 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
810 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
812 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
813 symlink on the destination.
815 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
816 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
817 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
818 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
819 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
820 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
821 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
822 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
824 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
825 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
826 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
827 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
828 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
830 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
831 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
832 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
833 give unexpected results.
835 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
836 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
837 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
838 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
840 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
841 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
842 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
843 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
845 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
848 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
849 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
850 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
851 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
853 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
854 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
855 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
856 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
857 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
860 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
861 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
862 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
863 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
864 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
865 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
866 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
868 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
870 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
871 the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
872 side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
873 as though they were separate files.
875 When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
876 that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
877 together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
878 already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
879 the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
880 have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
881 are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
883 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
884 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
885 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
886 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
887 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
888 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
889 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
891 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
892 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
893 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
894 the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
895 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
897 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
898 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
899 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
900 be the source permissions.)
902 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
905 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
906 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
907 the execute permission for the file.
908 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
909 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
910 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
911 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
912 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
913 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
916 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
917 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
918 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
920 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
921 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
922 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
923 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
924 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
925 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
926 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
927 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
929 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
931 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
933 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
935 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
936 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
938 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
939 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
940 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
941 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
942 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
943 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
944 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
945 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
948 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
949 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
950 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
951 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
952 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
953 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
956 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
958 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
959 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
962 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
964 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
965 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
966 The option also implies bf(--perms).
968 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
969 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
970 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
972 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
973 extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
975 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
976 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
977 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
978 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
980 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
981 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
982 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
983 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
984 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
986 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
987 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
988 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
989 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
991 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
993 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
994 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
996 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
997 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
999 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1000 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1001 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1002 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1003 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1004 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1006 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1007 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1008 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1010 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1011 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1012 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1013 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1014 is a member of will be preserved.
1015 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1016 user on the receiving side.
1018 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1019 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1020 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1022 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1023 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1024 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1025 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1027 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1028 such as named sockets and fifos.
1030 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1032 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1033 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1034 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1035 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1036 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1037 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1038 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1040 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1041 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1042 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1043 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1045 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1046 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1047 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1048 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1049 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1050 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1051 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1052 being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1053 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1055 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1056 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1057 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1058 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1059 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1060 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1061 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1062 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1063 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1064 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1065 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1067 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1068 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1070 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1071 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1072 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1074 quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1076 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1077 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1078 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1079 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1082 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1084 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1086 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1087 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1088 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1090 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1091 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1092 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1094 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1095 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1096 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1097 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1098 to do before one actually runs it.
1100 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1101 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1102 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1103 extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1104 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1105 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1106 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1107 where no file transfers are needed.
1109 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1110 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1111 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1112 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1113 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1114 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1116 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1117 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1118 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1119 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1120 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1121 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1124 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1125 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1126 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1127 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1129 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1130 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1131 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1134 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1135 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1136 yet on the destination. If this option is
1137 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1138 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1140 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1141 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1142 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1144 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1145 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1146 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1147 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1148 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1149 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1150 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1152 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1153 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1154 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1156 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1157 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1158 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1159 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1160 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1161 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1162 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1163 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1164 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1165 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1167 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1168 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1169 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1171 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1172 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1173 going to be deleted.
1175 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1176 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1177 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1178 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
1179 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1181 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1182 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1183 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1184 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1185 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1186 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1188 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1189 side be done before the transfer starts.
1190 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1192 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1193 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1194 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1195 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1196 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1197 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1198 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1200 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1201 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1202 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1203 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1204 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1205 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1206 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1208 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1209 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1210 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1211 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1212 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1213 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1214 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1215 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1216 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1217 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1218 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1220 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1222 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1223 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1224 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1225 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1226 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1227 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1228 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1229 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1231 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1232 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1233 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1234 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1235 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1236 bf(--delete-excluded).
1237 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1239 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1240 even when there are I/O errors.
1242 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1243 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1244 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1246 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1247 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1248 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1250 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1251 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1252 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1254 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1255 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1256 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1257 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1258 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1259 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1261 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1262 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1263 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1264 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1266 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1267 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1268 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1269 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1270 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1271 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1272 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1274 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1277 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1278 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1279 transferring small, junk files.
1280 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
1282 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1283 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1284 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1286 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1287 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1288 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1289 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1291 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1292 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1293 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1294 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1295 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1296 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1298 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1299 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1300 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1301 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1302 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1303 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1304 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1305 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1308 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1309 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1312 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1313 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1315 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1316 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1318 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1320 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1321 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1322 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1323 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1324 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1325 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1328 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1329 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1331 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1333 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1334 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1335 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1336 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1338 quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1340 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1341 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1344 quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1346 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1347 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1348 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1350 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1351 want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1352 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1353 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1355 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1356 "remote" side is the receiver.
1358 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1359 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1360 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1361 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1363 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1364 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1365 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1366 a file should be ignored.
1368 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1369 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1371 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1372 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1373 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1375 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1376 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1377 are delimited by whitespace).
1379 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1380 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1381 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1382 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1384 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1385 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1386 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1387 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1388 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1389 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1390 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1391 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1392 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1393 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1396 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1397 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1398 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1400 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1401 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1402 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1403 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1404 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1406 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1408 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1409 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1411 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1413 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1414 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1415 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1418 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1420 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1422 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1425 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1426 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1427 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1429 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1431 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1432 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1433 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1434 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1436 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1437 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1438 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1440 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1442 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1443 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1444 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1445 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1447 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1448 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1449 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1450 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1453 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1454 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1455 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1456 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1457 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1458 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1459 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1460 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1461 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1462 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1463 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1464 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1467 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1468 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1469 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1472 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1474 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1475 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1476 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1477 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1478 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1479 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1480 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1481 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1483 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1484 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1485 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1487 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1488 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1489 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1490 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1491 transfer". For example:
1493 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1495 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1496 was located on the remote "src" host.
1498 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1499 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1500 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1501 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1502 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1503 file are split on whitespace).
1505 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1506 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1507 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1508 receiving host's charset.
1510 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1511 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1512 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1513 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1514 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1516 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
1517 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1518 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1520 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1521 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1522 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1523 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1525 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1526 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1527 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1528 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1529 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1530 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1531 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1532 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1533 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1534 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1535 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1536 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1537 new version on the disk at the same time.
1539 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1540 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1541 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1542 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1543 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1544 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1545 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1546 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1547 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1548 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1549 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1550 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1552 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1553 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1554 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1555 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1556 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1558 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1559 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1560 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1562 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1563 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1564 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1565 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1566 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1567 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1568 have changed from an earlier backup.
1570 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1571 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1573 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1574 and the attributes updated.
1575 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1576 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1578 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1579 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1581 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1582 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1583 directory using a local copy.
1584 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1585 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1586 been successfully transferred.
1588 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1589 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1590 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1591 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1593 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1594 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1596 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1597 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1598 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1599 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1602 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1604 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1605 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1607 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1608 and the attributes updated.
1609 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1610 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1612 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1613 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1614 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1615 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1618 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1619 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1620 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1623 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1624 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1626 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1627 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1628 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1629 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1631 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1632 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1633 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1635 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1636 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1637 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1638 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1640 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1641 that will not be compressed.
1643 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1644 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1645 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1647 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1648 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1649 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1651 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1653 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1654 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1655 "[:alpha:]", are supported).
1657 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1659 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1660 matches 2 suffixes):
1662 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1664 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1665 of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1667 verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1669 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1670 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1671 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1674 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1675 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1678 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1679 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1680 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1681 option is not specified.
1683 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1684 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1685 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1686 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1687 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1688 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1690 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1691 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1692 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1694 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1695 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1696 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1698 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1699 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1700 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1701 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1703 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1704 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1705 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1706 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1707 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1709 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1710 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1711 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1712 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1713 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1714 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1715 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1716 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1718 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1719 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1720 rsync defaults to using
1721 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1722 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1724 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1725 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1726 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1727 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1728 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1729 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1732 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1733 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1734 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1735 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1738 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1741 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1743 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1745 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1746 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1747 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1749 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1750 have attributes that are being modified).
1751 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1752 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1755 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1756 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1757 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1759 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1760 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1761 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1762 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1763 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1764 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1766 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1769 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1770 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1772 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1773 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1774 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1775 by the file transfer.
1776 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1777 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1778 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1779 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1780 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1781 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1782 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1783 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1784 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1785 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1786 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1787 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1788 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1789 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1790 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1791 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1794 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1795 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1796 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1797 outputting them as a verbose message).
1799 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1800 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
1801 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
1802 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
1803 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
1804 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
1805 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
1806 rsyncd.conf manpage.
1808 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
1809 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
1810 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
1811 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1812 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
1813 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
1814 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
1815 option for a description of the output of "%i".
1817 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1818 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1819 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1820 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1821 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1822 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1824 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1825 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1826 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1827 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1828 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1829 option if you wish to override this.
1831 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1834 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
1836 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1839 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1840 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1841 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1842 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1843 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1844 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1846 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1847 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
1848 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
1849 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
1850 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
1852 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1853 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1854 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1855 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1856 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
1857 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1858 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1859 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1860 include the size of symlinks.
1861 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1862 for just the transferred files.
1863 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1864 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1865 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1866 recreating the updated files.
1867 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1868 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1869 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1871 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1872 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1873 sending side for this to be present.
1874 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1875 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1876 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1877 from the client side to the server side.
1878 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1879 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1880 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1881 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1884 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1885 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1886 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1887 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1890 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1891 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1892 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1893 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1895 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1896 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1897 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1898 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1901 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1902 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1903 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1904 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1905 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1907 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1908 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1909 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1910 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1911 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1912 after it has served its purpose.
1914 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1915 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1917 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
1919 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1920 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1921 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1922 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1923 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1925 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1926 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1927 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1928 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1929 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1930 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1933 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1934 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1935 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1936 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1937 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1938 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1939 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1940 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1941 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1943 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1944 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1946 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1947 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1948 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1949 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1950 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1951 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1952 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1953 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1954 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1955 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1957 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1958 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1959 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1960 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1961 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1963 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1964 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1965 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1966 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1967 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1968 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1969 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1970 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1971 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1972 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1973 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1975 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1976 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1977 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1978 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1980 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1981 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1983 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1984 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1986 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1987 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1988 parallel hierarchy of files).
1990 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1991 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1992 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1993 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1994 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1997 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1998 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1999 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2000 being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
2003 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2004 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2005 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2007 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2009 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2010 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2011 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2012 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2014 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2016 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2017 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2018 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2020 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2021 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2023 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2024 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2025 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2027 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2030 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2032 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2033 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2034 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2035 is maintained until the end.
2037 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2038 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2039 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2040 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2041 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2042 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2044 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2045 summary line that looks like this:
2047 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
2049 In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2050 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2051 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2052 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2053 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2054 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2056 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2057 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2058 transfer that may be interrupted.
2060 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2061 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2062 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2063 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2064 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2065 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2067 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
2068 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
2069 It should contain just the password as a single line.
2071 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2072 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2073 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2074 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2075 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2078 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2079 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2080 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2081 command that includes a
2082 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2083 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2084 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2085 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2086 without using this option. For example:
2088 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2090 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2091 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2092 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2093 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2094 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2095 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2096 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2098 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2099 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2100 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2101 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2102 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2103 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2104 of zero specifies no limit.
2106 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2107 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2108 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2110 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2111 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2112 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2113 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2115 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2116 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2117 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2118 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2119 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2122 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2123 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2124 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2125 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2127 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2128 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2129 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2130 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2132 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2133 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2134 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2135 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2136 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2137 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2138 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2140 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2141 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2142 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2143 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2144 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2145 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2146 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2147 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2148 to turn off any conversion.
2149 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2150 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2152 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2155 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2156 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2157 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2159 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2160 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2161 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2162 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2163 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2165 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2166 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2167 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2168 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2170 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2171 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2172 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2173 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2175 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2176 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2179 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
2180 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2181 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2182 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2183 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2184 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2185 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2186 Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2190 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2192 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2195 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2196 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2197 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2199 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2200 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2201 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2202 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2203 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2206 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2207 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2208 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2209 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2210 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2212 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2213 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2214 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2215 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2216 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2218 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2219 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2220 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2221 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2222 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2224 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2225 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2226 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2227 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2228 desire. For instance:
2230 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2232 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2233 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2234 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2235 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2236 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2237 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2238 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2241 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2242 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2243 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2245 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2246 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2249 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2250 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2251 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2252 case transfer logging is turned off.
2254 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2255 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2257 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2258 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2259 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2260 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2262 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2263 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2264 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2265 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2266 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2267 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2269 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2270 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2273 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2274 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2277 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2279 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2280 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2281 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2282 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2284 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2285 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2286 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2287 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2288 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2289 filename is not skipped.
2291 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2292 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2295 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2296 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2299 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2300 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2301 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2302 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2303 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2306 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2307 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2308 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2309 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2310 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2311 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2312 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2313 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2314 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2317 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2318 comment lines that start with a "#".
2320 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2321 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2322 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2323 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2325 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2326 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2327 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2328 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2331 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2332 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2333 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2334 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2336 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2338 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2339 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2340 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2341 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2342 can take several forms:
2345 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2346 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2347 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2348 regular expressions.
2349 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2350 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2351 per-directory rule).
2352 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2353 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2354 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2355 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2356 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2357 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2358 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2360 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2361 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2362 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2363 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2364 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2365 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
2366 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2367 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2368 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2369 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2370 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2371 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2372 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2373 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2374 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2375 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2376 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2378 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2379 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2380 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2384 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2385 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2386 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2387 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2388 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2389 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2390 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2391 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2392 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2393 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2394 For instance, this won't work:
2397 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2398 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2402 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2403 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2404 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2405 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2406 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2407 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2408 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2413 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2414 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2415 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2419 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2422 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2423 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2424 transfer-root directory
2425 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2426 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2427 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2428 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2429 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2430 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2431 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2432 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2433 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2434 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2435 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2438 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2440 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2441 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2444 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2445 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2446 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2447 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2448 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2449 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2450 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2451 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2452 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2453 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2459 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2460 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2461 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2462 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2463 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2466 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2469 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2470 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2471 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2472 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2473 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2474 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2475 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2476 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2477 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2478 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2479 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2480 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2481 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2482 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2483 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2485 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2486 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2487 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2488 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2489 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2490 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
2493 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2496 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2497 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2498 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2499 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2500 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2501 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2502 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2503 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2505 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2506 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2508 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2509 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2510 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2511 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2512 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2513 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2514 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2515 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2516 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2517 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2518 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2519 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2520 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2521 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2522 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2523 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2526 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2527 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2528 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2529 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2530 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2531 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2532 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2533 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2534 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2536 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2537 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2538 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2539 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2542 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2545 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2547 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2552 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2553 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2554 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2555 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2558 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2559 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2560 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2561 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2563 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2565 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2566 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2567 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2568 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2569 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2571 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2574 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2575 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2576 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2579 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2580 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2581 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2582 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2583 a part of the transfer.
2585 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2586 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2587 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2588 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2589 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2590 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2591 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2592 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2596 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2601 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2604 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2605 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2606 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2607 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2608 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2609 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2610 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2611 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2613 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2615 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2616 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2617 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2618 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2619 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2620 out the parent's rules).
2622 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2624 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2625 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2626 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2627 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2628 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2629 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2631 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2632 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2633 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2634 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2635 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2637 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2638 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2639 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2642 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2643 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2644 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2645 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2646 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2650 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2651 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2652 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2653 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2654 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2658 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2659 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2660 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2661 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2662 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2666 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2667 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2668 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2669 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2670 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2673 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2674 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2675 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2677 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2679 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2680 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2681 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2682 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2685 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2686 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2689 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2690 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2691 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2692 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2693 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2694 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2696 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2698 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2699 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2700 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2701 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2702 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2704 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2705 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2707 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2708 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2709 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2710 per-directory merge rule.
2712 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2713 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2714 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2715 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2716 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2717 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2719 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2721 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2723 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2725 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2726 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2727 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2728 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2729 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2730 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2731 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2732 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2733 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2735 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2736 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2737 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2738 using the information stored in the batch file.
2740 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2741 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2742 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2743 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2744 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
2746 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2747 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2748 path differs from the original destination tree path.
2750 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2751 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2752 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2753 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2754 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2759 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2760 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2761 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2765 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2766 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2769 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2770 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2771 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2772 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2773 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2776 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2777 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2778 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2779 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2780 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2781 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2782 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2783 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2784 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2785 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2786 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2791 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2792 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2793 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2794 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2795 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2796 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2797 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2798 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2799 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2800 option (when reading the batch).
2801 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2802 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2803 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2806 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2807 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2808 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2809 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2810 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2811 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2812 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2814 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2815 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2816 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2817 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2818 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2819 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2820 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2822 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2823 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2824 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2825 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2826 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2827 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2829 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2830 version uses a new implementation.
2832 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2834 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2835 link in the source directory.
2837 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2838 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2840 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2841 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2844 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2845 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2847 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2848 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2849 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2850 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2851 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2852 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2853 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2854 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2856 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2857 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2858 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2860 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2861 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2862 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2864 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2865 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2867 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2868 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2870 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2871 skip all safe symlinks.
2873 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2876 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2878 manpagediagnostics()
2880 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2881 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2882 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2884 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2885 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2886 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2887 remote shell like this:
2889 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2891 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2892 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2893 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2894 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2895 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2896 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2897 for non-interactive logins.
2899 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2900 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2901 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2903 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2907 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2908 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2909 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2910 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2911 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2912 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2914 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2915 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2916 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2917 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2918 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2919 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2920 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2921 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2922 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2923 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2924 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2925 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2926 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2927 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2928 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2931 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2934 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2935 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2937 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2938 environment variable.
2939 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2940 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2941 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2942 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2943 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2944 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2945 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2946 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2947 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2948 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2949 consult the remote shell's documentation.
2950 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2951 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2952 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2953 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2954 default .cvsignore file.
2959 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2967 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2969 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2971 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2973 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2976 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2978 Please report bugs! See the web site at
2979 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2981 manpagesection(VERSION)
2983 This man page is current for version 3.0.3 of rsync.
2985 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2987 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2988 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2989 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2990 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2991 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2992 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2995 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2997 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2998 COPYING for details.
3000 A WEB site is available at
3001 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3002 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3005 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3006 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3008 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3009 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3011 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3012 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3014 manpagesection(THANKS)
3016 Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3017 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3018 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3020 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3021 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3025 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3026 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3029 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3030 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)