1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Jul 2005)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
6 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
14 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
16 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
22 rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
23 but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
24 greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
27 The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
28 differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
29 an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
30 report that accompanies this package.
32 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
36 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
37 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
39 it() does not require root privileges
40 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
41 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
48 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
50 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
51 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
52 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
53 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
54 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
55 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
56 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
57 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
58 an exception to this latter rule).
60 As a special case, if a remote source is specified without a destination,
61 the remote files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
63 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
64 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
68 See the file README for installation instructions.
70 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
71 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
72 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
73 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
74 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
76 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
77 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
79 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
84 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
85 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
87 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
89 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
91 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
92 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
93 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
94 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
95 differences. See the tech report for details.
97 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
99 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
100 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
101 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
102 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
103 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
104 size of data portions of the transfer.
106 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
108 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
109 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
110 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
111 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
112 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
113 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
114 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
118 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
119 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
122 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
123 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
124 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
127 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
128 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
131 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
132 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
133 an improved copy command.
135 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
136 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
138 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
140 See the following section for more details.
142 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
144 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
145 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
147 quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
149 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
150 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
151 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
152 to be a part of the filenames.
154 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
156 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
157 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
158 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
159 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
160 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
161 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
162 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
165 tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
166 tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
169 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
170 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
172 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
174 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
175 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
176 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
177 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
178 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
180 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
184 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
185 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
186 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
187 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
189 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
190 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
191 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
192 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
193 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
196 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
198 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
200 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
201 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
202 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
203 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
204 may be useful when scripting rsync.
206 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
207 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
209 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
210 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
211 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
212 proxy connections to port 873.
214 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
216 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
217 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
218 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
219 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
220 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
221 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
222 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
223 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
224 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
225 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
226 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
227 connections from "localhost".)
229 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
230 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
231 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
232 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
233 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
234 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
236 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
238 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
239 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
240 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
241 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell:
243 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
245 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
246 used to log-in to the "module".
248 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
250 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
251 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
252 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
253 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
254 socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config
255 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
256 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
258 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
259 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
261 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
263 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
265 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
266 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
268 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
270 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
273 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
277 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
279 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
282 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
283 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
284 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
286 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
289 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
291 This is launched from cron every few hours.
293 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
295 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
296 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
297 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
298 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
299 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
300 -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
301 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
302 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
303 -R, --relative use relative path names
304 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
305 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
306 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
307 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
308 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
309 --inplace update destination files in-place
310 --append append data onto shorter files
311 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
312 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
313 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
314 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
315 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
316 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
317 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
318 -p, --perms preserve permissions
319 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
320 -g, --group preserve group
321 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
322 -t, --times preserve times
323 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
324 --chmod=CHMOD change destination permissions
325 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
326 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
327 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
328 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
329 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
330 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
331 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
332 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
333 --ignore-non-existing ignore files that don't exist on receiver
334 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
335 --del an alias for --delete-during
336 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
337 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
338 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
339 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
340 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
341 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
342 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
343 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
344 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
345 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
346 --partial keep partially transferred files
347 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
348 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
349 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
350 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
351 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
352 --size-only skip files that match in size
353 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
354 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
355 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
356 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
357 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
358 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
359 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
360 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
361 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
362 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
363 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
364 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
365 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
366 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
367 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
368 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
369 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
370 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
371 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
372 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
373 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
374 --stats give some file-transfer stats
375 -m, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
376 --si like human-readable, but use powers of 1000
377 --progress show progress during transfer
378 -P same as --partial --progress
379 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
380 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format
381 --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
382 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
383 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
384 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
385 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
386 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
387 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
388 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
389 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
390 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
391 --version print version number
392 -h, --help show this help screen)
394 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
396 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
397 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
398 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
399 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
400 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
401 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
402 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
403 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
404 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
405 -h, --help show this help screen)
409 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
410 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
411 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
412 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
416 dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
419 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
421 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
422 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
423 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
424 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
425 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
426 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
427 you are debugging rsync.
429 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
430 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
431 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
432 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
433 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
434 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
435 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
436 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
438 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
439 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
440 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
443 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
444 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
445 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
447 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
448 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
449 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
450 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
451 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
454 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
455 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
456 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
457 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
458 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
459 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
460 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
462 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
463 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
464 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
465 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
466 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
468 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
469 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
470 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
471 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
472 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
474 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
475 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
478 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
479 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
480 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
481 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
482 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
483 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
484 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
486 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
487 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
488 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
490 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
491 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
492 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
493 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and sligntly
494 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
497 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
498 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
500 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
501 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
502 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
503 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
504 example, if you used this command:
506 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
508 ... this would create a file called baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
509 machine. If instead you used
511 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
513 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
514 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
515 path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With
516 a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can
517 insert a dot dir into the source path, like this:
519 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
521 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
522 dot dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
523 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
524 source path. For example, when pushing files:
526 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
528 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
529 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
530 If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an
534 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
535 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
538 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
539 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
540 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
541 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
542 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
543 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
544 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
545 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
546 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
547 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
549 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
550 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
551 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
552 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
553 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), the bf(--omit-dir-times)
554 option will be enabled.
556 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
557 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
558 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
559 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
560 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
561 will keep their original filenames).
563 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
564 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
565 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
567 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
568 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
569 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
570 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
572 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
573 between the sender and receiver is always
574 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
575 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
576 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
577 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
578 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
580 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
581 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
582 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
583 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
584 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
585 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
586 basis file for the transfer.
588 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
589 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
592 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
593 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
594 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
597 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
598 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
599 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
600 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
603 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
604 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
605 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
606 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
607 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.
608 Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding
609 file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
610 Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the
611 bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing
614 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
615 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
616 unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
617 name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
618 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
619 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
620 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), the latter takes precedence.
622 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
623 symlink on the destination.
625 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
626 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
627 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
628 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
629 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
630 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
631 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
632 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
634 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
635 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
636 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
637 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
639 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
640 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
641 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
642 give unexpected results.
644 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
645 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
646 option hard links are treated like regular files.
648 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
649 are in the list of files being sent.
651 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
653 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
654 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
657 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
658 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
659 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
660 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
661 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
662 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
664 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
665 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
667 Without this option, all existing files (including updated files) retain
668 their existing permissions, while each new file gets its permissions set
669 based on the source file's permissions, but masked by the receiving end's
671 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
673 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
674 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
675 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
676 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
677 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
679 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
680 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
681 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
682 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
683 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
684 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
686 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
687 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
688 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
690 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
691 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
692 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
693 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
694 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
695 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
696 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
698 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
699 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
700 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
701 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
703 dit(bf(--chmod)) This options tells rsync to apply the listed "chmod" pattern
704 to the permission of the files on the destination. In addition to the normal
705 parsing rules specified in the chmod manpage, you can specify an item that
706 should only apply to a directory by prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an
707 item that should only apply to a file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
709 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
711 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
712 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
714 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
715 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
716 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
718 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
719 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
720 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
722 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
723 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
724 contents of only one filesystem.
726 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
727 already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
729 dit(bf(--ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
730 do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is combined with the
731 bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated (which can be useful
732 if all you want to do is to delete missing files). Note that in older
733 versions of rsync, this option was named bf(--existing), so this older
734 name is still accepted as an alias.
736 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
737 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
738 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
739 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
741 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
742 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
743 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
744 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
745 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
746 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
747 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
748 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
749 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
750 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
752 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
753 was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
754 is specified, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
756 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
757 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
758 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
760 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
761 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
762 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
763 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
764 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
766 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
767 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
768 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
769 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
770 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
772 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
773 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
774 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
775 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
777 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
778 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
779 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
780 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
783 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
784 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
785 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
786 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
787 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
789 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
790 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
791 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
792 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
794 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
796 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
797 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
798 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
799 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
800 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
801 bf(--delete-excluded).
802 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
804 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
805 even when there are I/O errors.
807 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
808 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
809 is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
810 Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-a)) to have any effect.
812 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
813 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
814 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
816 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
817 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
818 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
819 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
821 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "k") is a kilobyte (1024),
822 "M" (or "m") is a megabyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "g") is a
823 gigabyte (1024*1024*1024).
824 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, suffix the K, G, or
825 M with a "T" (or "t") to indicate that a power of 10 is desired.
826 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
827 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
828 Examples: --max-size=1.5mt-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
831 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
832 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
833 transferring small, junk files.
834 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
836 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
837 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
838 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
840 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
841 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
842 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
843 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
845 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
846 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
847 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
848 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
849 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
850 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
852 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
853 presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
855 quote(tt( -e "ssh -p 2234"))
857 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
858 options in their .ssh/config file.)
860 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
861 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
863 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
865 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
866 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
867 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
868 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
869 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
870 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
873 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
874 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
876 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
878 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
879 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
880 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
881 a file should be ignored.
883 The exclude list is initialized to:
885 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
886 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
887 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
889 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
890 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
891 are delimited by whitespace).
893 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
894 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
895 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
896 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
898 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
899 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
900 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
901 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
902 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
903 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
904 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
905 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
906 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
907 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
910 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
911 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
912 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
914 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
915 to build up the list of files to exclude.
917 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
919 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
920 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
922 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
924 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
925 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
926 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
929 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
931 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
933 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
936 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
937 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
938 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
940 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
942 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
943 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
944 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
945 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
947 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
948 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
949 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
951 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
953 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
954 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
955 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
956 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
958 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
959 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
960 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
961 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
964 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
965 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
966 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
967 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
968 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
969 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
970 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
971 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
972 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
973 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
974 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
975 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
978 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
979 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
980 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
983 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
985 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
986 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
987 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
988 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
989 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
990 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
991 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
992 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
994 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
995 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
996 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
998 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
999 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1000 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1001 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1002 transfer". For example:
1004 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1006 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1007 was located on the remote "src" host.
1009 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1010 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1011 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1012 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1013 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1014 file are split on whitespace).
1016 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1017 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
1018 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
1019 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
1021 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1022 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1023 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1024 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1025 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1027 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1028 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1029 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1031 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1032 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1033 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1034 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1035 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1036 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1037 have changed from an earlier backup.
1039 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1040 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1042 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1043 and the attributes updated.
1044 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1045 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1047 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1048 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1050 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1051 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1052 directory using a local copy.
1053 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1054 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1055 been successfully transferred.
1057 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1058 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1059 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1060 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1062 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1063 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1065 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1066 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1067 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1068 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1071 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1073 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1074 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1076 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1077 and the attributes updated.
1078 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1079 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1081 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1082 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1084 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1085 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-root user when bf(-o) was specified
1086 (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option
1087 when sending to an old rsync.
1089 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1090 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1091 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1093 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can
1094 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1095 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1096 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1098 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1099 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1100 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1102 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1103 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1106 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1107 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1108 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1109 option is not specified.
1111 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1112 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1113 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1114 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1115 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1116 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1118 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1119 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1120 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1122 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1123 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1124 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1125 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1127 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1128 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1129 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1130 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1131 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1133 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1134 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1135 rsync defaults to using
1136 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1137 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1139 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1140 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1141 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1143 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1144 format is like the string bf(UXcstpoga)), where bf(U) is replaced by the
1145 kind of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1146 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1149 The update types that replace the bf(U) are as follows:
1152 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1154 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1156 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1157 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1158 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard-link to another item (requires
1160 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1161 have attributes that are being modified).
1164 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1165 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, and a bf(D) for a device.
1167 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1168 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1169 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1170 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1171 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1172 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1174 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1177 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1178 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1179 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1180 by the file transfer.
1181 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1182 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1183 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1184 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1185 without bf(--times).
1186 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1187 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1188 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1189 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and root privileges).
1190 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1191 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1192 it() The bf(a) is reserved for a future enhanced version that supports
1193 extended file attributes, such as ACLs.
1196 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1197 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1198 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1199 outputting them as a verbose message).
1201 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1202 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1203 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1204 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1205 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1206 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1208 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1209 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1210 touched directory) unless the itemized-changes escape (%i) is included in
1211 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1212 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1213 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1216 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1217 bf(--log-format) without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1218 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1220 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1221 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1222 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1223 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1224 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1225 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1227 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1228 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1229 algorithm is for your data.
1231 dit(bf(-m, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1232 Large numbers may be output in larger units, with a K (1024), M (1024*1024),
1233 or G (1024*1024*1024) suffix.
1235 dit(bf(--si)) Similar to the bf(--human-readable) option, but using powers
1236 of 1000 instead of 1024.
1238 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1239 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1240 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1241 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1242 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1244 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1245 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1246 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1247 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1248 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
1249 after it has served its purpose.
1250 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1251 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1253 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1255 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1256 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1257 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1258 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1259 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1261 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add a directory
1262 bf(--exclude) of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1263 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1264 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1265 the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
1266 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1267 supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert a
1268 rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
1269 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1270 a trailing bf(--exclude='*') rule, the auto-added rule would never be
1273 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1274 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1276 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1277 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1278 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1279 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1280 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1281 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1282 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the bf(--partial)
1283 option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1284 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
1285 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1287 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1288 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1289 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1290 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1291 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1293 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1294 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1295 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1296 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1297 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1298 each file's destination directory, but you can override this by specifying
1299 the bf(--partial-dir) option. (Note that RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR has no effect
1300 on this value, nor is bf(--partial-dir) considered to be implied for the
1301 purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting.)
1302 Conflicts with bf(--inplace).
1304 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1305 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1306 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1307 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1309 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1310 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1312 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1313 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1315 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1316 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1317 parallel hierarchy of files).
1319 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1320 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1322 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1324 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1326 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1328 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1329 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1330 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1331 remaining in this transfer.
1333 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1335 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1337 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1338 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1339 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1340 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1341 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1343 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1344 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1345 transfer that may be interrupted.
1347 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1348 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1349 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1350 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1351 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1354 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1355 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1356 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1357 come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
1358 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1359 non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
1360 copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
1361 must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
1363 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1364 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1365 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1366 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1367 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1368 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1369 of zero specifies no limit.
1371 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1372 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1373 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1375 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1376 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1377 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1378 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1380 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1381 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1382 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1383 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1384 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1387 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1388 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1389 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1390 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1392 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1393 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1394 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
1395 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1397 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1398 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1399 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1400 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1401 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1402 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1403 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1405 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1406 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1407 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1408 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1410 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1411 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1412 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1413 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1414 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1415 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1416 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1417 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1421 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1423 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1426 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1427 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1428 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1430 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1431 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1432 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1433 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1434 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1437 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1438 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1439 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1440 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1441 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1443 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1444 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1445 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1446 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1447 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1449 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1450 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1451 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1452 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1453 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1455 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1456 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1457 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1458 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1459 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1460 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1461 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1464 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1465 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1466 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1468 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1469 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1470 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1471 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1473 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1474 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1475 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1476 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1477 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1478 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1480 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1481 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1484 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1486 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1487 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1488 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1489 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1491 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1492 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1493 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1494 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1495 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1496 filename is not skipped.
1498 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1499 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1502 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1503 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1506 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1507 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1508 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1509 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1510 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1513 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1514 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1515 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1516 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1517 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1518 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1519 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1520 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1521 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1524 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1525 comment lines that start with a "#".
1527 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1528 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1529 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1530 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1532 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1533 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1534 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1535 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1538 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1539 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1540 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1541 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1543 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1545 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1546 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1547 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1548 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1549 can take several forms:
1552 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1553 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1554 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1555 regular expressions.
1556 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1557 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1558 per-directory rule).
1559 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1560 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1562 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1563 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1564 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1565 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1566 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1568 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1569 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1570 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1571 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1572 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1573 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1574 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1575 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1576 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1577 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1578 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1579 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1580 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1584 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1585 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1586 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1587 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1588 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1589 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1590 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1591 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1592 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1593 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1594 For instance, this won't work:
1597 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1598 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1602 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1603 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1604 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1605 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1606 "- *" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1607 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1612 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1613 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1614 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1618 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1621 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1622 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1623 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1624 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1625 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1626 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1627 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1628 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1629 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1630 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1631 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1632 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1635 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1637 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1638 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1641 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1642 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1643 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1644 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1645 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1646 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1647 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1648 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1649 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1650 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1656 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1657 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1658 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1659 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1660 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1663 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1666 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1667 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1668 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1669 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1670 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1671 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1672 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1673 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1674 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1675 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1676 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1677 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1678 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1679 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1680 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1682 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1683 (below) in order to have the rules that are read-in from the file
1684 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1685 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1686 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1687 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1690 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1693 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
1694 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
1695 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1696 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
1697 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
1698 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
1699 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1700 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1702 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1703 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1705 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1706 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1707 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1708 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1709 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1710 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1711 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1712 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1713 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1714 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1715 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1718 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1719 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1720 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1721 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1722 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1723 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1724 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1725 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1726 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1728 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
1729 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1730 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1731 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
1734 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
1737 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
1739 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
1744 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1745 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1746 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1747 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1750 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1751 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1752 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1753 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
1755 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
1757 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1758 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1759 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1760 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1761 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1763 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1766 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1767 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1768 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1771 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1772 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1773 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1774 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1775 a part of the transfer.
1777 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1778 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
1779 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
1780 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
1781 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
1782 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1783 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
1784 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1788 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
1793 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
1796 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1797 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1798 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1799 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
1800 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
1801 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
1802 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
1803 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
1805 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1807 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1808 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1809 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1810 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1811 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1812 out the parent's rules).
1814 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1816 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1817 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1818 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1819 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1820 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1821 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1823 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1824 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
1825 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1826 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1827 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1829 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1830 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1831 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1834 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
1835 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
1836 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
1837 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1838 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1842 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
1843 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
1844 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
1845 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
1846 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
1850 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
1851 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
1852 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1853 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
1854 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
1858 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
1859 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
1860 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1861 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1862 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1865 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1866 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
1867 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1869 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1871 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1872 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1873 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1874 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1877 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1878 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1881 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1882 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1883 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1884 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
1885 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1886 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1888 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
1890 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1891 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1892 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1893 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1894 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1896 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1897 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1899 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1900 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1901 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1902 per-directory merge rule.
1904 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1905 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1906 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1907 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1908 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1909 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1911 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
1913 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1915 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1917 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1918 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1919 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1920 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1921 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1922 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1923 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1924 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1925 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1927 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1928 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1929 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1930 using the information stored in the batch file.
1932 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1933 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1934 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1935 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1936 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1937 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1938 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1939 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1941 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1942 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1943 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1944 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1945 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1950 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
1951 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
1952 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
1956 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
1957 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
1960 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1961 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1962 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1963 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1964 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1967 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1968 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1969 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1970 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1971 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1972 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1973 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1974 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1975 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1976 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1977 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
1982 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1983 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1984 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1985 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
1986 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1987 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1988 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1989 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1990 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
1991 option (when reading the batch).
1992 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1993 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1994 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1997 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1998 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
1999 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2000 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2001 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2002 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2003 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2005 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2006 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2007 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2008 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2009 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2010 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2011 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2013 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2014 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2015 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2016 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2017 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2018 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2020 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2021 version uses a new implementation.
2023 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2025 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2026 link in the source directory.
2028 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2029 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2031 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2032 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2035 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2036 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2038 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2039 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2040 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2041 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2042 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2043 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2044 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2045 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2047 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2048 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
2049 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2051 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2052 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2053 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2055 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2056 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2058 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2059 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2061 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2062 skip all safe symlinks.
2064 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2067 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2069 manpagediagnostics()
2071 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2072 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2073 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2075 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2076 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2077 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2078 remote shell like this:
2080 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2082 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2083 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2084 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2085 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2086 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2087 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2088 for non-interactive logins.
2090 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2091 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2092 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2094 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2098 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2099 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2100 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2101 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2102 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2103 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2105 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2106 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2107 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2108 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2109 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2110 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2111 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2112 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2113 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2114 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2115 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2116 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2117 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2118 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2121 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2124 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2125 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2127 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2128 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2129 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2130 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2131 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2132 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2133 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2134 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2135 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2136 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2137 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2138 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2139 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2140 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2141 default .cvsignore file.
2146 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2154 times are transferred as unix time_t values
2156 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2158 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2160 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2163 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2165 Please report bugs! See the website at
2166 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2168 manpagesection(VERSION)
2170 This man page is current for version 2.6.6 of rsync.
2172 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2174 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2175 COPYING for details.
2177 A WEB site is available at
2178 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2179 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2182 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2183 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2185 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2187 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2188 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2190 manpagesection(THANKS)
2192 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2193 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2194 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2196 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2197 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2201 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2202 Many people have later contributed to it.
2204 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2205 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)