1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(29 Jun 2008)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences. See the tech report for details.
108 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
110 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
111 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
112 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
113 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
114 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
115 size of data portions of the transfer.
117 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
119 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
120 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
121 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
122 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
123 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
124 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
125 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
129 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
130 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
133 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
134 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
135 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
138 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
139 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
142 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
143 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
144 an improved copy command.
146 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
147 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
149 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
151 See the following section for more details.
153 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
155 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
156 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
157 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
159 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
160 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
161 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
163 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
166 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
167 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
169 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
170 not as easy to use as the first method.
172 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
173 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
174 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
177 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
179 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
181 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
182 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
183 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
184 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
185 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
187 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
191 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
192 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
193 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
194 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
196 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
197 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
198 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
199 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
200 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
203 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
205 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
207 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
208 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
209 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
210 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
211 may be useful when scripting rsync.
213 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
214 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
216 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
217 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
218 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
219 proxy connections to port 873.
221 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
222 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
223 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
224 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
225 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
228 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
229 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
230 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
232 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
233 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
236 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
238 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
242 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
243 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
244 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
245 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
246 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
247 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
248 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
249 connections from "localhost".)
251 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
252 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
253 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
254 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
255 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
256 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
258 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
260 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
261 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
262 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
263 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
264 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
266 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
268 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
269 used to log-in to the "module".
271 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
273 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
274 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
275 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
276 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
277 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
278 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
279 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
281 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
282 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
284 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
286 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
288 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
289 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
291 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
293 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
296 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
300 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
302 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
305 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
306 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
307 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
309 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
312 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
314 This is launched from cron every few hours.
316 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
318 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
319 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
320 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
321 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
322 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
323 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
324 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
325 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
326 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
327 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
328 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
329 -R, --relative use relative path names
330 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
331 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
332 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
333 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
334 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
335 --inplace update destination files in-place
336 --append append data onto shorter files
337 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
338 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
339 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
340 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
341 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
342 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
343 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
344 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
345 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
346 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
347 -p, --perms preserve permissions
348 -E, --executability preserve executability
349 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
350 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
351 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
352 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
353 -g, --group preserve group
354 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
355 --specials preserve special files
356 -D same as --devices --specials
357 -t, --times preserve modification times
358 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
359 -J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
360 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
361 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
362 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
363 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
364 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
365 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
366 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
367 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
368 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
369 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
370 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
371 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
372 --del an alias for --delete-during
373 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
374 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
375 --delete-during receiver deletes during transfer (default)
376 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
377 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
378 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
379 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
380 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
381 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
382 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
383 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
384 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
385 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
386 --partial keep partially transferred files
387 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
388 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
389 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
390 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
391 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
392 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
393 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
394 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
395 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
396 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
397 --size-only skip files that match in size
398 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
399 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
400 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
401 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
402 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
403 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
404 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
405 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
406 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
407 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
408 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
409 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
410 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
411 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
412 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
413 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
414 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
415 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
416 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
417 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
418 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
419 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
420 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
421 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
422 --stats give some file-transfer stats
423 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
424 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
425 --progress show progress during transfer
426 -P same as --partial --progress
427 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
428 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
429 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
430 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
431 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
432 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
433 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
434 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
435 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
436 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
437 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
438 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
439 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
440 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
441 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
442 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
443 --version print version number
444 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
446 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
448 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
449 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
450 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
451 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
452 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
453 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
454 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
455 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
456 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
457 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
458 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
459 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
460 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
461 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
465 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
466 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
467 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
468 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
472 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
473 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
474 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
475 option without any other args.
477 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
479 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
480 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
481 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
482 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
483 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
484 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
485 you are debugging rsync.
487 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
488 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
489 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
490 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
491 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
492 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
494 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
495 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
497 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
498 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
499 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
500 that support higher levels). Use
502 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
503 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
505 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
506 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
508 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
509 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
510 information on what is output and when.
512 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
513 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
514 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
516 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
517 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
519 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
520 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
521 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
522 that support higher levels). Use
524 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
525 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
527 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
528 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
530 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
531 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
532 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
534 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
535 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
536 from the remote server. This option name is useful when invoking rsync from
539 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
540 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
541 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
542 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
543 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
544 request the list of modules from the daemon.
546 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
547 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
548 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
551 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
552 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
553 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
554 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
555 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
556 not preserve timestamps exactly.
558 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
559 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
560 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
561 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
562 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
563 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
564 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
566 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
567 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
568 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
569 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
570 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
571 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
572 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
573 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
574 so this can slow things down significantly.
576 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
577 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
578 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
579 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
580 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
582 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
583 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
584 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
585 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
586 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
588 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
589 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
591 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
592 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
593 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
594 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
595 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
597 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
598 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
601 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
602 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
603 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
604 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
605 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
606 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
607 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
609 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
610 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
611 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
613 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
614 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
615 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
616 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
617 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
620 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
621 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
623 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
624 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
625 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
626 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
627 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
628 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
630 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
631 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
632 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
633 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
634 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
635 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
636 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
637 than using bf(--delete-after).
639 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
640 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
642 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
643 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
644 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
645 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
646 example, if you used this command:
648 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
650 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
651 machine. If instead you used
653 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
655 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
656 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
657 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
660 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
661 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
662 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
663 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
664 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
665 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
666 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
667 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
669 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
670 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
671 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
672 the source path, like this:
674 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
676 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
677 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
678 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
679 source path. For example, when pushing files:
681 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
683 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
684 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
685 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
686 for a non-daemon transfer):
689 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
690 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
693 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
694 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
695 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
696 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
697 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
698 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
699 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
702 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
703 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
704 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
705 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
706 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
707 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
708 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
709 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
710 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
711 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
713 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
714 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
715 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
717 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
718 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
719 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
720 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
722 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
723 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
724 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
725 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
726 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
727 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
728 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
729 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
730 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
731 rule would never be reached).
733 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
734 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
735 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
736 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
737 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
738 will keep their original filenames).
740 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
741 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
742 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
743 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
744 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
746 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
747 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
748 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
750 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
751 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
752 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
753 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
755 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
756 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
757 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
758 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
759 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
762 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
763 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
764 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
766 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
767 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
768 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
769 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
771 This has several effects:
774 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
775 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
776 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
777 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
778 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
779 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
781 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
782 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
784 it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
785 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
786 the open of the file for writing to be successful.
787 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
788 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
789 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
790 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
794 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
795 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
797 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
798 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
799 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
800 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
802 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
803 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
804 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
807 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
808 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
809 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
810 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
811 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
812 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
813 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
814 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
815 Implies bf(--inplace),
816 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
819 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
820 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
821 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
822 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
823 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
825 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
826 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
827 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
828 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
830 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
831 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
832 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
833 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
834 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
835 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
836 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
838 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
839 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
840 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
841 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
842 if you want to turn this off.
844 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
845 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
846 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
848 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
849 symlink on the destination.
851 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
852 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
853 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
854 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
855 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
856 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
857 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
858 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
860 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
861 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
862 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
863 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
864 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
866 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
867 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
868 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
869 give unexpected results.
871 dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
872 the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
873 below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
874 a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
875 to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
877 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
878 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
879 that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
880 to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
882 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
883 affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
884 transfer, the client side is the sender.)
886 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
887 wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
888 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
890 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
891 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
892 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
893 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
895 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
896 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
897 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
898 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
900 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
903 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
904 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
905 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
906 to make the paths match up right. For example:
908 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
910 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
911 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
912 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
914 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
915 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
916 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
917 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
919 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
920 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
921 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
922 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
923 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
926 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
927 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
928 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
929 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
930 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
931 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
932 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
934 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
936 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
937 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
938 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
939 as though they were separate files.
941 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
942 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
943 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
946 it() If the destination already contains hard links, rsync will not break
947 them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
948 differences, the normal file-update process will break those links, unless
949 you are using the bf(--inplace) option.
950 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
951 rsync may use the same bf(--link-dest) file multiple times via several of
955 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
956 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
957 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
958 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
959 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
960 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
961 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
963 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
964 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
965 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
966 the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
967 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
969 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
970 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
971 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
972 be the source permissions.)
974 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
977 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
978 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
979 the execute permission for the file.
980 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
981 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
982 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
983 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
984 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
985 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
988 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
989 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
990 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
992 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
993 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
994 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
995 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
996 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
997 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
998 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
999 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
1001 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
1003 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1005 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
1007 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1008 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1010 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1011 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1012 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1013 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1014 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1015 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1016 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1017 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1020 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1021 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1022 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1023 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1024 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1025 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1028 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1030 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1031 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1034 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1036 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1037 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1038 The option also implies bf(--perms).
1040 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1041 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1042 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1044 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1045 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1047 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1048 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1049 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1050 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1052 Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
1053 used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
1054 "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1056 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1057 comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
1058 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1059 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1060 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1062 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1063 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1064 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1065 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1066 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1067 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1068 consistent executability across all bits:
1070 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1072 Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1074 quote(--chmod=D2775,F664)
1076 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1077 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1079 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1080 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1082 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1083 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1084 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1085 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1086 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1087 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1089 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1090 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1091 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1093 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1094 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1095 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1096 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1097 is a member of will be preserved.
1098 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1099 user on the receiving side.
1101 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1102 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1103 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1105 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1106 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1107 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1108 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1110 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1111 such as named sockets and fifos.
1113 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1115 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1116 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1117 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1118 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1119 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1120 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1121 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1123 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1124 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1125 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1126 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1128 dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
1129 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
1131 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1132 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1133 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1134 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1135 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1136 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1137 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1138 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1139 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1141 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1142 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1143 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1144 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1145 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1146 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1147 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1148 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1149 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1150 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1151 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1153 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1154 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1156 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1157 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1158 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1160 quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1162 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1163 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1164 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1165 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1168 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1170 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1172 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1173 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1174 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1176 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1177 filesystem. It seems to have problems seeking over null regions,
1178 and ends up corrupting the files.
1180 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1181 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1182 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1183 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1184 to do before one actually runs it.
1186 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1187 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1188 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1189 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1190 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1191 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1192 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1193 where no file transfers were needed.
1195 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1196 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1197 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1198 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1199 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1200 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1201 batch-writing option is in effect.
1203 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1204 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1205 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1206 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1207 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1208 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1211 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1212 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1213 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1214 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1216 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1217 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1218 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1221 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1222 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1223 yet on the destination. If this option is
1224 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1225 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1227 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1228 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1229 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1231 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1232 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1233 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1235 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1236 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1237 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1239 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1240 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1241 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1242 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1243 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1244 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1245 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1247 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1248 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1249 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1251 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1252 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1253 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1254 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1255 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1256 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1257 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1258 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1259 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1260 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1262 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1263 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1264 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1266 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1267 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1268 going to be deleted.
1270 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1271 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1272 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1273 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1274 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1276 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1277 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1278 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1279 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1280 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1281 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1283 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1284 side be done before the transfer starts.
1285 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1287 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1288 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1289 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1290 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1291 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1292 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1293 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1295 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1296 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1297 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1298 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1299 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1300 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1301 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1303 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1304 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1305 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1306 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1307 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1308 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1309 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1310 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1311 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1312 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1313 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1315 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1317 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1318 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1319 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1320 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1321 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1322 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1323 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1324 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1326 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1327 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1328 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1329 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1330 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1331 bf(--delete-excluded).
1332 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1334 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1335 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1336 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1337 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1338 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1339 present and later is no longer there.
1341 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1342 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1343 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1344 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1345 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1346 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1348 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1349 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1351 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1352 even when there are I/O errors.
1354 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1355 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1356 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1358 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1359 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1360 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1362 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1363 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1364 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1366 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1367 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1368 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1369 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1370 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1371 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1373 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1374 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1375 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1376 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1378 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1379 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1380 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1382 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1383 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1384 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1385 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1386 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1387 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1388 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1390 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1393 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1394 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1395 transferring small, junk files.
1396 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1398 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1399 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1400 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1402 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1403 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1404 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1405 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1407 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1408 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1409 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1410 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1411 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1412 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1414 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1415 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1416 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1417 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1418 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1419 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1420 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1421 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1424 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1425 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1428 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1429 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1431 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1432 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1434 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1436 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1437 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1438 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1439 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1440 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1441 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1444 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1445 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1447 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1449 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1450 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1451 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1452 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1454 quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1456 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1457 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1460 quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1462 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1463 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1464 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1466 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1467 want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1468 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1469 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1471 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1472 "remote" side is the receiver.
1474 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1475 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1476 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1477 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1479 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1480 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1481 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1482 a file should be ignored.
1484 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1485 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1487 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1488 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1489 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1491 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1492 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1493 are delimited by whitespace).
1495 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1496 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1497 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1498 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1500 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1501 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1502 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1503 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1504 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1505 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1506 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1507 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1508 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1509 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1512 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1513 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1514 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1516 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1517 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1518 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1519 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1520 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1522 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1524 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1525 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1527 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1529 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1530 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1531 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1534 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1536 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1538 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1541 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1542 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1543 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1545 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1547 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1548 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1549 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1550 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1552 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1553 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1554 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1556 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1558 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1559 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1560 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1561 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1563 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1564 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1565 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1566 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1569 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1570 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1571 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1572 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1573 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1574 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1575 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1576 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1577 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1578 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1579 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1580 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1583 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1584 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1585 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1588 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1590 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1591 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1592 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1593 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1594 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1595 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1596 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1597 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1599 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1600 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1601 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1603 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1604 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1605 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1606 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1607 transfer". For example:
1609 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1611 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1612 was located on the remote "src" host.
1614 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1615 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1616 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1617 receiving host's charset.
1619 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1620 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1621 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1622 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1623 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1624 file are split on whitespace).
1626 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1627 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1628 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1629 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1630 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1632 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1633 side will also be translated
1634 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1635 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1637 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1638 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1639 by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1640 overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1641 (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1642 Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1643 disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1646 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1647 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1648 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1649 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1651 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1652 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1653 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1654 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1656 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1657 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1658 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1659 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1660 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1661 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1662 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1663 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1664 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1665 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1666 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1667 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1668 new version on the disk at the same time.
1670 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1671 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1672 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1673 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1674 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1675 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1676 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1677 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1678 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1679 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1680 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1681 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1683 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1684 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1685 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1686 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1687 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1689 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1690 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1691 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1693 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1694 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1695 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1696 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1697 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1698 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1699 have changed from an earlier backup.
1701 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1702 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1704 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1705 and the attributes updated.
1706 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1707 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1709 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1710 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1712 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1713 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1714 directory using a local copy.
1715 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1716 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1717 been successfully transferred.
1719 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1720 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1721 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1722 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1724 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1725 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1727 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1728 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1729 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1730 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1733 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1735 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1736 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1737 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1738 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1740 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1741 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1743 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1744 and the attributes updated.
1745 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1746 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1748 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1749 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1750 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1751 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1754 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1755 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1756 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1759 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1760 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1762 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1763 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1764 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1765 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1767 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1768 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1769 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1771 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1772 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1773 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1774 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1776 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1777 that will not be compressed.
1779 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1780 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1781 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1783 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1784 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1785 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1787 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1789 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1790 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1791 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1793 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1795 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1796 matches 2 suffixes):
1798 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1800 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1832 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1833 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1834 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1837 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1838 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1841 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1842 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1843 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1844 option is not specified.
1846 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1847 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1848 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1849 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1850 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1851 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1853 dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
1854 specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
1855 receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
1856 values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
1857 replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
1858 or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
1859 also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
1860 names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
1861 why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
1862 numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
1864 verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
1866 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
1867 all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
1868 your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
1870 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
1871 to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
1872 the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
1873 bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
1874 match those in use on the receiving side.
1876 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
1877 empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
1878 a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
1880 verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
1882 When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
1883 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
1884 you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
1885 nameless IDs to different values.
1887 For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
1888 option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
1889 as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
1890 option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
1891 (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
1894 dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
1895 with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
1896 bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
1897 so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
1898 the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
1899 be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
1901 If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
1902 "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
1904 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1905 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1906 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1908 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1909 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1910 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1912 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1913 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1914 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1915 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1917 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1918 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1919 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1920 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1921 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1923 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1924 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1925 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1926 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1927 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1928 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1929 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1930 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1932 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1933 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1934 rsync defaults to using
1935 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1936 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1938 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1939 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1940 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1941 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1942 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1943 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1946 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1947 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1948 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1949 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1952 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1955 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1957 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1959 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1960 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1961 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1963 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1964 have attributes that are being modified).
1965 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1966 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1969 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1970 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1971 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1973 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1974 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1975 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1976 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1977 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1978 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1980 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1983 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1984 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1986 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1987 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1988 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1989 by the file transfer.
1990 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1991 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1992 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1993 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1994 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1995 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1996 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1997 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1998 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1999 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
2000 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
2001 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
2002 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
2003 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
2004 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
2005 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
2008 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
2009 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
2010 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2011 outputting them as a verbose message).
2013 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2014 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2015 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2016 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2017 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2018 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2019 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2020 rsyncd.conf manpage.
2022 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2023 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2024 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2025 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2026 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2027 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2028 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2029 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2031 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2032 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2033 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2034 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2035 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2036 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2038 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2039 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2040 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2041 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2042 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2043 option if you wish to override this.
2045 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2048 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2050 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2053 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2054 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2055 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2056 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2057 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2058 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2060 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2063 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2064 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2065 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2066 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2067 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2069 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2070 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2071 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2072 be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2073 For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2074 totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2075 files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2076 it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2077 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2078 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2079 it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2080 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2081 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2082 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2083 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2084 it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2085 that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2086 include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2087 "regular" into this heading.
2088 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2089 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2090 include the size of symlinks.
2091 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2092 for just the transferred files.
2093 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2094 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2095 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2096 recreating the updated files.
2097 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2098 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2099 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2101 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2102 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2103 sending side for this to be present.
2104 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2105 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2106 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2107 from the client side to the server side.
2108 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2109 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2110 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2111 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2114 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2115 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2116 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2117 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2120 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2121 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2122 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2123 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2125 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2126 There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2127 set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2128 is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2129 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2132 The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2133 by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2134 specifing the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2136 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2137 G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2138 in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2140 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2141 human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2142 two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2143 as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2144 options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2146 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2147 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2148 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2149 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2150 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2152 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2153 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2154 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2155 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2156 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2157 after it has served its purpose.
2159 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2160 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2162 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2164 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2165 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2166 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2167 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2168 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2170 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2171 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2172 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2173 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2174 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2175 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2178 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2179 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2180 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2181 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2182 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2183 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2184 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2185 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2186 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2188 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2189 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2191 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2192 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2193 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2194 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2195 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2196 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2197 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2198 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2199 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2200 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2202 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2203 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2204 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2205 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2206 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2208 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2209 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2210 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2211 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2212 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2213 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2214 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2215 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2216 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2217 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2218 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2220 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2221 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2222 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2223 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2225 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2226 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2228 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2229 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2231 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2232 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2233 parallel hierarchy of files).
2235 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2236 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2237 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2238 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2239 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2242 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2243 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2244 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2246 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2247 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2248 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2249 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2250 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2253 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2254 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2255 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2257 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2259 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2260 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2261 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2262 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2264 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2266 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2267 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2268 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2270 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2271 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2273 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2274 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2275 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2277 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2280 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2282 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2283 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2284 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2285 is maintained until the end.
2287 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2288 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2289 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2290 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2291 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2292 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2294 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2295 summary line that looks like this:
2297 verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2299 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2300 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2301 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2302 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2303 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2304 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2306 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2307 in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2308 transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2309 (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2310 knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2311 "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2312 in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2313 of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2316 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2317 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2318 transfer that may be interrupted.
2320 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2321 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2322 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2323 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2324 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2325 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2327 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
2328 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
2329 It should contain just the password as the first line of the file (all
2330 other lines are ignored).
2332 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2333 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2334 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2335 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2336 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2339 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2340 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2341 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2342 command that includes a
2343 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2344 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2345 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2346 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2347 without using this option. For example:
2349 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2351 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2352 by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2353 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2354 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2355 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2356 bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2359 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2360 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2361 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2362 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2363 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2364 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2365 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2367 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2368 rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2369 RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2370 be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2371 the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2372 been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2373 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2375 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2376 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2378 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2379 size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2380 rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2381 out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2383 Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2384 accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2385 files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2386 while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2387 occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2389 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2390 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2391 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2393 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2394 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2395 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2396 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2398 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2399 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2400 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2401 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2402 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2405 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2406 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2407 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2408 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2410 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2411 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2412 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2413 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2415 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2416 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2417 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2418 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2419 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2420 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2421 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2423 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2424 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2425 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2426 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2427 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2428 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2429 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2430 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2431 to turn off any conversion.
2432 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2433 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2435 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2438 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2439 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2440 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2442 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2443 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2444 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2445 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2446 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2448 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2449 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2450 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2451 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2453 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2454 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2455 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2456 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2458 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2459 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2462 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer
2463 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2464 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2465 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2466 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2467 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2468 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2469 Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2473 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2475 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2478 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2479 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2480 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2482 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2483 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2484 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2485 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2486 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2489 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2490 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2491 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2492 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2493 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2495 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2496 rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2497 specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2498 See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2500 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2501 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2502 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2503 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2504 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2506 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2507 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2508 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2509 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2510 desire. For instance:
2512 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2514 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2515 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2516 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2517 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2518 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2519 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2520 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2523 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2524 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2525 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2527 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2528 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2531 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2532 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2533 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2534 case transfer logging is turned off.
2536 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2537 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2539 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2540 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2541 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2542 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2544 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2545 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2546 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2547 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2548 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2549 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2551 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2552 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2555 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2556 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2559 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2561 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2562 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2563 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2564 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2566 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2567 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2568 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2569 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2570 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2571 filename is not skipped.
2573 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2574 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2577 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2578 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2581 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2582 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2583 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2584 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2585 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2588 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2589 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2590 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2591 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2592 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2593 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2594 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2595 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2596 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2599 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2600 comment lines that start with a "#".
2602 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2603 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2604 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2605 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2607 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2608 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2609 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2610 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2613 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2614 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2615 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2616 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2618 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2620 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2621 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2622 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2623 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2624 can take several forms:
2627 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2628 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2629 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2630 regular expressions.
2631 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2632 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2633 per-directory rule).
2634 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2635 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2636 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2637 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2638 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2639 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2640 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2642 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2643 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2644 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2645 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2646 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2647 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2648 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2649 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2650 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2651 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2652 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2653 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2654 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2655 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2656 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2657 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2658 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2660 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2661 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2662 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2666 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2667 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2668 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2669 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2670 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2671 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2672 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2673 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2674 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2675 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2676 For instance, this won't work:
2679 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2680 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2684 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2685 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2686 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2687 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2688 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2689 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2690 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2695 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2696 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2697 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2701 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2704 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2705 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2706 transfer-root directory
2707 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2708 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2709 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2710 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2711 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2712 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2713 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2714 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2715 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2716 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2717 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2720 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2723 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2724 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2725 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2726 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2727 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2728 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2729 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2730 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2732 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2733 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2735 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2736 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2737 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2738 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2739 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2740 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2741 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2742 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2743 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2744 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2745 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2746 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2747 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2748 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2749 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2750 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2753 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2755 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2756 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2759 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2760 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2761 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2762 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2763 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2764 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2765 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2766 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2767 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2768 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2774 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2775 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2776 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2777 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2778 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2781 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2784 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2785 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2786 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2787 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2788 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2789 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2790 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2791 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2792 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2793 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2794 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2795 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2796 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2797 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2798 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2800 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2801 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2802 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2803 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2804 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2805 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2806 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2807 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2808 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2809 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2812 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2813 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2814 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2815 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2816 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2817 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2818 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2819 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2820 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2822 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2823 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2824 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2825 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2828 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2831 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2833 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2838 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2839 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2840 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2841 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2844 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2845 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2846 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2847 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2849 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2851 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2852 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2853 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2854 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2855 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2857 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2860 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2861 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2862 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2865 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2866 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2867 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2868 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2869 a part of the transfer.
2871 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2872 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2873 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2874 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2875 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2876 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2877 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2878 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2882 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2887 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2890 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2891 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2892 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2893 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2894 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2895 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2896 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2897 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2899 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2901 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2902 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2903 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2904 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2905 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2906 out the parent's rules).
2908 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2910 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2911 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2912 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2913 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2914 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2915 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2917 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2918 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2919 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2920 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2921 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2923 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2924 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2925 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2928 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2929 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2930 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2931 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2932 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2936 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2937 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2938 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2939 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2940 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2944 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2945 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2946 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2947 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2948 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2952 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2953 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2954 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2955 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2956 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2959 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2960 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2961 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2963 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2965 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2966 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2967 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2968 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2971 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2972 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2975 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2976 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2977 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2978 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2979 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2980 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2982 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2984 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2985 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2986 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2987 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2988 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2990 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2991 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2993 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2994 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2995 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2996 per-directory merge rule.
2998 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2999 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
3000 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
3001 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
3002 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
3003 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
3005 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3007 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3009 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
3011 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
3012 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
3013 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3014 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3015 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3016 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3017 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3018 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3019 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3021 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3022 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3023 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3024 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3025 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3027 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3028 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3029 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3030 using the information stored in the batch file.
3032 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3033 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3034 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3035 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3036 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3037 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3038 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3039 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3044 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3045 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3046 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3050 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3051 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3054 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3055 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3056 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3057 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3058 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3061 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3062 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3063 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3064 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3065 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3066 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3067 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3068 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3069 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3070 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3071 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3076 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3077 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3078 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3079 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3080 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3081 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3082 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3083 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3084 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3085 option (when reading the batch).
3086 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3087 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3088 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3091 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3092 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3093 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3094 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3095 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3096 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3097 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3099 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3100 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3101 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3102 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3103 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3104 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3105 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3107 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3108 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3109 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3110 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3111 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3112 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3114 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3115 version uses a new implementation.
3117 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3119 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3120 link in the source directory.
3122 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3123 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3125 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3126 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3129 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3130 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3132 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3133 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3134 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3135 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3136 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3137 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3138 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3139 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3141 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3142 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3143 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3145 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3146 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3147 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3149 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3150 symlinks for any other options to affect).
3152 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3153 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3155 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3156 skip all safe symlinks.
3158 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3161 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3163 manpagediagnostics()
3165 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3166 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3167 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3169 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3170 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3171 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3172 remote shell like this:
3174 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3176 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3177 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3178 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3179 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3180 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3181 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3182 for non-interactive logins.
3184 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3185 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3186 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3188 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3192 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3193 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3194 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3195 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3196 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3197 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3199 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3200 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3201 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3202 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3203 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3204 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3205 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3206 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3207 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3208 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3209 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3210 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3211 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3212 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3213 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3216 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3219 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3220 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3222 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3223 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3224 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3225 bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3226 sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3227 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3228 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3229 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3230 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3231 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3232 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3233 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3234 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3235 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3236 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3237 consult the remote shell's documentation.
3238 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3239 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3240 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3241 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3242 default .cvsignore file.
3247 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3255 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3257 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3259 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3261 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3264 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3266 Please report bugs! See the web site at
3267 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3269 manpagesection(VERSION)
3271 This man page is current for version 3.0.3 of rsync.
3273 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3275 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3276 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3277 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3278 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3279 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3280 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3283 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3285 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
3286 COPYING for details.
3288 A WEB site is available at
3289 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3290 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3293 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3294 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3296 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3297 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3299 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3300 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3302 manpagesection(THANKS)
3304 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3305 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3306 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3308 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3309 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3313 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3314 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3317 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3318 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)