1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Jul 2005)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
6 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
14 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
16 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
22 rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
23 but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
24 greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
27 The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
28 differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
29 an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
30 report that accompanies this package.
32 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
35 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
36 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
37 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
38 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
39 it() does not require root privileges
40 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
41 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
48 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
50 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
51 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
52 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
53 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
54 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
55 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
56 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
57 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
58 an exception to this latter rule).
60 As a special case, if a remote source is specified without a destination,
61 the remote files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
63 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
64 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
68 See the file README for installation instructions.
70 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
71 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
72 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
73 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
74 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
76 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
77 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
79 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
84 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
85 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
87 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
89 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
91 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
92 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
93 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
94 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
95 differences. See the tech report for details.
97 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
99 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
100 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
101 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
102 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
103 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
104 size of data portions of the transfer.
106 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
108 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
109 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
110 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
111 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
112 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
113 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
114 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
118 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
119 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
122 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
123 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
124 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
127 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
128 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
131 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
132 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
133 an improved copy command.
135 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
136 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
138 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
140 See the following section for more details.
142 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
144 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
145 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
147 quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
149 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
150 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
151 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
152 to be a part of the filenames.
154 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
156 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
157 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
158 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
159 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
160 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
161 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
162 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
165 tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
166 tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
169 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
170 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
172 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
174 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
175 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
176 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
177 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
178 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
180 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
184 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
185 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
186 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
187 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
189 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
190 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
191 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
192 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
193 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
196 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
198 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
200 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
201 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
202 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
203 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
204 may be useful when scripting rsync.
206 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
207 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
209 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
210 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
211 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
212 proxy connections to port 873.
214 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
216 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
217 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
218 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
219 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
220 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
221 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
222 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
223 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
224 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
225 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
226 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
227 connections from "localhost".)
229 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
230 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
231 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
232 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
233 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
234 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
236 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
238 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
239 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
240 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
241 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell:
243 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
245 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
246 used to log-in to the "module".
248 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
250 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
251 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
252 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
253 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
254 socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config
255 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
256 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
258 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
259 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
261 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
263 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
265 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
266 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
268 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
270 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
273 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
277 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
279 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
282 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
283 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
284 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
286 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
289 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
291 This is launched from cron every few hours.
293 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
295 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
296 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
297 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
298 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
299 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
300 -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
301 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
302 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
303 -R, --relative use relative path names
304 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
305 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
306 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
307 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
308 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
309 --inplace update destination files in-place
310 --append append data onto shorter files
311 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
312 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
313 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
314 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
315 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
316 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
317 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
318 -p, --perms preserve permissions
319 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
320 -g, --group preserve group
321 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
322 -t, --times preserve times
323 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
324 --chmod=CHMOD change destination permissions
325 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
326 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
327 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
328 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
329 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
330 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
331 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
332 --existing ignore non-existing files on receiving side
333 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
334 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
335 --del an alias for --delete-during
336 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
337 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
338 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
339 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
340 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
341 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
342 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
343 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
344 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
345 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
346 --partial keep partially transferred files
347 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
348 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
349 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
350 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
351 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
352 --size-only skip files that match in size
353 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
354 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
355 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
356 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
357 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
358 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
359 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
360 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
361 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
362 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
363 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
364 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
365 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
366 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
367 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
368 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
369 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
370 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
371 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
372 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
373 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
374 --stats give some file-transfer stats
375 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
376 --si like human-readable, but use powers of 1000
377 --progress show progress during transfer
378 -P same as --partial --progress
379 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
380 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format
381 --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
382 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
383 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
384 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
385 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
386 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
387 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
388 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
389 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
390 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
391 --version print version number
392 --help show this help screen)
394 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
396 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
397 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
398 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
399 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
400 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
401 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
402 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
403 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
404 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
405 --help show this help screen)
409 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
410 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
411 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
412 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
416 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
417 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
418 versions of rsync, the same help output can also be requested by using
419 the bf(-h) option without any other args.
421 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
423 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
424 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
425 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
426 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
427 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
428 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
429 you are debugging rsync.
431 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
432 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
433 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
434 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
435 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
436 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
437 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
438 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
440 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
441 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
442 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
445 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
446 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
447 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
449 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
450 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
451 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
452 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
453 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
456 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
457 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
458 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
459 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
460 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
461 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
462 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
464 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
465 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
466 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
467 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
468 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
470 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
471 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
472 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
473 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
474 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
476 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
477 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
480 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
481 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
482 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
483 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
484 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
485 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
486 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
488 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
489 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
490 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
492 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
493 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
494 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
495 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and sligntly
496 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
499 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
500 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
502 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
503 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
504 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
505 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
506 example, if you used this command:
508 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
510 ... this would create a file called baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
511 machine. If instead you used
513 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
515 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
516 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
517 path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With
518 a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can
519 insert a dot dir into the source path, like this:
521 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
523 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
524 dot dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
525 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
526 source path. For example, when pushing files:
528 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
530 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
531 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
532 If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an
536 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
537 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
540 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
541 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
542 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
543 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
544 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
545 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
546 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
547 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
548 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
549 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
551 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
552 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
553 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
554 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
556 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
557 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
558 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a protect
559 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
560 (e.g. -f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
561 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
562 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
563 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
564 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
565 rule would never be reached).
567 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
568 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
569 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
570 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
571 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
572 will keep their original filenames).
574 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
575 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
576 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
578 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
579 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
580 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
581 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
583 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
584 between the sender and receiver is always
585 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
586 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
587 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
588 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
589 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
591 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
592 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
593 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
594 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
595 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
596 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
597 basis file for the transfer.
599 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
600 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
603 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
604 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
605 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
608 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
609 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
610 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
611 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
614 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
615 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
616 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
617 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
618 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.
619 Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding
620 file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
621 Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the
622 bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing
625 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
626 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
627 unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
628 name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
629 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
630 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
631 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), the latter takes precedence.
633 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
634 symlink on the destination.
636 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
637 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
638 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
639 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
640 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
641 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
642 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
643 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
645 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
646 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
647 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
648 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
650 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
651 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
652 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
653 give unexpected results.
655 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
656 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
657 option hard links are treated like regular files.
659 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
660 are in the list of files being sent.
662 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
664 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
665 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
668 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
669 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
670 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
671 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
672 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
673 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
675 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
676 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
678 Without this option, all existing files (including updated files) retain
679 their existing permissions, while each new file gets its permissions set
680 based on the source file's permissions, but masked by the receiving end's
682 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
684 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
685 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
686 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
687 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
688 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
690 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
691 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
692 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
693 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
694 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
695 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
697 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
698 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
699 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
701 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
702 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
703 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
704 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
705 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
706 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
707 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
709 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
710 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
711 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
712 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
714 dit(bf(--chmod)) This options tells rsync to apply the listed "chmod" pattern
715 to the permission of the files on the destination. In addition to the normal
716 parsing rules specified in the chmod manpage, you can specify an item that
717 should only apply to a directory by prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an
718 item that should only apply to a file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
720 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
722 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
723 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
725 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
726 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
727 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
729 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
730 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
731 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
733 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
734 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
735 contents of only one filesystem.
737 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid recursing into a
738 directory that is the mount-point for another filesystem, including (as of
739 2.6.7), "bind" mount-points. You can still copy the contents of multiple
740 file systems if you include a source dir from each file system -- this just
741 limits rsync's directory-recursion algorithm.
743 Rsync will copy the directory at each encountered mount-point unless this
744 option is repeated. Note, however, that the attributes of this mount-point
745 directory are copied from those currently visible in the filesystem, not
746 the inaccessible attributes of the underlying directory.
748 This option does not affect the "collapsing" of symlinks that options such
749 as bf(--copy-links) perform, irrespective of what filesystem the symlink's
752 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
753 updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is
754 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
755 (which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete missing files).
757 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
758 already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
760 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
761 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
762 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
763 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
765 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
766 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
767 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
768 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
769 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
770 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
771 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
772 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
773 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
774 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
776 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
777 was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
778 is specified, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
780 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
781 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
782 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
784 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
785 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
786 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
787 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
788 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
790 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
791 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
792 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
793 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
794 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
796 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
797 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
798 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
799 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
801 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
802 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
803 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
804 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
807 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
808 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
809 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
810 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
811 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
813 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
814 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
815 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
816 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
818 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
820 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
821 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
822 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
823 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
824 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
825 bf(--delete-excluded).
826 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
828 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
829 even when there are I/O errors.
831 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
832 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
833 is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
834 Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-a)) to have any effect.
836 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
837 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
838 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
840 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
841 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
842 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
843 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
845 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
846 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
847 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
848 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
849 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
850 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
851 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
853 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
856 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
857 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
858 transferring small, junk files.
859 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
861 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
862 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
863 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
865 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
866 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
867 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
868 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
870 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
871 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
872 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
873 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
874 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
875 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
877 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
878 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
879 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
880 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
881 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
882 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
883 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
884 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
887 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
888 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
891 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
892 options in their .ssh/config file.)
894 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
895 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
897 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
899 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
900 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
901 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
902 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
903 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
904 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
907 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
908 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
910 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
912 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
913 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
914 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
915 a file should be ignored.
917 The exclude list is initialized to:
919 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
920 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
921 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
923 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
924 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
925 are delimited by whitespace).
927 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
928 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
929 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
930 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
932 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
933 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
934 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
935 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
936 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
937 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
938 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
939 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
940 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
941 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
944 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
945 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
946 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
948 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
949 to build up the list of files to exclude.
951 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
953 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
954 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
956 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
958 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
959 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
960 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
963 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
965 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
967 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
970 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
971 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
972 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
974 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
976 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
977 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
978 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
979 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
981 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
982 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
983 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
985 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
987 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
988 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
989 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
990 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
992 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
993 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
994 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
995 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
998 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
999 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1000 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1001 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1002 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1003 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1004 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1005 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1006 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1007 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1008 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1009 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1012 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1013 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1014 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1017 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1019 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1020 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1021 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1022 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1023 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1024 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1025 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1026 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1028 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1029 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1030 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1032 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1033 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1034 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1035 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1036 transfer". For example:
1038 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1040 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1041 was located on the remote "src" host.
1043 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1044 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1045 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1046 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1047 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1048 file are split on whitespace).
1050 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1051 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
1052 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
1053 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
1055 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1056 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1057 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1058 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1059 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1061 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1062 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1063 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1065 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1066 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1067 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1068 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1069 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1070 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1071 have changed from an earlier backup.
1073 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1074 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1076 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1077 and the attributes updated.
1078 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1079 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1081 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1082 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1084 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1085 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1086 directory using a local copy.
1087 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1088 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1089 been successfully transferred.
1091 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1092 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1093 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1094 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1096 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1097 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1099 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1100 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1101 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1102 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1105 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1107 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1108 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1110 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1111 and the attributes updated.
1112 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1113 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1115 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1116 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1118 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1119 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-root user when bf(-o) was specified
1120 (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option
1121 when sending to an old rsync.
1123 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1124 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1125 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1127 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can
1128 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1129 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1130 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1132 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1133 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1134 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1136 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1137 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1140 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1141 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1142 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1143 option is not specified.
1145 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1146 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1147 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1148 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1149 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1150 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1152 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1153 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1154 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1156 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1157 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1158 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1159 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1161 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1162 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1163 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1164 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1165 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1167 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1168 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1169 rsync defaults to using
1170 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1171 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1173 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1174 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1175 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1176 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1177 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1178 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1181 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1182 format is like the string bf(UXcstpoga)), where bf(U) is replaced by the
1183 kind of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1184 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1187 The update types that replace the bf(U) are as follows:
1190 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1192 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1194 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1195 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1196 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard-link to another item (requires
1198 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1199 have attributes that are being modified).
1202 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1203 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, and a bf(D) for a device.
1205 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1206 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1207 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1208 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1209 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1210 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1212 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1215 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1216 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1217 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1218 by the file transfer.
1219 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1220 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1221 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1222 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1223 without bf(--times).
1224 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1225 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1226 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1227 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and root privileges).
1228 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1229 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1230 it() The bf(a) is reserved for a future enhanced version that supports
1231 extended file attributes, such as ACLs.
1234 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1235 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1236 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1237 outputting them as a verbose message).
1239 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1240 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1241 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1242 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1243 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1244 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1246 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1247 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1248 touched directory) unless the itemized-changes escape (%i) is included in
1249 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1250 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1251 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1254 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1255 bf(--log-format) without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1256 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1258 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1259 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1260 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1261 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1262 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1263 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1265 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1266 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1267 algorithm is for your data.
1269 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1270 Large numbers may be output in larger units, with a K (1024), M (1024*1024),
1271 or G (1024*1024*1024) suffix.
1273 dit(bf(--si)) Similar to the bf(--human-readable) option, but using powers
1274 of 1000 instead of 1024.
1276 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1277 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1278 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1279 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1280 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1282 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1283 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1284 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1285 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1286 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
1287 after it has served its purpose.
1288 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1289 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1291 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1293 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1294 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1295 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1296 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1297 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1299 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add a directory
1300 bf(--exclude) of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1301 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1302 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1303 the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
1304 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1305 supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to manually insert your own
1306 exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list so that
1307 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1308 a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added rule would never be
1311 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1312 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1314 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1315 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1316 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1317 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1318 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1319 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1320 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the bf(--partial)
1321 option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1322 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
1323 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1325 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1326 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1327 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1328 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1329 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1331 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1332 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1333 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1334 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1335 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1336 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1337 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead.
1338 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1340 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1341 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1342 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1343 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1345 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1346 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1348 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1349 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1351 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1352 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1353 parallel hierarchy of files).
1355 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1356 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1358 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1360 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1362 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1364 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1365 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1366 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1367 remaining in this transfer.
1369 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1371 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1373 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1374 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1375 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1376 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1377 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1379 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1380 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1381 transfer that may be interrupted.
1383 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1384 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1385 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1386 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1387 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1390 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1391 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1392 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1393 come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
1394 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1395 non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
1396 copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
1397 must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
1399 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1400 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1401 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1402 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1403 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1404 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1405 of zero specifies no limit.
1407 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1408 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1409 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1411 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1412 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1413 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1414 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1416 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1417 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1418 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1419 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1420 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1423 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1424 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1425 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1426 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1428 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1429 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1430 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
1431 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1433 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1434 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1435 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1436 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1437 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1438 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1439 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1441 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1442 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1443 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1444 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1446 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1447 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1448 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1449 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1450 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1451 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1452 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1453 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1457 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1459 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1462 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1463 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1464 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1466 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1467 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1468 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1469 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1470 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1473 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1474 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1475 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1476 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1477 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1479 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1480 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1481 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1482 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1483 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1485 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1486 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1487 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1488 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1489 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1491 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1492 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1493 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1494 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1495 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1496 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1497 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1500 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1501 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1502 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1504 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1505 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1506 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1507 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1509 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1510 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1511 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1512 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1513 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1514 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1516 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1517 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1520 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1522 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1523 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1524 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1525 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1527 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1528 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1529 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1530 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1531 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1532 filename is not skipped.
1534 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1535 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1538 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1539 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1542 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1543 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1544 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1545 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1546 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1549 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1550 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1551 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1552 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1553 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1554 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1555 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1556 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1557 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1560 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1561 comment lines that start with a "#".
1563 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1564 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1565 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1566 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1568 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1569 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1570 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1571 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1574 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1575 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1576 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1577 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1579 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1581 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1582 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1583 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1584 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1585 can take several forms:
1588 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1589 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1590 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1591 regular expressions.
1592 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1593 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1594 per-directory rule).
1595 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1596 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1598 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1599 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1600 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1601 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1602 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1604 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1605 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1607 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
1608 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
1609 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
1610 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
1611 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
1612 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
1613 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
1614 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
1615 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
1616 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
1617 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1618 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1619 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1620 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1621 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1623 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
1624 "dir_name/" had been specified) and all the files in the directory
1625 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). (This behavior is new for
1629 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1630 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1631 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1632 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1633 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1634 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1635 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1636 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1637 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1638 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1639 For instance, this won't work:
1642 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1643 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1647 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1648 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1649 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1650 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1651 "- *" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1652 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1657 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1658 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1659 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1663 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1666 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1667 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1668 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1669 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1670 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1671 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1672 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1673 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1674 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1675 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1676 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1677 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1680 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1682 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1683 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1686 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1687 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1688 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1689 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1690 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1691 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1692 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1693 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1694 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1695 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1701 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1702 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1703 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1704 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1705 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1708 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1711 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1712 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1713 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1714 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1715 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1716 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1717 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1718 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1719 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1720 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1721 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1722 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1723 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1724 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1725 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1727 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1728 (below) in order to have the rules that are read-in from the file
1729 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1730 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1731 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1732 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1735 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1738 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
1739 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
1740 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1741 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
1742 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
1743 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
1744 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1745 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1747 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1748 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1750 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1751 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1752 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1753 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1754 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1755 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1756 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1757 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1758 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1759 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1760 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1763 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1764 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1765 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1766 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1767 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1768 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1769 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1770 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1771 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1773 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
1774 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1775 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1776 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
1779 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
1782 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
1784 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
1789 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1790 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1791 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1792 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1795 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1796 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1797 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1798 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
1800 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
1802 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1803 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1804 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1805 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1806 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1808 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1811 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1812 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1813 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
1816 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1817 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1818 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1819 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1820 a part of the transfer.
1822 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1823 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
1824 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
1825 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
1826 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
1827 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1828 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
1829 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1833 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
1838 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
1841 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1842 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1843 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1844 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
1845 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
1846 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
1847 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
1848 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
1850 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1852 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1853 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1854 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1855 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1856 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1857 out the parent's rules).
1859 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1861 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1862 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1863 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1864 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1865 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1866 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1868 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1869 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
1870 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1871 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1872 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1874 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1875 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1876 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1879 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
1880 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
1881 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
1882 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1883 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1887 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
1888 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
1889 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
1890 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
1891 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
1895 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
1896 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
1897 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1898 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
1899 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
1903 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
1904 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
1905 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
1906 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
1907 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
1910 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1911 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
1912 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1914 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1916 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1917 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1918 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1919 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1922 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1923 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
1926 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1927 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1928 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1929 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
1930 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1931 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1933 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
1935 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1936 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1937 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1938 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1939 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1941 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1942 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1944 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1945 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1946 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1947 per-directory merge rule.
1949 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1950 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1951 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1952 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1953 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1954 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1956 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
1958 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
1960 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1962 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1963 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1964 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1965 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1966 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1967 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1968 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1969 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1970 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1972 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1973 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1974 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1975 using the information stored in the batch file.
1977 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1978 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1979 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1980 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1981 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1982 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1983 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1984 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1986 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1987 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1988 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1989 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1990 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1995 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
1996 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
1997 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2001 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2002 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2005 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2006 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2007 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2008 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2009 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2012 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2013 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2014 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2015 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2016 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2017 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2018 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2019 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2020 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2021 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2022 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2027 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2028 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2029 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2030 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2031 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2032 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2033 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2034 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2035 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2036 option (when reading the batch).
2037 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2038 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2039 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2042 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2043 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2044 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2045 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2046 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2047 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2048 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2050 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2051 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2052 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2053 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2054 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2055 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2056 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2058 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2059 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2060 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2061 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2062 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2063 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2065 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2066 version uses a new implementation.
2068 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2070 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2071 link in the source directory.
2073 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2074 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2076 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2077 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2080 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2081 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2083 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2084 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2085 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2086 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2087 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2088 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2089 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2090 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2092 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2093 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
2094 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2096 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2097 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2098 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2100 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2101 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2103 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2104 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2106 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2107 skip all safe symlinks.
2109 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2112 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2114 manpagediagnostics()
2116 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2117 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2118 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2120 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2121 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2122 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2123 remote shell like this:
2125 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2127 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2128 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2129 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2130 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2131 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2132 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2133 for non-interactive logins.
2135 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2136 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2137 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2139 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2143 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2144 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2145 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2146 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2147 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2148 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2150 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2151 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2152 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2153 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2154 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2155 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2156 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2157 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2158 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2159 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2160 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2161 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2162 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2163 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2166 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2169 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2170 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2172 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2173 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2174 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2175 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2176 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2177 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2178 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2179 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2180 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2181 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2182 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2183 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2184 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2185 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2186 default .cvsignore file.
2191 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2199 times are transferred as unix time_t values
2201 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2203 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2205 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2208 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2210 Please report bugs! See the website at
2211 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2213 manpagesection(VERSION)
2215 This man page is current for version 2.6.6 of rsync.
2217 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2219 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2220 COPYING for details.
2222 A WEB site is available at
2223 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2224 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2227 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2228 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2230 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2232 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2233 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2235 manpagesection(THANKS)
2237 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2238 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2239 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2241 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2242 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2246 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2247 Many people have later contributed to it.
2249 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2250 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)