1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Sep 2004)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
6 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
8 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
10 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
12 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/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 servers (ideal for
45 manpagesection(GENERAL)
47 There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
50 it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
51 source nor destination path contains a : separator
53 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
54 a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
55 rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
58 it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
59 using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
60 contains a : separator.
62 it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
63 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
64 separator or an rsync:// URL.
66 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
67 server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
68 separator or an rsync:// URL.
70 it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
71 program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
72 machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
73 separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is
76 it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
77 using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
78 server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
79 destination path contains a :: separator and the
80 --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
82 it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
83 same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
87 Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
88 and destination paths must be local.
92 See the file README for installation instructions.
94 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
95 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
96 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
97 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
98 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
100 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
101 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
103 One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
106 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
109 manpagesection(USAGE)
111 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
112 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
114 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
116 quote(rsync -t *.c foo:src/)
118 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
119 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
120 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
121 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
122 differences. See the tech report for details.
124 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
126 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
127 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
128 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
129 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
130 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
131 size of data portions of the transfer.
133 quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
135 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
136 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
137 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
138 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
139 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
140 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
141 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
144 quote(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)
145 quote(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
147 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
148 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
149 an improved copy command.
151 quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
153 This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
154 somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
157 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
159 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
160 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
162 quote(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest)
164 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
165 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
166 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
167 to be a part of the filenames.
169 quote(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)
171 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
172 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
173 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
174 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
175 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
176 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
177 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
179 quote(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)
180 quote(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)
182 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
183 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
186 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
188 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
189 transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
190 running on TCP port 873.
192 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
193 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
194 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
195 proxy connections to port 873.
197 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
201 it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
202 separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
204 it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
207 it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
208 list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
210 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
211 specified files on the remote server is provided.
214 Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
215 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
216 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
217 the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
218 may be useful when scripting rsync.
220 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
221 users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
223 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
225 It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
226 server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
227 rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
228 to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
229 firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
230 features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
233 From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
234 using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
235 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
236 --rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
239 In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
240 server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
242 quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
244 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
245 used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
247 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
249 An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
250 rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
251 file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
252 shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
253 is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
256 manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
258 See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
259 server configuration file.
261 Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
262 user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
263 configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port
264 if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
266 To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
267 in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
269 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
271 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
273 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
274 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
276 quote(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
278 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
281 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
285 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
288 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
292 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
293 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
294 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
296 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
299 quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba")
301 this is launched from cron every few hours.
303 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
305 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
306 to the detailed description below for a complete description.
309 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
310 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
311 -c, --checksum always checksum
312 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
313 -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
314 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
315 -R, --relative use relative path names
316 --no-relative turn off --relative
317 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
318 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
319 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
320 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
321 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
322 --inplace update destination files in-place
323 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
324 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
325 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
326 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
327 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
328 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
329 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
330 -p, --perms preserve permissions
331 -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
332 -g, --group preserve group
333 -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
334 -t, --times preserve times
335 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
336 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
337 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
338 -W, --whole-file copy files whole
339 --no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
340 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
341 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
342 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
343 --rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
344 --existing only update files that already exist
345 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
346 --del an alias for --delete-during
347 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
348 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
349 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
350 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
351 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
352 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
353 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
354 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
355 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
356 --partial keep partially transferred files
357 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
358 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
359 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
360 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
361 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
362 --size-only skip files that match in size
363 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
364 -T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
365 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
366 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
367 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
368 -z, --compress compress file data
369 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
370 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
371 -F same as --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
372 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
373 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
374 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
375 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
376 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
377 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
378 -0 --from0 all *from file lists are delimited by nulls
379 --version print version number
380 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
381 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
382 --no-blocking-io turn off blocking I/O when it is default
383 --stats give some file-transfer stats
384 --progress show progress during transfer
385 -P same as --partial --progress
386 --log-format=FORMAT log file-transfers using specified format
387 --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
388 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
389 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
390 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
391 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
392 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
393 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
394 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
395 -h, --help show this help screen
398 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are accepted:
401 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
402 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
403 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
404 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
405 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
406 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
407 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
408 -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
409 -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
410 -h, --help show this help screen
415 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
416 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
417 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
418 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
422 dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
425 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
427 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
428 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
429 single -v will give you information about what files are being
430 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
431 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
432 information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
433 you are debugging rsync.
435 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
436 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
437 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
440 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
441 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
442 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
444 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
445 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
446 --size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
447 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
448 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
451 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps rsync treats
452 the timestamps as being equal if they are within the value of
453 modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
454 set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
455 transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
456 with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
458 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
459 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
460 explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
461 which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
462 receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
464 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
465 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
468 Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
469 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
472 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
473 recursively. See also --dirs (-d).
475 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
476 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
477 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
478 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
479 example, if you used the command
481 verb(rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
483 then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
484 machine. If instead you used
486 verb(rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
488 then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
489 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
490 path information that is sent, do something like this:
493 rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
495 That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
497 dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
498 needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
501 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
502 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
503 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
504 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
505 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R,
506 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
507 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
508 the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
509 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
510 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
512 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
513 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
514 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
515 --backup-dir and --suffix options.
517 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
518 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
519 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
520 specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
521 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
522 will keep their original filenames).
523 If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
524 (which changes in a recursive transfer).
526 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
527 backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
528 if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
530 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
531 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
532 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
533 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
535 In the current implementation of --update, a difference of file format
536 between the sender and receiver is always
537 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
538 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
539 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
540 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
541 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
543 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
544 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
545 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
546 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
547 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
548 with --backup, since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
549 basis file for the transfer.
551 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
552 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
555 The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
556 the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir and --delay-updates.
557 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 --inplace was also incompatible with --compare-dest,
558 --copy-dest, and --link-dest.
560 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
561 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
562 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
563 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
566 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
567 are encountered. Unlike --recursive, a directory's contents are not copied
568 unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
569 name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
570 --recursive option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
571 output a message to that effect for each one).
573 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
574 symlink on the destination.
576 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
577 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
578 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
579 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
580 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify --keep-dirlinks (-K)
581 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
582 an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L option
583 will still have the side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
585 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
586 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
587 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
588 source path itself when --relative is used.
590 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
591 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
592 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
593 give unexpected results.
595 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
596 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
597 option hard links are treated like regular files.
599 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
600 are in the list of files being sent.
602 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
604 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
605 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
608 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
609 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
610 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
611 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
612 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
613 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
615 dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
618 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
619 permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
621 Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
622 source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
623 other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
624 (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
626 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
627 destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
628 only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
629 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
630 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
632 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
633 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
634 program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
635 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
636 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
637 circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
639 dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
640 block device information to the remote system to recreate these
641 devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
643 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
644 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
645 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
646 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will
647 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, causing all files to be
648 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
649 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using -t).
651 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
652 it is preserving modification times (see --times). If NFS is sharing
653 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use -O.
655 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
656 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
658 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
659 up less space on the destination.
661 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
662 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
663 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
665 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
666 boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
667 contents of only one filesystem.
669 dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
670 only update files that already exist on the destination.
672 dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
673 This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
676 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
677 files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
678 to prevent disasters.
680 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
681 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
682 suffixed with a letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
683 may be a fractional value (e.g. "--max-size=1.5m").
685 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
686 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
687 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
688 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
689 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
690 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
691 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
692 excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
694 This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.
696 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
697 to run first using the --dry-run option (-n) to see what files would be
698 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
700 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
701 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
702 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
703 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
704 destination. You can override this with the --ignore-errors option.
706 The --delete option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
707 without conflict, as well as --delete-excluded. However, if none of the
708 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
709 --delete-before algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
710 --delete-during algorithm. See also --delete-after.
712 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
713 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if --delete
714 or --delete-excluded is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
715 See --delete (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
717 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
718 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
719 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
720 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if --timeout was
723 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
724 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
725 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
726 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
727 See --delete (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
729 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
730 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
731 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
732 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
734 See --delete (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
736 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
737 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
738 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
739 See --delete (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
741 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
742 even when there are I/O errors.
744 dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
745 they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
746 is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
747 Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
749 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
750 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
751 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
753 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
754 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
755 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
756 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
758 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
759 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
760 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
761 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
762 running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
763 TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
765 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
766 presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
768 quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
770 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
771 options in their .ssh/config file.)
773 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
774 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as -e.
776 See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
778 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
779 rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path. Note
780 that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that
783 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
784 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
785 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
786 a file should be ignored.
788 The exclude list is initialized to:
790 quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
791 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
792 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)
794 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
795 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
796 are delimited by whitespace).
798 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
799 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
800 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
802 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
803 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
804 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
806 You may use as many --filter options on the command line as you like
807 to build up the list of files to exclude.
809 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
811 dit(bf(-F)) The -F option is a shorthand for adding two --filter rules to
812 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
815 --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
818 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
819 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
820 files in the transfer. If -F is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
824 --filter='- .rsync-filter'
827 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
829 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
832 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
833 --filter option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
834 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
836 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
838 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
839 option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
840 FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
841 ';' or '#' are ignored.
842 If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
844 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
845 --filter option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
846 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
848 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
850 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
852 If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
854 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
855 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
856 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
857 transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
858 instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
859 is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
860 directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
861 than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
862 behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
865 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
866 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
867 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
870 quote(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
872 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
873 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
874 contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
875 or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
876 that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
877 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
878 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
880 In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host
881 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
882 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
883 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
884 transfer". For example:
886 quote(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
888 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
889 was located on the remote "src" host.
891 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
892 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
893 This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, --files-from, and any
894 merged files specified in a --filter rule.
895 It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
896 file are split on whitespace).
898 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
899 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
900 transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
901 the temporary files in the receiving directory.
903 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
904 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
905 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
906 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
907 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
908 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
909 have changed from an earlier backup.
911 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --compare-dest directories may be
912 provided and rsync will search the list in the order specified until it
913 finds an existing file. That first discovery is used as the basis file,
914 and also determines if the transfer needs to happen.
916 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
917 See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.
919 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
920 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
921 directory (using the data in the em(DIR) for an efficient copy). This is
922 useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving existing
923 files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have been
924 successfully transferred.
926 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
927 See also --compare-dest and --link-dest.
929 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
930 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
931 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
932 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
936 rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
939 Beginning with version 2.6.4, if more than one --link-dest option is
940 specified, rsync will try to find an exact match to link with (searching
941 the list in the order specified), and if not found, a basis file from one
942 of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
944 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
945 See also --compare-dest and --copy-dest.
947 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
948 --link-dest from working properly for a non-root user when -o was specified
949 (or implied by -a). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the -o option
950 when sending to an old rsync.
952 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
953 the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
954 option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
955 same method that gzip uses.
957 Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios
958 that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell, or a
959 compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the implicit
960 information sent for matching data blocks.
962 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
963 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
966 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
967 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
968 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
969 option is not specified.
971 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
972 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
973 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
974 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
975 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
976 users and groups and what you can do about it.
978 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
979 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
980 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
982 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
983 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
984 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
985 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
986 option in the --daemon mode section.
988 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
989 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
990 rsync defaults to using
991 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
992 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
994 dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
997 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
998 rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
999 specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
1002 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1003 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1004 algorithm is for your data.
1006 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1007 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1008 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1009 --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1010 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1012 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to
1013 put a partially transferred file into em(DIR) instead of writing out the
1014 file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this
1015 dir as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after
1016 rsync creates a partial file) and delete such a file after it has served
1017 its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied) that an
1018 existing partial-dir file will not be used to speedup the transfer (since
1019 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1021 Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
1022 whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1023 "--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory
1024 in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to remove the em(DIR)
1025 if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the
1026 DIR was specified as a relative path).
1028 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an
1029 --exclude of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
1030 will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
1031 untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
1032 the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
1033 rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
1034 supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert a
1035 rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
1036 it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
1037 a trailing --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
1039 IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users or it
1040 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1042 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1043 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force --partial to be
1044 enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when --partial is
1045 specified. For instance, instead of using --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp
1046 along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1047 environment and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the
1048 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the --partial
1049 option does not look for this environment value is (1) when --inplace was
1050 specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir), or (2) when
1051 --delay-updates was specified (see below).
1053 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1054 updated file into the file's partial-dir (see above) until the end of the
1055 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1056 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1057 atomic. If you don't specify the --partial-dir option, this option will
1058 cause it to default to ".~tmp~" (RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR is not consulted for
1059 this value). Conflicts with --inplace.
1061 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1062 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1063 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1064 you should not use an absolute path to --partial-dir unless there is no
1065 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1066 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1069 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1070 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses --link-dest and a
1071 parallel hierarchy of files).
1073 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1074 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1076 Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
1078 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1081 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
1084 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1085 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1086 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1087 remaining in this transfer.
1089 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1092 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
1095 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1096 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1097 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1098 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1099 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1101 dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its
1102 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1103 transfer that may be interrupted.
1105 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1106 in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
1107 is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
1108 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1109 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1112 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1113 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1114 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1115 come in handy for a power user that wants to avoid the "-r --exclude="/*/*"
1116 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1117 non-recursive listing.
1119 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1120 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1121 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1122 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1123 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1124 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1125 of zero specifies no limit.
1127 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1128 another identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE"
1129 section for details.
1131 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1132 file previously generated by --write-batch.
1133 If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
1134 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1136 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1137 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1138 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1139 rsync daemon. See also these options in the --daemon mode section.
1141 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1142 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1143 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1144 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1145 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1146 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1147 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1148 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1153 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1157 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1158 daemon may be accessed using the bf(host::module) or
1159 bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1161 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1162 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1163 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1164 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1165 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1168 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
1169 when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
1170 rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
1171 address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
1172 in conjunction with the --config option. See also the "address" global
1173 option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1175 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1176 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1177 The client can still specify a smaller --bwlimit value, but their
1178 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1179 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1181 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1182 the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified.
1183 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1184 a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
1185 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1187 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1188 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1189 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1190 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1191 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1192 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1193 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1196 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1197 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1198 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1200 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1201 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1202 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1203 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1205 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1206 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1207 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1208 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1209 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1210 try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
1212 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after --daemon, print a short help
1213 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1217 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1219 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1220 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1221 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1222 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1224 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1225 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1226 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1227 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1228 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1229 filename is not skipped.
1231 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1232 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1236 it() xMODIFIERS RULE
1240 The 'x' is a single-letter that specifies the kind of rule to create. It
1241 can have trailing modifiers, and is separated from the RULE by either a
1242 single space or an underscore (_). Here are the available rule prefixes:
1245 - specifies an exclude pattern.
1246 + specifies an include pattern.
1247 . specifies a merge-file to read for more rules.
1248 : specifies a per-directory merge-file.
1249 ! clears the current include/exclude list
1252 Note that the --include/--exclude command-line options do not allow the
1253 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1254 specification of include/exclude patterns and the "!" token (not to
1255 mention the comment lines when reading rules from a file). If a pattern
1256 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1257 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1258 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A --filter option, on
1259 the other hand, must always contain one of the prefixes above.
1261 Note also that the --filter, --include, and --exclude options take one
1262 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1263 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the --filter option, or
1264 the --include-from/--exclude-from options.
1266 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1267 comment lines that start with a "#".
1269 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1271 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+" and
1272 "-" filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). These
1273 rules specify a pattern that is matched against the names of the files
1274 that are going to be transferred. These patterns can take several forms:
1278 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1279 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1280 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1281 regular expressions.
1282 Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
1283 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1284 per-directory rule).
1285 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1286 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1288 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1289 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1290 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1291 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1292 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1295 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1296 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1298 it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
1299 *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
1300 matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
1302 it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
1303 single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
1305 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
1306 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1307 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1308 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1309 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1310 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1315 Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by
1316 -a), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1317 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1318 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1319 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1320 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1321 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1322 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1323 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1324 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1325 For instance, this won't work:
1328 + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
1333 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1334 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1335 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1336 to be included by using a single rule: "+_*/" (put it somewhere before the
1337 "-_*" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
1338 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1344 + /some/path/this-file-is-found
1345 + /file-also-included
1349 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1352 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1353 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
1354 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
1355 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1356 levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1357 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
1358 or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
1359 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1360 directories and C source files but nothing else.
1361 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1362 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1363 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1366 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1368 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1369 "." or a ":" filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section
1372 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1373 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1374 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1375 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1376 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1377 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1378 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1379 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1380 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1381 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1387 . /etc/rsync/default.rules
1389 :n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
1392 The following modifiers are accepted after a "." or ":":
1395 it() A "-" specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1396 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for the list-clearing
1399 it() A "+" specifies that the file should consist of only include
1400 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for the list-clearing
1403 it() A "C" is a shorthand for the modifiers "sn-", which makes the
1404 parsing compatible with the way CVS parses their exclude files. If no
1405 filename is specified, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1407 it() A "e" will exclude the merge-file from the transfer; e.g.
1408 ":e_.rules" is like ":_.rules" and "-_.rules".
1410 it() An "n" specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1412 it() An "s" specifies that the rules are split on all whitespace instead
1413 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1414 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1415 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that "-" or "+" was not
1416 specified to turn off the parsing of prefixes).
1419 The following modifier is accepted after a "+" or "-":
1422 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude should be treated as an
1423 absolute path, relative to the root of the filesystem. For example,
1424 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1425 was sending files from the "/etc" directory.
1428 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1429 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1430 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1431 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1432 inherited rules. The entire set of per-dir rules is grouped together in
1433 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1434 per-dir rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1435 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1436 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
1438 Another way to prevent a single per-dir rule from being inherited is to
1439 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
1440 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
1441 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the per-dir filter
1444 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via --filter=". file":
1447 . /home/user/.global-filter
1454 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
1455 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
1456 filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
1457 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
1460 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
1461 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
1462 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
1463 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see -F):
1466 --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
1469 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
1470 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
1471 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
1472 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
1473 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
1475 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
1478 rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir
1479 rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
1480 rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
1483 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
1484 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
1485 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
1486 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
1487 a part of the transfer.
1489 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
1490 you should use the rule ":C" -- this is a short-hand for the rule
1491 ":sn-_.cvsignore", and ensures that the .cvsignore file's contents are
1492 interpreted according to the same parsing rules that CVS uses. You can
1493 use this to affect where the --cvs-exclude (-C) option's inclusion of the
1494 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting a
1495 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
1496 add the per-dir rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
1497 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
1501 cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b
1507 rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b
1510 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
1511 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
1512 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
1513 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. (The
1514 global rules taken from the $HOME/.cvsignore file and from $CVSIGNORE are
1515 not repositioned from their spot at the end of your rules, however -- feel
1516 free to manually include $HOME/.cvsignore elsewhere in your rules.)
1518 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
1520 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
1521 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
1522 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
1523 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
1524 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
1525 out the parent's rules).
1527 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
1529 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
1530 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
1531 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
1532 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
1533 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
1534 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
1536 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
1537 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
1538 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
1539 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
1540 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
1542 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
1543 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
1544 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
1547 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
1548 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
1549 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
1550 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1551 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1553 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
1554 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
1555 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
1556 Target file: /dest/foo/bar
1557 Target file: /dest/bar/baz
1559 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
1560 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
1561 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
1562 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
1563 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
1565 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
1566 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
1567 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
1568 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
1569 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
1572 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
1573 look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
1574 (use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
1576 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
1578 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
1579 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
1580 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
1581 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
1584 rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest
1585 rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest
1588 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
1589 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
1590 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
1591 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use --delete-after,
1592 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
1593 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
1596 rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest
1599 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
1600 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
1601 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
1602 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
1603 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
1606 rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
1607 --delete host:src/dir /dest
1610 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
1611 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
1612 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
1613 per-directory merge rule.
1615 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
1616 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
1617 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
1618 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
1619 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
1620 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
1623 rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete host:src/dir /dest
1624 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest
1627 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
1629 bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
1630 of rsync. The interface and behavior have now stabilized, though, so
1631 feel free to try this out.
1633 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
1634 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
1635 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
1636 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
1637 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
1638 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
1639 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
1640 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
1641 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
1643 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
1644 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
1645 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
1646 using the information stored in the batch file.
1648 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
1649 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
1650 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
1651 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
1652 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
1653 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
1654 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
1655 path differs from the original destination tree path.
1657 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
1658 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
1659 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
1660 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
1661 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
1666 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1668 $ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
1672 $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
1673 $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
1676 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
1677 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
1678 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
1679 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
1680 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
1684 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
1685 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
1686 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
1688 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
1689 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
1691 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
1692 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
1693 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
1694 --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
1695 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
1696 standard input, such as the "--exclude-from=-" option).
1702 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
1703 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
1704 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
1705 is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
1706 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
1707 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
1708 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
1709 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
1710 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I
1711 option (when reading the batch).
1712 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
1713 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
1714 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
1717 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
1718 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
1719 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
1722 The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
1725 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
1726 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
1727 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
1729 --write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
1730 --include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
1731 without --delete-excluded.
1733 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude
1734 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
1735 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
1736 list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A normal
1737 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
1738 to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
1740 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
1741 version uses a new implementation.
1743 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
1745 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
1746 link in the source directory.
1748 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
1749 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
1751 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
1752 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
1755 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
1756 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
1758 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
1759 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
1760 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
1761 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
1762 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
1763 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
1764 unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
1766 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
1767 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
1768 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
1770 manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
1772 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
1773 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
1774 version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
1776 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
1777 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
1778 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
1779 remote shell like this:
1782 ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
1785 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
1786 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
1787 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
1788 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
1789 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
1790 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
1791 for non-interactive logins.
1793 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
1794 try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
1795 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
1797 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
1801 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
1802 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
1803 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
1804 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
1805 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
1806 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
1808 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
1809 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
1810 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
1811 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
1812 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
1813 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
1814 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
1815 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
1816 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
1817 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
1818 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
1819 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
1822 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
1826 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
1827 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for
1830 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
1831 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
1832 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
1834 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
1835 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
1836 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
1838 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
1839 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
1840 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
1841 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
1843 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
1844 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
1845 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
1847 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
1848 default .cvsignore file.
1854 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
1860 manpagediagnostics()
1864 times are transferred as unix time_t values
1866 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
1868 See the comments on the --modify-window option.
1870 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
1873 see also the comments on the --delete option
1875 Please report bugs! See the website at
1876 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
1878 manpagesection(CREDITS)
1880 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
1881 COPYING for details.
1883 A WEB site is available at
1884 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
1885 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
1888 The primary ftp site for rsync is
1889 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
1891 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
1893 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
1894 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
1896 manpagesection(THANKS)
1898 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
1899 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
1900 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
1902 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
1903 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
1907 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
1908 Many people have later contributed to it.
1910 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
1911 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)