1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(8 Feb 2006)()()
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 super-user 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 -E, --executability preserve executability
320 --chmod=CHMOD change destination permissions
321 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
322 -g, --group preserve group
323 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
324 --specials preserve special files
325 -D same as --devices --specials
326 -t, --times preserve times
327 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
328 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
329 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
330 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
331 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
332 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
333 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
334 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
335 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
336 --existing ignore non-existing files on receiving side
337 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
338 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
339 --del an alias for --delete-during
340 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
341 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
342 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
343 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
344 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
345 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
346 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
347 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
348 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
349 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
350 --partial keep partially transferred files
351 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
352 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
353 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
354 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
355 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
356 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
357 --size-only skip files that match in size
358 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
359 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
360 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
361 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
362 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
363 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
364 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
365 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
366 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
367 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
368 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
369 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
370 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
371 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
372 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
373 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
374 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
375 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
376 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
377 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
378 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
379 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
380 --stats give some file-transfer stats
381 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
382 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
383 --progress show progress during transfer
384 -P same as --partial --progress
385 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
386 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the 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 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
392 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
393 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
394 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
395 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
396 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
397 --version print version number
398 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment)
401 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
403 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
404 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
405 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
406 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
407 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
408 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
409 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
410 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
411 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
412 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
413 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon)
418 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
419 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
420 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
421 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
425 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
426 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
427 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
428 option without any other args.
430 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
432 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
433 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
434 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
435 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
436 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
437 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
438 you are debugging rsync.
440 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
441 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
442 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
443 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
444 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
445 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
446 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
447 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
449 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
450 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
451 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
454 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
455 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
456 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
458 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
459 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
460 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
461 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
462 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
465 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
466 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
467 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
468 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
469 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
470 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
471 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
473 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum every file using
474 a 128-bit MD4 checksum before the transfer (during the initial file-system
475 scan). The receiver then checksums every existing file that has the same
476 size as its sender-side counterpart in order to decide which files need to
477 be transferred: files with either a changed size or changed checksum are
478 selected for transfer. Since this whole-file checksumming of all files on
479 both sides of the connection occurs in addition to the automatic checksum
480 verifications that occur during and after a file's transfer, this option
483 Note that rsync always uses a whole-file checksum to verify that each
484 transferred file was reconstructed correctly, irrespective of this or
485 any other option's setting.
487 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
488 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
489 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
490 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
491 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
493 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
494 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
497 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
498 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
499 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
500 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
501 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
502 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
503 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
505 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
506 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
507 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
509 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
510 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
511 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
512 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
513 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
516 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
517 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
519 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
520 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
521 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
522 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
523 example, if you used this command:
525 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
527 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
528 machine. If instead you used
530 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
532 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
533 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
534 path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With
535 a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can
536 insert a dot dir into the source path, like this:
538 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
540 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
541 dot dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
542 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
543 source path. For example, when pushing files:
545 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
547 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
548 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
549 If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an
553 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
554 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
557 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
558 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
559 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
560 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
561 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
562 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
563 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
564 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
565 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
566 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
568 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
569 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
570 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
571 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
573 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
574 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
575 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
576 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
577 (e.g. -f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
578 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
579 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
580 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
581 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
582 rule would never be reached).
584 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
585 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
586 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
587 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
588 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
589 will keep their original filenames).
591 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
592 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
593 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
595 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
596 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
597 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
598 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
600 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
601 between the sender and receiver is always
602 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
603 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
604 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
605 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
606 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
608 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
609 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
610 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
611 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
612 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
613 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
614 basis file for the transfer.
616 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
617 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
620 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
621 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
622 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
625 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
626 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
627 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
628 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
631 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
632 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
633 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
634 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
635 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.
636 Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding
637 file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
638 Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the
639 bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing
642 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
643 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
644 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
645 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
646 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
647 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
648 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
650 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
651 symlink on the destination.
653 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
654 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
655 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
656 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
657 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
658 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
659 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
660 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
662 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
663 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
664 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
665 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
667 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
668 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
669 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
670 give unexpected results.
672 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
673 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
674 option hard links are treated like regular files.
676 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
677 are in the list of files being sent.
679 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
681 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
682 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
685 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
686 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
687 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
688 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
689 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
690 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
692 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
693 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
694 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
695 be the source permissions.)
697 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
700 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
701 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
702 the execute permission for the file.
703 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
704 file's permissions masked with the receiving end's umask setting, and
705 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
706 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
709 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
710 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
711 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
713 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
714 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
715 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
716 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
717 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
718 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
719 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (this defines the bf(-s) option,
720 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
722 quote(tt( rsync alias -s --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
724 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
726 quote(tt( rsync -asv src/ dest/))
728 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-s), or it will re-enable
729 the "--no-*" options.)
731 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
732 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
733 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
734 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
735 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. (Keep in
736 mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects this
739 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
740 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
741 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
742 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
743 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
744 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
747 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
749 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
750 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
753 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
755 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
756 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
757 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
758 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
759 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
761 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
762 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
763 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
764 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
766 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
768 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
769 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
771 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
772 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
774 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
775 destination file to be the same as the source file. By default, the
776 preservation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number
777 in some circumstances (see the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full
779 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
780 super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.
782 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
783 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
784 program is not running as the super-user (or with the bf(--no-super)
785 option), only groups that the
786 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
787 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
788 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
790 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
791 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
792 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
793 super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.
795 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
796 such as named sockets and fifos.
798 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
800 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
801 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
802 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
803 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
804 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
805 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
806 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
808 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
809 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
810 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
811 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
813 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
814 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
815 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
816 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
817 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
818 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
819 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
820 being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
821 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
823 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
824 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
826 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
827 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
828 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
830 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
831 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
832 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
834 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
835 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
836 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
837 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
838 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
839 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
842 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
843 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
844 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
845 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
847 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
848 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
849 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
852 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
853 updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is
854 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
855 (which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete missing files).
857 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
858 already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
860 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
861 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
862 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
863 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
865 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
866 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
867 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
868 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
869 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
870 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
871 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
872 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
873 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
874 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
876 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
877 was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
878 (bf(-d)) is in effect, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
880 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
881 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
882 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
884 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
885 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
886 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
887 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
888 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
890 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
891 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
892 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
893 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
894 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
896 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
897 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
898 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
899 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
901 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
902 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
903 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
904 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
907 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
908 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
909 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
910 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
911 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
913 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
914 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
915 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
916 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
918 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
920 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
921 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
922 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
923 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
924 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
925 bf(--delete-excluded).
926 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
928 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
929 even when there are I/O errors.
931 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
932 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
933 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
935 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
936 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
937 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
939 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
940 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
941 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
943 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
944 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
945 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
946 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
948 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
949 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
950 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
951 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
952 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
953 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
954 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
956 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
959 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
960 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
961 transferring small, junk files.
962 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
964 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
965 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
966 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
968 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
969 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
970 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
971 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
973 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
974 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
975 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
976 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
977 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
978 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
980 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
981 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
982 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
983 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
984 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
985 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
986 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
987 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
990 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
991 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
994 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
995 options in their .ssh/config file.)
997 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
998 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1000 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1002 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1003 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1004 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1005 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1006 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1007 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1010 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1011 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1013 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
1015 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1016 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1017 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
1018 a file should be ignored.
1020 The exclude list is initialized to:
1022 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1023 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
1024 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
1026 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1027 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1028 are delimited by whitespace).
1030 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1031 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1032 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1033 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
1035 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1036 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1037 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1038 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1039 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1040 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1041 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1042 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1043 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1044 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1047 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1048 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1049 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1051 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1052 to build up the list of files to exclude.
1054 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1056 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1057 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1059 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1061 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1062 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1063 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1066 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1068 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1070 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1073 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1074 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1075 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1077 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1079 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1080 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1081 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1082 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1084 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1085 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1086 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1088 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1090 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1091 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1092 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1093 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1095 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1096 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1097 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1098 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1101 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1102 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1103 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1104 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1105 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1106 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1107 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1108 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1109 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1110 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1111 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1112 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1115 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1116 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1117 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1120 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1122 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1123 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1124 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1125 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1126 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1127 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1128 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1129 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1131 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1132 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1133 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1135 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1136 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1137 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1138 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1139 transfer". For example:
1141 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1143 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1144 was located on the remote "src" host.
1146 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1147 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1148 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1149 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1150 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1151 file are split on whitespace).
1153 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1154 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1155 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1156 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1158 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1159 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1160 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory in on a different disk
1161 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1162 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1163 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1164 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1165 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1166 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1167 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1168 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1169 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1170 new version on the disk at the same time.
1172 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1173 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1174 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1175 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1176 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1177 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1178 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1179 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1180 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1181 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1182 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1183 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1185 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1186 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1187 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1188 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1189 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1191 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1192 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1193 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1195 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1196 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1197 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1198 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1199 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1200 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1201 have changed from an earlier backup.
1203 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1204 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1206 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1207 and the attributes updated.
1208 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1209 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1211 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1212 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1214 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1215 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1216 directory using a local copy.
1217 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1218 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1219 been successfully transferred.
1221 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1222 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1223 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1224 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1226 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1227 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1229 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1230 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1231 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1232 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1235 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1237 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1238 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1240 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1241 and the attributes updated.
1242 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1243 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1245 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1246 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1248 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1249 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1250 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1251 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1253 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1254 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1255 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1257 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1258 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1259 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1260 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1262 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1263 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1264 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1266 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1267 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1270 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1271 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1272 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1273 option is not specified.
1275 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1276 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1277 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1278 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1279 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1280 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1282 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1283 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1284 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1286 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1287 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1288 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1289 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1291 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1292 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1293 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1294 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1295 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1297 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1298 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1299 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1300 slower!). Read the man page for the setsockopt() system call for
1301 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1302 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1303 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1304 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1306 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1307 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1308 rsync defaults to using
1309 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1310 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1312 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1313 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1314 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1315 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1316 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1317 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1320 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1321 format is like the string bf(YXcstpogz), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1322 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1323 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1326 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1329 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1331 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1333 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1334 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1335 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1337 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1338 have attributes that are being modified).
1341 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1342 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1343 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1345 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1346 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1347 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1348 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1349 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1350 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1352 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1355 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1356 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1357 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1358 by the file transfer.
1359 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1360 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1361 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1362 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1363 without bf(--times).
1364 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1365 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1366 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1367 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1368 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1369 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1370 it() The bf(z) slot is reserved for future use.
1373 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1374 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1375 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1376 outputting them as a verbose message).
1378 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1379 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1380 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1381 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1382 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1383 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1385 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1386 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1387 touched directory) unless the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1388 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1389 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1390 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1393 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1394 bf(--log-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1395 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1397 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1398 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1399 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1400 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1401 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1402 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1404 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1405 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1406 algorithm is for your data.
1408 The current statistics are as follows: itemize(
1409 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1410 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1411 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1412 were updated via the rsync algorithm, which does not include created
1413 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1414 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1415 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1416 include the size of symlinks.
1417 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1418 for just the transferred files.
1419 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1420 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1421 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1422 recreating the updated files.
1423 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1424 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1425 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1427 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1428 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1429 sending side for this to be present.
1430 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1431 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1432 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1433 from the client side to the server side.
1434 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1435 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1436 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1437 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1440 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1441 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1442 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1443 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1446 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1447 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1448 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1449 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1451 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1452 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1453 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1454 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1457 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1458 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1459 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1460 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1461 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1463 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1464 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1465 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1466 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1467 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1468 after it has served its purpose.
1470 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1471 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1473 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1475 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1476 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1477 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1478 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1479 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1481 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1482 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1483 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1484 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1485 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1486 the equivalent of "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)" at the end of any other
1489 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1490 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1491 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1492 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1493 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1494 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1495 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1496 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1497 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1499 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1500 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1502 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1503 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1504 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1505 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1506 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1507 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1508 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1509 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1510 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1511 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1513 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1514 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1515 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1516 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1517 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1519 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1520 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1521 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1522 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1523 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1524 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1525 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1526 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1527 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1528 you wnat rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1529 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1531 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1532 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1533 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1534 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1536 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1537 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1539 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1540 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1542 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1543 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1544 parallel hierarchy of files).
1546 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1547 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1548 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1549 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1550 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1553 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1554 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1555 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1556 being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1559 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1560 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1561 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1563 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1565 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1566 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1567 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1568 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1570 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1572 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1573 time-honored options of "--include='*/' --exclude='*'" would work fine
1574 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
1576 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1577 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1579 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1581 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1583 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1585 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1586 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1587 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1588 remaining in this transfer.
1590 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1592 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1594 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1595 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1596 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1597 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1598 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1600 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1601 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1602 transfer that may be interrupted.
1604 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1605 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1606 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1607 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1608 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1611 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1612 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1613 specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
1614 come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
1615 options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
1616 non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
1617 copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
1618 must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
1620 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1621 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1622 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1623 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1624 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1625 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1626 of zero specifies no limit.
1628 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1629 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1630 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1632 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1633 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1634 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1635 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1637 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1638 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1639 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1640 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1641 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1644 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1645 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1646 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1647 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1649 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1650 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1651 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
1652 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1654 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1655 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1656 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1657 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1658 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1659 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1660 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1662 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1663 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1664 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1665 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1667 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1668 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1669 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1670 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1671 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1672 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1673 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1674 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1678 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1680 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1683 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1684 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1685 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1687 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1688 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1689 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1690 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1691 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1694 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1695 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1696 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1697 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1698 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1700 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1701 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1702 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1703 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1704 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1706 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1707 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1708 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1709 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
1710 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1712 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1713 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1714 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1715 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1716 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1717 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1718 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1721 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1722 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1723 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1725 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
1726 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
1728 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1729 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1730 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1731 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1733 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1734 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1735 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1736 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1737 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1738 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1740 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1741 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1744 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1746 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1747 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1748 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1749 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1751 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1752 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1753 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1754 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1755 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1756 filename is not skipped.
1758 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1759 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1762 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1763 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1766 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1767 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1768 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1769 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1770 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1773 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1774 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1775 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1776 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1777 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1778 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1779 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1780 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1781 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1784 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1785 comment lines that start with a "#".
1787 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1788 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1789 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1790 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1792 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1793 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1794 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1795 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1798 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1799 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1800 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1801 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1803 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1805 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1806 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1807 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1808 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1809 can take several forms:
1812 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1813 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1814 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1815 regular expressions.
1816 Thus "/foo" would match a file named "foo" at either the "root of the
1817 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1818 per-directory rule).
1819 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1820 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1822 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1823 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1824 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1825 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1826 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1828 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1829 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1831 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
1832 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
1833 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
1834 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
1835 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
1836 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
1837 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
1838 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
1839 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
1840 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
1841 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1842 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1843 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1844 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1845 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1847 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
1848 "dir_name/" had been specified) and all the files in the directory
1849 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). (This behavior is new for
1853 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1854 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1855 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1856 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1857 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1858 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1859 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1860 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1861 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1862 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1863 For instance, this won't work:
1866 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1867 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1871 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1872 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1873 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1874 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1875 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
1876 solution is to add specific include rules for all
1877 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1882 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1883 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1884 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1888 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1891 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1892 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
1893 transfer-root directory
1894 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
1895 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
1896 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
1897 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
1898 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
1899 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1900 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
1901 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
1902 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1903 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1904 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1907 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1909 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1910 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1913 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1914 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1915 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1916 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1917 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1918 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1919 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1920 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1921 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1922 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1928 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1929 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1930 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1931 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1932 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1935 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1938 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1939 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1940 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1941 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1942 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1943 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1944 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1945 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1946 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1947 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1948 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1949 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1950 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1951 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1952 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1954 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1955 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
1956 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1957 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1958 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1959 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1962 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1965 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
1966 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
1967 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1968 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
1969 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
1970 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
1971 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1972 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1974 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1975 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1977 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1978 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1979 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1980 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1981 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1982 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1983 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1984 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1985 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1986 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1987 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1990 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1991 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1992 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1993 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1994 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1995 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
1996 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
1997 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
1998 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2000 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2001 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2002 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2003 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2006 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2009 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2011 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2016 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2017 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2018 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2019 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2022 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2023 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2024 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2025 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2027 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2029 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2030 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2031 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2032 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2033 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2035 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2038 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2039 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2040 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2043 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2044 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2045 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2046 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2047 a part of the transfer.
2049 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2050 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2051 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2052 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2053 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2054 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2055 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2056 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2060 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2065 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2068 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2069 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2070 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2071 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2072 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2073 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2074 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2075 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
2077 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2079 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2080 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2081 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2082 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2083 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2084 out the parent's rules).
2086 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2088 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2089 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2090 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2091 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2092 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2093 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2095 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2096 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2097 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2098 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2099 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2101 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2102 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2103 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2106 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2107 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2108 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2109 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2110 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2114 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2115 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2116 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2117 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2118 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2122 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2123 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2124 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2125 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2126 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2130 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2131 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2132 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2133 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2134 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2137 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2138 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2139 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2141 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2143 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2144 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2145 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2146 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2149 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2150 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2153 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2154 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2155 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2156 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2157 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2158 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2160 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2162 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2163 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2164 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2165 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2166 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2168 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2169 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2171 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2172 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2173 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2174 per-directory merge rule.
2176 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2177 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2178 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2179 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2180 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2181 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2183 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2185 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2187 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2189 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2190 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2191 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2192 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2193 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2194 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2195 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2196 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2197 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2199 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2200 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2201 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2202 using the information stored in the batch file.
2204 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2205 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2206 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2207 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2208 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
2209 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2210 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2211 path differs from the original destination tree path.
2213 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2214 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2215 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2216 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2217 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2222 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2223 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2224 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2228 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2229 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2232 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2233 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2234 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2235 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2236 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2239 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2240 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2241 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2242 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2243 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2244 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2245 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2246 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2247 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2248 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2249 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2254 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2255 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2256 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2257 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2258 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2259 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2260 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2261 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2262 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2263 option (when reading the batch).
2264 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2265 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2266 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2269 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2270 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2271 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2272 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2273 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2274 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2275 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2277 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2278 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2279 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2280 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2281 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2282 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2283 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2285 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2286 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2287 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2288 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2289 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2290 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2292 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2293 version uses a new implementation.
2295 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2297 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2298 link in the source directory.
2300 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2301 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2303 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2304 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2307 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2308 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2310 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2311 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2312 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2313 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2314 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2315 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2316 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2317 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2319 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2320 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
2321 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2323 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2324 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2325 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2327 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2328 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2330 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2331 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2333 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2334 skip all safe symlinks.
2336 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2339 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2341 manpagediagnostics()
2343 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2344 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2345 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2347 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2348 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2349 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2350 remote shell like this:
2352 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2354 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2355 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2356 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2357 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2358 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2359 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2360 for non-interactive logins.
2362 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2363 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2364 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2366 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2370 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2371 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2372 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2373 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2374 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2375 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2377 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2378 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2379 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2380 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2381 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2382 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2383 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2384 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2385 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2386 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2387 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2388 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2389 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2390 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2393 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2396 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2397 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2399 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2400 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2401 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2402 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2403 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2404 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2405 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2406 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2407 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2408 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2409 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2410 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2411 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2412 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2413 default .cvsignore file.
2418 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2426 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2428 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2430 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2432 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2435 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2437 Please report bugs! See the website at
2438 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2440 manpagesection(VERSION)
2442 This man page is current for version 2.6.7pre1 of rsync.
2444 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2446 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2447 COPYING for details.
2449 A WEB site is available at
2450 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2451 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2454 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2455 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2457 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2459 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2460 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2462 manpagesection(THANKS)
2464 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2465 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2466 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2468 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2469 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2473 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2474 Many people have later contributed to it.
2476 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2477 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)