1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(19 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
16 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
18 rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
20 rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
24 rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
25 but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
26 greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
29 The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
30 differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
31 an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
32 report that accompanies this package.
34 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
37 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
38 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
39 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
40 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
41 it() does not require super-user privileges
42 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
43 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
47 manpagesection(GENERAL)
49 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
50 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
52 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
53 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
54 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
55 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
56 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
57 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
58 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
59 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
60 an exception to this latter rule).
62 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
63 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
65 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
66 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
70 See the file README for installation instructions.
72 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
73 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
74 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
75 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
76 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
78 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
79 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
81 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
86 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
87 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
89 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
91 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
93 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
94 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
95 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
96 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
97 differences. See the tech report for details.
99 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
101 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
102 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
103 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
104 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
105 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
106 size of data portions of the transfer.
108 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
110 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
111 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
112 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
113 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
114 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
115 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
116 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
120 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
121 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
124 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
125 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
126 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
129 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
130 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
133 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
134 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
135 an improved copy command.
137 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
138 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
140 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
142 See the following section for more details.
144 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
146 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
147 quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
149 quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
151 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
152 additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
153 and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
154 to be a part of the filenames.
156 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
158 This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
159 word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
160 that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
161 whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
162 a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
163 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
164 in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
167 tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
168 tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
171 This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
172 wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
174 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
176 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
177 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
178 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
179 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
180 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
182 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
186 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
187 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
188 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
189 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
191 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
192 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
193 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
194 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
195 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
198 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
200 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
202 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
203 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
204 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
205 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
206 may be useful when scripting rsync.
208 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
209 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
211 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
212 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
213 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
214 proxy connections to port 873.
216 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
218 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
219 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
220 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
221 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
222 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
223 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
224 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
225 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
226 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
227 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
228 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
229 connections from "localhost".)
231 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
232 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
233 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
234 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
235 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
236 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
238 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
240 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
241 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
242 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
243 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell:
245 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
247 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
248 used to log-in to the "module".
250 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
252 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
253 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
254 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
255 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
256 socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config
257 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
258 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
260 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
261 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
263 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
265 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
267 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
268 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
270 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
272 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
275 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
279 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
281 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
284 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
285 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
286 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
288 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
291 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
293 This is launched from cron every few hours.
295 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
297 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
298 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
299 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
300 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
301 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
302 -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
303 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
304 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
305 -R, --relative use relative path names
306 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
307 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
308 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
309 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
310 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
311 --inplace update destination files in-place
312 --append append data onto shorter files
313 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
314 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
315 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
316 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
317 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
318 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
319 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
320 -p, --perms preserve permissions
321 -E, --executability preserve executability
322 --chmod=CHMOD change destination permissions
323 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
324 -g, --group preserve group
325 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
326 --specials preserve special files
327 -D same as --devices --specials
328 -t, --times preserve times
329 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
330 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
331 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
332 -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
333 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
334 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
335 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
336 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
337 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
338 --existing ignore non-existing files on receiving side
339 --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
340 --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
341 --del an alias for --delete-during
342 --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
343 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
344 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
345 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
346 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
347 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
348 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
349 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
350 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
351 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
352 --partial keep partially transferred files
353 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
354 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
355 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
356 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
357 --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
358 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
359 --size-only skip files that match in size
360 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
361 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
362 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
363 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
364 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
365 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
366 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
367 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
368 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
369 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
370 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
371 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
372 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
373 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
374 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
375 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
376 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
377 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
378 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
379 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
380 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
381 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
382 --stats give some file-transfer stats
383 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
384 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
385 --progress show progress during transfer
386 -P same as --partial --progress
387 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
388 --log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the specified format
389 --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
390 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
391 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
392 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
393 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
394 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
395 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
396 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
397 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
398 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
399 --version print version number
400 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment)
403 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
405 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
406 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
407 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
408 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
409 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
410 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
411 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
412 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
413 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
414 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
415 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon)
420 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
421 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
422 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
423 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
427 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
428 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
429 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
430 option without any other args.
432 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
434 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
435 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
436 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
437 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
438 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
439 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
440 you are debugging rsync.
442 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
443 a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
444 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
445 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
446 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
447 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
448 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
449 any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
451 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
452 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
453 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
456 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
457 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
458 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
460 dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
461 already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
462 bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
463 regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
464 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
467 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
468 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
469 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
470 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
471 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
472 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
473 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
475 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum em(every)
476 regular file using a 128-bit MD4 checksum. It does this during the initial
477 file-system scan as it builds the list of all available files. The receiver
478 then checksums its version of each file (if it exists and it has the same
479 size as its sender-side counterpart) in order to decide which files need to
480 be updated: files with either a changed size or a changed checksum are
481 selected for transfer. Since this whole-file checksumming of all files on
482 both sides of the connection occurs in addition to the automatic checksum
483 verifications that occur during a file's transfer, this option can be quite
486 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was correctly
487 reconstructed on the receiving side by checking its whole-file checksum, but
488 that automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
489 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
491 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
492 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
493 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
494 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
495 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
497 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
498 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
501 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
502 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
503 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
504 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
505 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
506 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
507 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
509 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
510 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
511 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
513 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
514 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
515 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
516 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
517 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
520 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
521 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
523 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
524 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
525 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
526 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
527 example, if you used this command:
529 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
531 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
532 machine. If instead you used
534 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
536 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
537 machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
538 path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With
539 a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can
540 insert a dot dir into the source path, like this:
542 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
544 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
545 dot dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
546 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
547 source path. For example, when pushing files:
549 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
551 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
552 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
553 If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an
557 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
558 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
561 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
562 implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
563 of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
564 the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
565 path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
566 the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
567 destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
568 the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
569 which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
570 symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
572 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
573 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
574 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
575 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
577 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
578 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
579 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
580 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
581 (e.g. -f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
582 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
583 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
584 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
585 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
586 rule would never be reached).
588 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
589 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
590 very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
591 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
592 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
593 will keep their original filenames).
595 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
596 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
597 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
599 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
600 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
601 file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
602 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
604 In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
605 between the sender and receiver is always
606 considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
607 is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
608 symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
609 regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
610 free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
612 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
613 and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
614 file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of
615 network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try
616 to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option
617 with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the
618 basis file for the transfer.
620 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
621 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
624 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
625 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
626 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
629 WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the
630 transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you
631 should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that
632 rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
635 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
636 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
637 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
638 side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the
639 resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data.
640 Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding
641 file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent.
642 Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the
643 bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing
646 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
647 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
648 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
649 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
650 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
651 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
652 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
654 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
655 symlink on the destination.
657 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
658 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
659 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
660 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
661 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
662 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
663 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
664 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
666 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
667 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
668 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
669 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
671 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
672 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
673 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
674 give unexpected results.
676 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
677 the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
678 option hard links are treated like regular files.
680 Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
681 are in the list of files being sent.
683 This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
685 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
686 pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
689 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
690 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
691 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
692 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
693 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
694 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
696 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
697 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
698 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
699 be the source permissions.)
701 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
704 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
705 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
706 the execute permission for the file.
707 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
708 file's permissions masked with the receiving end's umask setting, and
709 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
710 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
713 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
714 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
715 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
717 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
718 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
719 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
720 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
721 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
722 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
723 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (this defines the bf(-s) option,
724 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
726 quote(tt( rsync alias -s --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
728 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
730 quote(tt( rsync -asv src/ dest/))
732 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-s), or it will re-enable
733 the "--no-*" options.)
735 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
736 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
737 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
738 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
739 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. (Keep in
740 mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects this
743 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
744 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
745 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
746 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
747 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
748 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
751 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
753 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
754 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
757 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
759 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
760 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
761 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
762 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
763 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
765 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
766 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
767 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
768 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
770 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
772 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
773 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
775 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
776 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
778 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
779 destination file to be the same as the source file. By default, the
780 preservation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number
781 in some circumstances (see the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full
783 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
784 super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.
786 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
787 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
788 program is not running as the super-user (or with the bf(--no-super)
789 option), only groups that the
790 receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
791 is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
792 circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
794 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
795 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
796 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
797 super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.
799 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
800 such as named sockets and fifos.
802 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
804 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
805 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
806 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
807 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
808 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
809 updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
810 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
812 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
813 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
814 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
815 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
817 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
818 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
819 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
820 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
821 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
822 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
823 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
824 being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
825 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
827 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
828 instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
830 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
831 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
832 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
834 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
835 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
836 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
838 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
839 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
840 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
841 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
842 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
843 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
846 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
847 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
848 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
849 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
851 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
852 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
853 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
856 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
857 updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is
858 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
859 (which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete missing files).
861 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
862 already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
864 dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
865 side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
866 updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
867 nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
869 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
870 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
871 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
872 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
873 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
874 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
875 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
876 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
877 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
878 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
880 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
881 was in effect. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
882 (bf(-d)) is in effect, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
884 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
885 to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
886 deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
888 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
889 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
890 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
891 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
892 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
894 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
895 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
896 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
897 bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
898 bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
900 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
901 side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
902 or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
903 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
905 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
906 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
907 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
908 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
911 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
912 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
913 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
914 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
915 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
917 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
918 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
919 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
920 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
922 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
924 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
925 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
926 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
927 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
928 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
929 bf(--delete-excluded).
930 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
932 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
933 even when there are I/O errors.
935 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
936 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
937 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
939 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
940 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
941 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
943 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
944 files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
945 This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
947 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
948 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
949 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
950 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
952 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
953 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
954 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
955 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
956 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
957 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
958 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
960 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
963 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
964 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
965 transferring small, junk files.
966 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
968 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
969 the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
970 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
972 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
973 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
974 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
975 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
977 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
978 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
979 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
980 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
981 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
982 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
984 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
985 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
986 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
987 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
988 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
989 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
990 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
991 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
994 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
995 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
998 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
999 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1001 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1002 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1004 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1006 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1007 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1008 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1009 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1010 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1011 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1014 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1015 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1017 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
1019 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1020 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1021 systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
1022 a file should be ignored.
1024 The exclude list is initialized to:
1026 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1027 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
1028 .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
1030 then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1031 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1032 are delimited by whitespace).
1034 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1035 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1036 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1037 See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
1039 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1040 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1041 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1042 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1043 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1044 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1045 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1046 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1047 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1048 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1051 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1052 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1053 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1055 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1056 to build up the list of files to exclude.
1058 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1060 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1061 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1063 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1065 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1066 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1067 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1070 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1072 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1074 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1077 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1078 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1079 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1081 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1083 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1084 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1085 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1086 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1088 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1089 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1090 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1092 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1094 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1095 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1096 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1097 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1099 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1100 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1101 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1102 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1105 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1106 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1107 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1108 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1109 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1110 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1111 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1112 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1113 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1114 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1115 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1116 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1119 The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1120 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1121 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1124 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1126 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1127 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1128 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1129 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1130 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1131 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1132 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1133 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1135 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1136 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1137 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1139 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1140 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1141 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1142 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1143 transfer". For example:
1145 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1147 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1148 was located on the remote "src" host.
1150 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1151 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1152 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1153 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1154 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1155 file are split on whitespace).
1157 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1158 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1159 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1160 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1162 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1163 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1164 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory in on a different disk
1165 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1166 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1167 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1168 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1169 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1170 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1171 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1172 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1173 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1174 new version on the disk at the same time.
1176 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1177 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1178 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1179 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1180 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1181 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1182 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1183 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1184 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1185 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1186 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1187 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1189 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1190 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1191 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1192 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1193 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1195 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1196 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1197 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1199 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1200 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1201 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1202 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1203 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1204 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1205 have changed from an earlier backup.
1207 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1208 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1210 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1211 and the attributes updated.
1212 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1213 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1215 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1216 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1218 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1219 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1220 directory using a local copy.
1221 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1222 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1223 been successfully transferred.
1225 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1226 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1227 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1228 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1230 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1231 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1233 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1234 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1235 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1236 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1239 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1241 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1242 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1244 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1245 and the attributes updated.
1246 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1247 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1249 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1250 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1252 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1253 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1254 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1255 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1257 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1258 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1259 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1261 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1262 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1263 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1264 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1266 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1267 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1268 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1270 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1271 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1274 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1275 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1276 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1277 option is not specified.
1279 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1280 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1281 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1282 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1283 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1284 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1286 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1287 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1288 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1290 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1291 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1292 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1293 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1295 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1296 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1297 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1298 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1299 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1301 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1302 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1303 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1304 slower!). Read the man page for the setsockopt() system call for
1305 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1306 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1307 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1308 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1310 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1311 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1312 rsync defaults to using
1313 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1314 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1316 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1317 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1318 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
1319 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1320 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1321 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1324 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
1325 format is like the string bf(YXcstpogz), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1326 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1327 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1330 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1333 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1335 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1337 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1338 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1339 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1341 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1342 have attributes that are being modified).
1345 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1346 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1347 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1349 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1350 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1351 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1352 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1353 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1354 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1356 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1359 it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
1360 updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
1361 it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
1362 by the file transfer.
1363 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1364 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1365 means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1366 anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
1367 without bf(--times).
1368 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1369 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1370 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1371 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1372 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1373 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1374 it() The bf(z) slot is reserved for future use.
1377 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1378 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1379 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1380 outputting them as a verbose message).
1382 dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1383 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
1384 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1385 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1386 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
1387 option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
1389 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1390 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1391 touched directory) unless the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1392 the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
1393 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1394 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1397 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1398 bf(--log-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1399 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1401 Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1402 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1403 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1404 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1405 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1406 (followed, of course, by the log-format output).
1408 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1409 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
1410 algorithm is for your data.
1412 The current statistics are as follows: itemize(
1413 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1414 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1415 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1416 were updated via the rsync algorithm, which does not include created
1417 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1418 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1419 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1420 include the size of symlinks.
1421 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1422 for just the transferred files.
1423 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1424 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1425 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1426 recreating the updated files.
1427 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1428 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1429 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1431 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1432 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1433 sending side for this to be present.
1434 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1435 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1436 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1437 from the client side to the server side.
1438 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1439 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1440 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1441 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1444 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1445 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1446 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1447 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1450 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1451 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1452 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1453 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1455 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1456 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1457 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1458 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1461 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1462 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1463 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1464 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1465 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1467 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1468 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1469 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1470 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1471 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1472 after it has served its purpose.
1474 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1475 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1477 rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
1479 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1480 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1481 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1482 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1483 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1485 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1486 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1487 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1488 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1489 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1490 the equivalent of "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)" at the end of any other
1493 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1494 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1495 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1496 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1497 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1498 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1499 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1500 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1501 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1503 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1504 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1506 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1507 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1508 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1509 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1510 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1511 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1512 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1513 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1514 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1515 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1517 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1518 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1519 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1520 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1521 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1523 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1524 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1525 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1526 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1527 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1528 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1529 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1530 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1531 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1532 you wnat rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1533 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1535 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1536 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1537 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1538 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1540 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1541 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1543 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1544 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1546 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1547 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1548 parallel hierarchy of files).
1550 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1551 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1552 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1553 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1554 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1557 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1558 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1559 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1560 being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1563 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1564 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1565 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1567 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1569 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1570 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1571 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1572 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1574 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1576 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1577 time-honored options of "--include='*/' --exclude='*'" would work fine
1578 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
1580 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1581 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1583 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1585 When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
1587 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1589 This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
1590 is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
1591 data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
1592 remaining in this transfer.
1594 After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
1596 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
1598 This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
1599 transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
1600 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
1601 These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
1602 what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
1604 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1605 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1606 transfer that may be interrupted.
1608 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
1609 in a file for accessing a remote rsync daemon. Note that this option
1610 is only useful when accessing an rsync daemon using the built in
1611 transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
1612 must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
1615 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1616 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
1617 specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy command that includes a
1618 destination arg into a file-listing command, (2) to be able to specify more
1619 than one local source arg (note: be sure to include the destination), or
1620 (3) to avoid the automatically added "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')" options that
1621 rsync usually uses as a compatibility kluge when generating a non-recursive
1624 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1625 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
1626 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
1627 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
1628 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
1629 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
1630 of zero specifies no limit.
1632 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
1633 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
1634 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
1636 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
1637 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
1638 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
1639 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
1641 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
1642 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
1643 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
1644 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
1645 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
1648 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
1649 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
1650 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
1651 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
1653 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
1654 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
1655 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
1656 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
1658 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
1659 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
1660 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
1661 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
1662 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
1663 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
1664 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
1666 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1667 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
1668 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
1669 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1671 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
1672 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
1673 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
1674 by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
1675 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
1676 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
1677 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
1678 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
1682 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
1684 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
1687 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
1688 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
1689 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
1691 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
1692 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
1693 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
1694 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
1695 requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
1698 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1699 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
1700 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
1701 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
1702 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1704 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
1705 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
1706 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
1707 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
1708 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
1710 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
1711 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
1712 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
1713 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
1714 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
1716 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
1717 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
1718 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
1719 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
1720 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
1721 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
1722 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
1725 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
1726 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
1727 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1729 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
1730 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
1732 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
1733 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
1734 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
1735 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
1737 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
1738 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
1739 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
1740 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
1741 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
1742 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
1744 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
1745 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
1748 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
1750 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
1751 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
1752 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
1753 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
1755 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
1756 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
1757 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
1758 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
1759 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
1760 filename is not skipped.
1762 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
1763 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
1766 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1767 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
1770 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
1771 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
1772 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
1773 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
1774 Here are the available rule prefixes:
1777 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
1778 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
1779 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
1780 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
1781 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
1782 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
1783 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
1784 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
1785 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
1788 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
1789 comment lines that start with a "#".
1791 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
1792 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
1793 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
1794 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
1796 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
1797 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
1798 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
1799 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
1802 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
1803 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
1804 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
1805 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
1807 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
1809 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
1810 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
1811 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
1812 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
1813 can take several forms:
1816 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
1817 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
1818 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
1819 regular expressions.
1820 Thus "/foo" would match a file named "foo" at either the "root of the
1821 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
1822 per-directory rule).
1823 An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
1824 anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
1826 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
1827 end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
1828 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
1829 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
1830 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
1832 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
1833 directory, not a file, link, or device.
1835 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
1836 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
1837 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
1838 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
1839 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
1840 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
1841 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
1842 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
1843 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
1844 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
1845 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
1846 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
1847 matched only against the final component of the filename.
1848 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
1849 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
1851 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
1852 "dir_name/" had been specified) and all the files in the directory
1853 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). (This behavior is new for
1857 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
1858 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
1859 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
1860 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
1861 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
1862 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
1863 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
1864 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
1865 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
1866 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
1867 For instance, this won't work:
1870 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
1871 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
1875 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
1876 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
1877 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
1878 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
1879 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
1880 solution is to add specific include rules for all
1881 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
1886 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
1887 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
1888 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
1892 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
1895 it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
1896 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
1897 transfer-root directory
1898 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
1899 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
1900 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
1901 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
1902 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
1903 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
1904 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
1905 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
1906 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
1907 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
1908 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
1911 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
1913 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
1914 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
1917 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
1918 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
1919 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
1920 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
1921 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
1922 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
1923 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
1924 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
1925 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
1926 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
1932 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1933 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
1934 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
1935 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1936 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
1939 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
1942 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
1943 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1944 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
1945 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
1946 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
1947 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
1948 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
1949 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
1950 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
1951 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
1952 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
1953 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
1954 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
1955 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
1956 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
1958 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
1959 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
1960 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
1961 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
1962 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
1963 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
1966 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
1969 it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
1970 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
1971 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
1972 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
1973 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
1974 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
1975 it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
1976 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
1978 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
1979 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
1981 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
1982 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
1983 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
1984 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
1985 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
1986 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
1987 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
1988 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
1989 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
1990 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
1991 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
1994 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
1995 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
1996 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
1997 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
1998 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
1999 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2000 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2001 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2002 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2004 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2005 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2006 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2007 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2010 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2013 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2015 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2020 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2021 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2022 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2023 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2026 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2027 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2028 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2029 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2031 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2033 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2034 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2035 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2036 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2037 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2039 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2042 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2043 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2044 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2047 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2048 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2049 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2050 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2051 a part of the transfer.
2053 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2054 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2055 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2056 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2057 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2058 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2059 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2060 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2064 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2069 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2072 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2073 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2074 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2075 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2076 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2077 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2078 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2079 your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
2081 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2083 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2084 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2085 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2086 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2087 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2088 out the parent's rules).
2090 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2092 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2093 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2094 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2095 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2096 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2097 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2099 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2100 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2101 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2102 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2103 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2105 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2106 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2107 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2110 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2111 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2112 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2113 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2114 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2118 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2119 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2120 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2121 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2122 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2126 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2127 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2128 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2129 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2130 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2134 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2135 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2136 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2137 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2138 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2141 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2142 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2143 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2145 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2147 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2148 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2149 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2150 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2153 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2154 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2157 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2158 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2159 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2160 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2161 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2162 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2164 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2166 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2167 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2168 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2169 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2170 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2172 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2173 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2175 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2176 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2177 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2178 per-directory merge rule.
2180 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2181 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2182 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2183 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2184 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2185 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2187 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2189 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2191 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2193 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2194 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2195 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2196 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2197 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2198 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2199 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2200 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2201 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2203 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2204 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2205 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2206 using the information stored in the batch file.
2208 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2209 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2210 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2211 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2212 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
2213 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2214 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2215 path differs from the original destination tree path.
2217 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2218 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2219 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2220 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2221 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2226 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2227 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2228 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2232 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2233 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2236 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2237 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2238 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2239 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2240 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2243 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2244 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2245 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2246 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2247 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2248 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2249 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2250 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2251 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2252 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2253 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2258 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2259 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2260 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2261 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2262 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2263 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2264 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2265 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2266 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2267 option (when reading the batch).
2268 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2269 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2270 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2273 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2274 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2275 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2276 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2277 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2278 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2279 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2281 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2282 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2283 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2284 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2285 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2286 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2287 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2289 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2290 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2291 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2292 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2293 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2294 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2296 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2297 version uses a new implementation.
2299 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2301 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2302 link in the source directory.
2304 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2305 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2307 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2308 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2311 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2312 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2314 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2315 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2316 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2317 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2318 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2319 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2320 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2321 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2323 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2324 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
2325 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2327 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2328 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2329 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2331 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2332 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2334 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2335 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2337 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2338 skip all safe symlinks.
2340 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2343 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2345 manpagediagnostics()
2347 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2348 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2349 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2351 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2352 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2353 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2354 remote shell like this:
2356 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2358 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2359 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2360 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2361 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2362 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2363 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2364 for non-interactive logins.
2366 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2367 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2368 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2370 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2374 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2375 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2376 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2377 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2378 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2379 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2381 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2382 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2383 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2384 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2385 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2386 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2387 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2388 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2389 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
2390 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2391 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2392 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2393 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2394 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2397 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2400 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2401 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2403 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2404 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2405 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2406 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2407 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2408 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2409 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2410 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2411 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2412 password to a shell transport such as ssh.
2413 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2414 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2415 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2416 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2417 default .cvsignore file.
2422 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2430 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2432 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2434 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2436 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2439 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2441 Please report bugs! See the website at
2442 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2444 manpagesection(VERSION)
2446 This man page is current for version 2.6.7pre2 of rsync.
2448 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2450 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2451 COPYING for details.
2453 A WEB site is available at
2454 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2455 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2458 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2459 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2461 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2463 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2464 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2466 manpagesection(THANKS)
2468 Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2469 and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
2470 I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2472 Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
2473 Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
2477 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2478 Many people have later contributed to it.
2480 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2481 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)