1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(8 May 2009)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences. See the tech report for details.
108 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
110 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
111 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
112 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
113 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
114 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
115 size of data portions of the transfer.
117 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
119 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
120 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
121 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
122 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
123 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
124 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
125 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
129 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
130 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
133 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
134 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
135 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
138 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
139 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
142 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
143 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
144 an improved copy command.
146 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
147 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
149 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
151 See the following section for more details.
153 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
155 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
156 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
157 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
159 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
160 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
161 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
163 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
166 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
167 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
169 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
170 not as easy to use as the first method.
172 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
173 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
174 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
177 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
179 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
181 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
182 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
183 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
184 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
185 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
187 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
191 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
192 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
193 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
194 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
196 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
197 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
198 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
199 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
200 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
203 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
205 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
207 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
208 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
209 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
210 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
211 may be useful when scripting rsync.
213 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
214 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
216 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
217 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
218 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
219 proxy connections to port 873.
221 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
222 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
223 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
224 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
225 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
228 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
229 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
230 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
232 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
233 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
236 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
238 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
242 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
243 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
244 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
245 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
246 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
247 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
248 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
249 connections from "localhost".)
251 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
252 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
253 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
254 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
255 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
256 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
258 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
260 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
261 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
262 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
263 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
264 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
266 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
268 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
269 used to log-in to the "module".
271 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
273 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
274 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
275 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
276 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
277 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
278 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
279 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
281 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
282 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
284 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
286 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
288 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
289 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
291 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
293 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
296 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
300 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
302 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
305 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
306 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
307 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
309 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
312 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
314 This is launched from cron every few hours.
316 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
318 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
319 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
320 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
321 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
322 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
323 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
324 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
325 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
326 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
327 -R, --relative use relative path names
328 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
329 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
330 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
331 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
332 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
333 --inplace update destination files in-place
334 --append append data onto shorter files
335 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
336 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
337 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
338 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
339 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
340 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
341 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
342 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
343 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
344 -p, --perms preserve permissions
345 -E, --executability preserve executability
346 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
347 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
348 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
349 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
350 -g, --group preserve group
351 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
352 --specials preserve special files
353 -D same as --devices --specials
354 -t, --times preserve modification times
355 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
356 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
357 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
358 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
359 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
360 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
361 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
362 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
363 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
364 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
365 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
366 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
367 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
368 --del an alias for --delete-during
369 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
370 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
371 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
372 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
373 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
374 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
375 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
376 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
377 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
378 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
379 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
380 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
381 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
382 --partial keep partially transferred files
383 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
384 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
385 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
386 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
387 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
388 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
389 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
390 --size-only skip files that match in size
391 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
392 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
393 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
394 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
395 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
396 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
397 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
398 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
399 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
400 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
401 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
402 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
403 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
404 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
405 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
406 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
407 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
408 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
409 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
410 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
411 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
412 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
413 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
414 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
415 --stats give some file-transfer stats
416 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
417 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
418 --progress show progress during transfer
419 -P same as --partial --progress
420 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
421 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
422 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
423 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
424 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
425 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
426 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
427 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
428 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
429 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
430 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
431 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
432 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
433 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
434 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
435 --version print version number
436 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
438 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
440 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
441 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
442 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
443 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
444 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
445 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
446 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
447 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
448 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
449 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
450 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
451 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
452 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
456 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
457 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
458 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
459 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
463 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
464 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
465 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
466 option without any other args.
468 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
470 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
471 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
472 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
473 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
474 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
475 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
476 you are debugging rsync.
478 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
479 a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
480 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
481 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
482 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
483 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
484 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
485 any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
487 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
488 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
489 from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
492 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
493 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
494 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
495 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
496 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
497 request the list of modules from the daemon.
499 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
500 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
501 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
504 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
505 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
506 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
507 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
508 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
509 not preserve timestamps exactly.
511 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
512 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
513 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
514 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
515 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
516 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
517 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
519 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
520 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
521 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
522 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
523 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
524 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
525 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
526 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
527 so this can slow things down significantly.
529 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
530 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
531 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
532 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
533 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
535 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
536 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
537 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
538 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
539 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
541 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
542 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
544 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
545 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
546 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
547 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
548 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
550 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
551 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
554 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
555 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
556 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
557 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
558 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
559 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
560 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
562 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
563 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
564 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
566 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
567 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
568 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
569 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
570 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
573 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
574 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
576 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
577 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
578 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
579 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
580 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
581 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
583 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
584 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
585 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
586 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
587 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
588 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
589 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
590 than using bf(--delete-after).
592 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
593 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
595 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
596 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
597 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
598 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
599 example, if you used this command:
601 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
603 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
604 machine. If instead you used
606 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
608 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
609 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
610 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
613 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
614 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
615 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
616 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
617 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
618 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
619 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
620 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
622 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
623 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
624 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
625 the source path, like this:
627 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
629 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
630 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
631 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
632 source path. For example, when pushing files:
634 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
636 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
637 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
638 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
639 for a non-daemon transfer):
642 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
643 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
646 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
647 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
648 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
649 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
650 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
651 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
652 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
655 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
656 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
657 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
658 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
659 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
660 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
661 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
662 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
663 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
664 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
666 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
667 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
668 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
670 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
671 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
672 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
673 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
675 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
676 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
677 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
678 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
679 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
680 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
681 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
682 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
683 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
684 rule would never be reached).
686 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
687 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
688 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
689 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
690 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
691 will keep their original filenames).
693 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
694 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
695 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
697 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
698 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
699 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
700 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
702 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
703 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
704 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
705 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
706 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
709 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
710 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
711 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
713 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when the
714 file's data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
715 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
716 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
718 This has several effects: (1) in-use binaries cannot be updated (either the
719 OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in
720 their data will misbehave or crash), (2) the file's data will be in an
721 inconsistent state during the transfer, (3) a file's data may be left in an
722 inconsistent state after the transfer if the transfer is interrupted or if
723 an update fails, (4) a file that does not have write permissions can not be
724 updated, and (5) the efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be
725 reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
726 be copied to a position later in the file (one exception to this is if you
727 combine this option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use
728 the backup file as the basis file for the transfer).
730 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
731 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
733 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
734 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
737 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
738 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
739 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
742 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
743 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
744 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
745 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
746 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
747 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
748 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
749 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
750 Implies bf(--inplace),
751 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
754 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
755 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
756 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
757 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
758 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
760 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
761 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
762 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
763 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
765 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
766 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
767 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
768 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
769 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
770 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
771 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
773 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
774 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
775 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
776 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
777 if you want to turn this off.
779 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
780 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
781 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
783 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
784 symlink on the destination.
786 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
787 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
788 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
789 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
790 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
791 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
792 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
793 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
795 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
796 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
797 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
798 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
799 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
801 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
802 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
803 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
804 give unexpected results.
806 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
807 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
808 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
809 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
811 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
812 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
813 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
814 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
816 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
819 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
820 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
821 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
822 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
824 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
825 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
826 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
827 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
828 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
831 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
832 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
833 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
834 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
835 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
836 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
837 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
839 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
841 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
842 the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
843 side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
844 as though they were separate files.
846 When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
847 that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
848 together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
849 already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
850 the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
851 have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
852 are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
854 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
855 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
856 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
857 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
858 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
859 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
860 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
862 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
863 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
864 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
865 the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
866 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
868 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
869 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
870 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
871 be the source permissions.)
873 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
876 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
877 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
878 the execute permission for the file.
879 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
880 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
881 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
882 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
883 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
884 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
887 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
888 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
889 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
891 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
892 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
893 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
894 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
895 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
896 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
897 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
898 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
900 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
902 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
904 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
906 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
907 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
909 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
910 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
911 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
912 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
913 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
914 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
915 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
916 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
919 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
920 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
921 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
922 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
923 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
924 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
927 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
929 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
930 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
933 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
935 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
936 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
937 The option also implies bf(--perms).
939 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
940 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
941 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
943 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
944 extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
946 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
947 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
948 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
949 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
951 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
952 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
953 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
954 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
955 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
957 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
958 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
959 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
960 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
962 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
964 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
965 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
967 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
968 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
970 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
971 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
972 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
973 and bf(--fake-super) options).
974 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
975 the invoking user on the receiving side.
977 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
978 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
979 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
981 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
982 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
983 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
984 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
985 is a member of will be preserved.
986 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
987 user on the receiving side.
989 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
990 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
991 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
993 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
994 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
995 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
996 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
998 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
999 such as named sockets and fifos.
1001 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1003 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1004 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1005 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1006 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1007 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1008 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1009 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1011 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1012 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1013 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1014 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1016 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1017 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1018 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1019 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1020 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1021 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1022 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1023 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1024 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1026 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1027 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1028 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1029 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1030 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1031 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1032 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1033 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1034 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1035 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1036 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1038 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1039 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1041 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1042 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1045 quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1047 Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
1048 the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
1049 "localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1050 script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1051 shell (see bf(--rsh)).
1053 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1055 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1057 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1058 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1059 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1061 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1062 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1063 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1065 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1066 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1067 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1068 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1069 to do before one actually runs it.
1071 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1072 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1073 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1074 extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1075 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1076 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1077 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1078 where no file transfers are needed.
1080 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1081 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1082 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1083 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1084 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1085 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1087 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1088 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1089 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1090 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1091 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1092 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1095 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1096 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1097 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1098 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1100 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1101 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1102 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1105 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1106 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1107 yet on the destination. If this option is
1108 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1109 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1111 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1112 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1113 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1115 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1116 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1117 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1119 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1120 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1121 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1123 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1124 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1125 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1126 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1127 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1128 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1129 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1131 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1132 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1133 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1135 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1136 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1137 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1138 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1139 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1140 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1141 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1142 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1143 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1144 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1146 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1147 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1148 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1150 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1151 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1152 going to be deleted.
1154 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1155 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1156 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1157 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
1158 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1160 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1161 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1162 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1163 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1164 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1165 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1167 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1168 side be done before the transfer starts.
1169 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1171 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1172 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1173 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1174 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1175 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1176 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1177 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1179 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1180 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1181 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1182 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1183 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1184 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1185 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1187 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1188 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1189 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1190 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1191 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1192 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1193 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1194 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1195 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1196 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1197 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1199 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1201 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1202 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1203 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1204 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1205 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1206 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1207 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1208 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1210 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1211 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1212 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1213 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1214 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1215 bf(--delete-excluded).
1216 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1218 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1219 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1220 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1221 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1222 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1223 present and later is no longer there.
1225 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1226 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1227 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1228 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1229 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1230 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1232 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1233 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1235 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1236 even when there are I/O errors.
1238 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1239 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1240 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1242 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1243 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1244 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1246 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1247 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1248 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1250 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1251 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1252 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1253 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1254 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1255 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1257 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1258 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1259 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1260 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1262 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1263 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1264 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1266 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1267 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1268 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1269 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1270 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1271 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1272 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1274 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1277 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1278 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1279 transferring small, junk files.
1280 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1282 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1283 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1284 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1286 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1287 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1288 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1289 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1291 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1292 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1293 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1294 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1295 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1296 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1298 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1299 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1300 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1301 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1302 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1303 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1304 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1305 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1308 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1309 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1312 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1313 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1315 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1316 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1318 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1320 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1321 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1322 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1323 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1324 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1325 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1328 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1329 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1331 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1333 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1334 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1335 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1336 a file should be ignored.
1338 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1339 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1341 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1342 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1343 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1345 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1346 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1347 are delimited by whitespace).
1349 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1350 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1351 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1352 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1354 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1355 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1356 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1357 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1358 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1359 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1360 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1361 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1362 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1363 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1366 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1367 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1368 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1370 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1371 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1372 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1373 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1374 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1376 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1378 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1379 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1381 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1383 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1384 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1385 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1388 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1390 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1392 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1395 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1396 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1397 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1399 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1401 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1402 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1403 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1404 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1406 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1407 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1408 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1410 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1412 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1413 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1414 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1415 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1417 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1418 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1419 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1420 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1423 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1424 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1425 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1426 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1427 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1428 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1429 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1430 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1431 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1432 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1433 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1434 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1437 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1438 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1439 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1442 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1444 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1445 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1446 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1447 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1448 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1449 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1450 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1451 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1453 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1454 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1455 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1457 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1458 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1459 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1460 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1461 transfer". For example:
1463 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1465 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1466 was located on the remote "src" host.
1468 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1469 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1470 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1471 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1472 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1473 file are split on whitespace).
1475 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1476 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1477 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1478 receiving host's charset.
1480 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1481 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1482 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1483 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1484 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1486 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
1487 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1488 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1490 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1491 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1492 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1493 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1495 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1496 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1497 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1498 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1499 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1500 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1501 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1502 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1503 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1504 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1505 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1506 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1507 new version on the disk at the same time.
1509 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1510 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1511 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1512 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1513 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1514 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1515 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1516 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1517 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1518 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1519 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1520 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1522 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1523 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1524 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1525 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1526 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1528 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1529 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1530 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1532 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1533 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1534 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1535 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1536 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1537 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1538 have changed from an earlier backup.
1540 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1541 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1543 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1544 and the attributes updated.
1545 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1546 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1548 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1549 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1551 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1552 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1553 directory using a local copy.
1554 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1555 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1556 been successfully transferred.
1558 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1559 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1560 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1561 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1563 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1564 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1566 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1567 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1568 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1569 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1572 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1574 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1575 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1576 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1577 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1579 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1580 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1582 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1583 and the attributes updated.
1584 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1585 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1587 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1588 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1589 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1590 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1593 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1594 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1595 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1598 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1599 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1601 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1602 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1603 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1604 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1606 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1607 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1608 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1610 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1611 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1612 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1613 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1615 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1616 that will not be compressed.
1618 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1619 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1620 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1622 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1623 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1624 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1626 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1628 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1629 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1630 "[:alpha:]", are supported).
1632 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1634 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1635 matches 2 suffixes):
1637 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1639 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1640 of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1642 verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1644 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1645 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1646 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1649 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1650 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1653 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1654 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1655 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1656 option is not specified.
1658 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1659 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1660 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1661 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1662 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1663 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1665 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1666 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1667 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1669 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1670 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1671 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1673 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1674 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1675 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1676 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1678 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1679 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1680 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1681 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1682 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1684 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1685 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1686 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1687 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1688 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1689 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1690 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1691 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1693 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1694 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1695 rsync defaults to using
1696 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1697 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1699 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1700 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1701 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1702 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1703 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1704 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1707 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1708 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1709 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1710 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1713 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1716 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1718 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1720 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1721 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1722 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1724 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1725 have attributes that are being modified).
1726 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1727 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1730 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1731 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1732 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1734 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1735 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1736 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1737 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1738 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1739 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1741 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1744 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1745 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1747 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1748 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1749 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1750 by the file transfer.
1751 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1752 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1753 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1754 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1755 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1756 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1757 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1758 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1759 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1760 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1761 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1762 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1763 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1764 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1765 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1766 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1769 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1770 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1771 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1772 outputting them as a verbose message).
1774 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1775 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
1776 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
1777 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
1778 bf(-v) is specified (which reports the name
1779 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
1780 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
1781 rsyncd.conf manpage.
1783 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option
1784 will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
1785 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
1786 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1787 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
1788 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
1789 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
1790 option for a description of the output of "%i".
1792 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1793 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1794 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1795 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1796 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1797 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1799 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1800 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1801 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1802 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1803 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1804 option if you wish to override this.
1806 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1809 verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1811 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1814 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1815 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1816 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1817 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1818 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1819 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1821 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
1824 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1825 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
1826 algorithm is for your data.
1828 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1829 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1830 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1831 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1832 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
1833 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1834 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1835 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1836 include the size of symlinks.
1837 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1838 for just the transferred files.
1839 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1840 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1841 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1842 recreating the updated files.
1843 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1844 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1845 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1847 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1848 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1849 sending side for this to be present.
1850 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1851 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1852 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1853 from the client side to the server side.
1854 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1855 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1856 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1857 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1860 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1861 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1862 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1863 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1866 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1867 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1868 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1869 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1871 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1872 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1873 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1874 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1877 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1878 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1879 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1880 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1881 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1883 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1884 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1885 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1886 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1887 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1888 after it has served its purpose.
1890 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1891 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1893 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
1895 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1896 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1897 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1898 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1899 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1901 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1902 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1903 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1904 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1905 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1906 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1909 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1910 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1911 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1912 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1913 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1914 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1915 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1916 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1917 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1919 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1920 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1922 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1923 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1924 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1925 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1926 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1927 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1928 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1929 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1930 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1931 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1933 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1934 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1935 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1936 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1937 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1939 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1940 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1941 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1942 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1943 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1944 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1945 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1946 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1947 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1948 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1949 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1951 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1952 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1953 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1954 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1956 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1957 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1959 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1960 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1962 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1963 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1964 parallel hierarchy of files).
1966 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1967 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1968 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1969 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1970 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1973 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
1974 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
1975 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
1977 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1978 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1979 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1980 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
1981 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
1984 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1985 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1986 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1988 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1990 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1991 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1992 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1993 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1995 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1997 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1998 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
1999 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2001 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2002 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2004 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
2006 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2009 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2011 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2012 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2013 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2014 is maintained until the end.
2016 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2017 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2018 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2019 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2020 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2021 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2023 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2024 summary line that looks like this:
2026 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
2028 In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2029 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2030 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2031 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2032 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2033 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2035 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2036 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2037 transfer that may be interrupted.
2039 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
2040 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
2041 It should contain just the password as a single line.
2043 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2044 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2045 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2046 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2047 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2050 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2051 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2052 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2053 command that includes a
2054 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2055 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2056 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2057 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2058 without using this option. For example:
2060 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2062 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2063 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2064 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2065 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2066 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2067 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2068 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2070 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2071 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2072 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2073 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2074 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2075 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2076 of zero specifies no limit.
2078 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2079 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2080 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2082 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2083 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2084 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2085 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2087 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2088 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2089 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2090 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2091 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2094 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2095 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2096 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2097 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2099 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2100 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2101 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2102 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2104 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2105 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2106 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2107 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2108 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2109 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2110 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2112 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2113 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2114 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2115 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2116 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2117 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2118 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2119 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2120 to turn off any conversion.
2121 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2122 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2124 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2127 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2128 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2129 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2131 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2132 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2133 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2134 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2135 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2137 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2138 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2139 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2140 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2142 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2143 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2144 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2145 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2147 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2148 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2151 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer
2152 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2153 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2154 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2155 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2156 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2157 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2158 Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2162 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2164 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2167 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2168 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2169 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2171 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2172 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2173 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2174 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2175 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2178 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2179 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2180 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2181 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2182 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2184 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2185 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2186 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2187 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2188 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2190 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2191 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2192 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2193 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2194 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2196 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2197 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2198 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2199 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2200 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2201 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2202 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2205 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2206 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2207 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2209 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2210 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2213 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2214 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2215 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2216 case transfer logging is turned off.
2218 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2219 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2221 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2222 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2223 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2224 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2226 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2227 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2228 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2229 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2230 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2231 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2233 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2234 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2237 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2238 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2241 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2243 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2244 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2245 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2246 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2248 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2249 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2250 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2251 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2252 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2253 filename is not skipped.
2255 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2256 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2259 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2260 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2263 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2264 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2265 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2266 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2267 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2270 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2271 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2272 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2273 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2274 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2275 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2276 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2277 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2278 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2281 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2282 comment lines that start with a "#".
2284 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2285 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2286 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2287 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2289 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2290 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2291 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2292 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2295 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2296 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2297 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2298 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2300 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2302 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2303 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2304 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2305 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2306 can take several forms:
2309 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2310 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2311 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2312 regular expressions.
2313 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2314 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2315 per-directory rule).
2316 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2317 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2318 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2319 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2320 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2321 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2322 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2324 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2325 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2326 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2327 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2328 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2329 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2330 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2331 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2332 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2333 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2334 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2335 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2336 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2337 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2338 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2339 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2340 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2342 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2343 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2344 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2348 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2349 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2350 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2351 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2352 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2353 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2354 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2355 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2356 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2357 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2358 For instance, this won't work:
2361 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2362 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2366 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2367 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2368 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2369 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2370 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2371 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2372 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2377 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2378 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2379 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2383 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2386 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2387 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2388 transfer-root directory
2389 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2390 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2391 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2392 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2393 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2394 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2395 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2396 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2397 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2398 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2399 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2402 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2405 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2406 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2407 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2408 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2409 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2410 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2411 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2412 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2414 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2415 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2417 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2418 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2419 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2420 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2421 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2422 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2423 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2424 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2425 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2426 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2427 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2428 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2429 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2430 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2431 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2432 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2435 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2437 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2438 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2441 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2442 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2443 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2444 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2445 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2446 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2447 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2448 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2449 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2450 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2456 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2457 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2458 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2459 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2460 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2463 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2466 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2467 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2468 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2469 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2470 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2471 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2472 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2473 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2474 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2475 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2476 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2477 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2478 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2479 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2480 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2482 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2483 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2484 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2485 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2486 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2487 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
2490 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2491 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2492 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2493 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2494 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2495 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2496 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2497 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2498 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2500 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2501 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2502 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2503 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2506 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2509 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2511 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2516 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2517 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2518 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2519 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2522 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2523 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2524 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2525 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2527 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2529 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2530 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2531 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2532 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2533 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2535 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2538 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2539 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2540 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2543 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2544 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2545 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2546 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2547 a part of the transfer.
2549 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2550 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2551 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2552 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2553 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2554 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2555 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2556 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2560 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2565 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2568 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2569 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2570 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2571 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2572 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2573 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2574 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2575 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2577 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2579 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2580 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2581 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2582 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2583 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2584 out the parent's rules).
2586 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2588 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2589 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2590 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2591 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2592 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2593 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2595 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2596 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2597 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2598 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2599 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2601 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2602 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2603 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2606 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2607 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2608 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2609 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2610 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2614 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2615 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2616 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2617 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2618 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2622 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2623 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2624 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2625 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2626 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2630 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2631 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2632 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2633 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2634 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2637 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2638 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2639 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2641 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2643 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2644 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2645 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2646 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2649 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2650 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2653 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2654 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2655 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2656 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2657 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2658 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2660 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2662 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2663 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2664 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2665 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2666 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2668 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2669 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2671 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2672 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2673 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2674 per-directory merge rule.
2676 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2677 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2678 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2679 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2680 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2681 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2683 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2685 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2687 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2689 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2690 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2691 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2692 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2693 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2694 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2695 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2696 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2697 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2699 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2700 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2701 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2702 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2703 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2705 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2706 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2707 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2708 using the information stored in the batch file.
2710 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
2711 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
2712 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
2713 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
2714 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
2715 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
2716 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
2717 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
2722 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2723 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2724 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2728 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2729 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2732 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2733 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2734 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2735 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2736 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2739 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2740 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2741 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2742 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2743 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2744 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2745 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2746 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2747 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2748 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2749 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2754 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2755 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2756 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2757 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2758 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2759 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2760 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2761 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2762 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2763 option (when reading the batch).
2764 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2765 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2766 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2769 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2770 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2771 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2772 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2773 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2774 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2775 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2777 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2778 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2779 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2780 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2781 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2782 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2783 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2785 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2786 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2787 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2788 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2789 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2790 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2792 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2793 version uses a new implementation.
2795 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2797 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2798 link in the source directory.
2800 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2801 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2803 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2804 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2807 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2808 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2810 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2811 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2812 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2813 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2814 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2815 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2816 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2817 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2819 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2820 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2821 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2823 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2824 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2825 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2827 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2828 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2830 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2831 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2833 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2834 skip all safe symlinks.
2836 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2839 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2841 manpagediagnostics()
2843 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2844 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2845 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2847 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2848 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2849 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2850 remote shell like this:
2852 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2854 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2855 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2856 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2857 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2858 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2859 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2860 for non-interactive logins.
2862 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2863 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2864 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2866 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2870 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2871 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2872 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2873 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2874 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2875 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2877 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2878 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2879 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2880 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2881 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2882 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2883 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2884 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2885 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2886 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2887 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2888 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2889 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2890 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2891 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2894 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2897 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2898 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2900 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2901 environment variable.
2902 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2903 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2904 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2905 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2906 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2907 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2908 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2909 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2910 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2911 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2912 consult the remote shell's documentation.
2913 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2914 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2915 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2916 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2917 default .cvsignore file.
2922 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2930 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2932 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2934 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2936 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2939 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2941 Please report bugs! See the web site at
2942 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2944 manpagesection(VERSION)
2946 This man page is current for version 3.0.6 of rsync.
2948 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2950 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2951 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2952 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2953 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2954 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2955 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2958 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2960 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2961 COPYING for details.
2963 A WEB site is available at
2964 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2965 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2968 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2969 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2971 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2972 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
2974 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2975 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2977 manpagesection(THANKS)
2979 Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
2980 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
2981 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
2983 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2984 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2988 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2989 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
2992 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2993 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)