mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org) manpage(rsync)(1)(6 Nov 2006)()() manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp) manpagesynopsis() rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST rsync [OPTION]... SRC rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST] rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST] rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST] manpagedescription() Rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does, but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being updated. The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical report that accompanies this package. Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check" algorithm that looks for files that have changed in size or in last-modified time (by default). Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated. Some of the additional features of rsync are: itemization( it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh it() does not require super-user privileges it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for mirroring) ) manpagesection(GENERAL) Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts). There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for an exception to this latter rule). As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l". As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option). manpagesection(SETUP) See the file README for installation instructions. Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh. You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e) command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable. Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination machines. manpagesection(USAGE) You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source and a destination, one of which may be remote. Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples: quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/)) This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the differences. See the tech report for details. quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)) This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the size of data portions of the transfer. quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)) A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of /dest/foo: quote( tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl() tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl() ) Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest": quote( tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl() tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl() ) You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like an improved copy command. Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name: quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)) See the following section for more details. manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE) The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples: quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest)) This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one, and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed to be a part of the filenames. quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)) This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are: quote( tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl() tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl() ) This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes. manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON) It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport. In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.) Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except that: itemization( it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL. it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name. it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you connect. it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown. it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the specified files on the remote daemon is provided. it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option. ) An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src": verb( rsync -av host::src /dest) Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so, you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This may be useful when scripting rsync. WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended. You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support proxy connections to port 873. manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION) It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access). Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow connections from "localhost".) From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on this functionality.) For example: verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest) If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option: verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest) The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be used to log-in to the "module". manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS) In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port). For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations). If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is no need to manually start an rsync daemon. manpagesection(EXAMPLES) Here are some examples of how I use rsync. To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)) each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine "arvidsjaur". To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile targets: verb( get: rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ . put: rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/ sync: get put) this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient. I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the command: tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge") This is launched from cron every few hours. manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY) Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb( -v, --verbose increase verbosity -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat) -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X) --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D) -r, --recursive recurse into directories -R, --relative use relative path names --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir) --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir) -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver --inplace update destination files in-place --append append data onto shorter files -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir -H, --hard-links preserve hard links -p, --perms preserve permissions -E, --executability preserve executability --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p) -X, --xattrs preserve extended attrs (implies -p) -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only) -g, --group preserve group --devices preserve device files (super-user only) --specials preserve special files -D same as --devices --specials -t, --times preserve times -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times --super receiver attempts super-user activities --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm) -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine --existing skip creating new files on receiver --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir) --del an alias for --delete-during --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default) --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE --partial keep partially transferred files --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time --size-only skip files that match in size --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter' repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter' --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell --stats give some file-transfer stats -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format --progress show progress during transfer -P same as --partial --progress -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE --list-only list the files instead of copying them --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filesnames --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced) -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6 --version print version number (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment)) Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are accepted: verb( --daemon run as an rsync daemon --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file --no-detach do not detach from the parent --port=PORT listen on alternate port number --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options -v, --verbose increase verbosity -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon)) manpageoptions() rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant. The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace can be used instead. startdit() dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h) option without any other args. dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit. dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you information on what files are being skipped and slightly more information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if you are debugging rsync. Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v) level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details. dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from cron. dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to request the list of modules from the daemon. dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the same size and have the same modification timestamp. This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to be updated. dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified time to just transferring files that have a changed size. This is useful when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps exactly. dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second). dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files), so this can slow things down significantly. The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer. Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file checksum that is generated when as the file is transferred, but that automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check. dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost everything (with -H being a notable omission). The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied. Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately specify bf(-H). dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-": only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D), bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)). For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)). The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r). Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more details). dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)). Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and does not change a non-recursive transfer (e.g. when using a fully-specified bf(--files-from) list). It is also only possible when both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0. Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before), bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), bf(--delay-updates), and bf(--hard-links). Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice than using bf(--delete-after). dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when you want to send several different directories at the same time. For example, if you used this command: quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)) ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote machine. If instead you used quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)) then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of path information that is sent, you have a couple options: (1) With a modern rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into the source path, like this: quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)) That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.) (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the source path. For example, when pushing files: quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) )) (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.) If you're pulling files, use this idiom (which doesn't work with an rsync daemon): quote( tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl() tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/) ) dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on one side of the transfer, and a real directory on the other side. For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo" are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer). In a similar but opposite scenario, if the transfer of "path/foo/file" is requested and "path/foo" is a symlink on the sending side, running without bf(--no-implied-dirs) would cause rsync to transform "path/foo" on the receiving side into an identical symlink, and then attempt to transfer "path/foo/file", which might fail if the duplicated symlink did not point to a directory on the receiving side. Another way to avoid this sending of a symlink as an implied directory is to use bf(--copy-unsafe-links), or bf(--copy-dirlinks) (both of which also affect symlinks in the rest of the transfer -- see their descriptions for full details). dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options. Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect" filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes (e.g. bf(-f "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added rule would never be reached). dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory will keep their original filenames). dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~ if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string. dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.) In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format between the sender and receiver is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion). dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't accomplish the full amount of network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since it does not yet try to sort data matches). One exception to this is if you combine the option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the transfer. This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network bound. The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates). Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest). WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you should not use this option to update files that are in use. Also note that rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the receiving user. dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending side. If that is not true, the file will fail the checksum test, and the resend will do a normal bf(--inplace) update to correct the mismatched data. Only files on the receiving side that are shorter than the corresponding file on the sending side (as well as new files) are sent. Implies bf(--inplace), but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (though the bf(--sparse) option will be auto-disabled if a resend of the already-existing data is required). dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence. dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the destination. dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K)) to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync. dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified. dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may give unexpected results. dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as they would be using bf(--copy-links). Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect). See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving side. dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory. For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in "bar". See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side. dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated as though they were separate files. Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link are in the list of files being sent. dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to be the source permissions.) When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows: quote(itemization( it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just the execute permission for the file. it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory. )) Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled, rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities, such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1). In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as putting this line in the file ~/.popt (this defines the bf(-s) option, and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir): quote(tt( rsync alias -s --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX)) You could then use this new option in a command such as this one: quote(tt( rsync -asv src/ dest/)) (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-s), or it will re-enable the "--no-*" options.) The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present. (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects these behaviors.) dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync modifies the destination file's permissions as follows: quote(itemization( it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x' permissions. it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled. )) If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored. dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs. This nonstandard option only works if the remote rsync also supports it. bf(--acls) implies bf(--perms). dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote extended attributes to be the same as the local ones. This will work only if the remote machine's rsync supports this option also. This is a non-standard option. dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled. In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1) manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example: quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X) It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make. See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer. dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options). Without this option, the owner is set to the invoking user on the receiving side. The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion). dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side is a member of will be preserved. Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking user on the receiving side. The preservation of group information will associate matching names by default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion). dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices. This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options). dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files such as named sockets and fifos. dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials). dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be updated (though the rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)). dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O). This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir). dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups) option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the super-user can use bf(--no-super). dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via a special extended attribute that is attached to each file (as needed). This includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g. the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file or directory, the files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user). The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used. To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync path: quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/)) Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both the sending and recieving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using "localhost" if you need to avoid this. Note, however, that it is always safe to copy from some non-fake-super files into some fake-super files using a local bf(--fake-super) command because the non-fake source files will just have their normal attributes. This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super). See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file. dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion. NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs" filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions correctly and ends up corrupting the files. dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, instead it will just report the actions it would have taken. dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both the source and destination are specified as local paths. dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the same filesystem. If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible). If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected by this option. dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip creating files (including directories) that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated (which can be useful if all you want to do is to delete extraneous files). dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing). dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side. dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded) option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section). Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive) was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied. This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't listed. If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option. The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to an rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after). dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done before the transfer starts. See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion. Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible. However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer, and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)). dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm, but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4. See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion. dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be computed during the transfer, and then removed after the transfer completes. If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an incremental scan). dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)). See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion. dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)). See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from bf(--delete-excluded). See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion. dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files even when there are I/O errors. dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details). Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the bf(--recursive) option was also enabled. dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directories. Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned about any extraneous files in the destination, but be very careful to never specify a 0 value to an older rsync client, or the option will be silently ignored. (A 3.0.0 client will die with an error if the remote rsync is not new enough to handle the situation.) This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters. dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)"). The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024), "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a gibibyte (1024*1024*1024). If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB", "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.) Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will be offset by one byte in the indicated direction. Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is 2147483649 bytes. dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not transferring small, junk files. See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE. dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details. dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell program to use for communication between the local and remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network. If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above. Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other, and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples: quote( tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl() tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl() ) (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect options in their .ssh/config file.) You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e). See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option. dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to communicate. One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance: quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/)) dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if a file should be ignored. The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section): quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .bzr/))) then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names are delimited by whitespace). Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace. See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information. If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules, regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules). The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes mentioned above. dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most useful in combination with a recursive transfer. You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like to build up the list of files to exclude. See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option. dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule: quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter')) This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this rule: quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter')) This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer. See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options work. dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules. See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option. dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude) option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored. If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input. dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules. See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option. dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include) option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored. If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input. dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-) for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make transferring just the specified files and directories easier: quote(itemization( it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path information that is specified for each item in the file (use bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off). it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off). it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it. it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options). )) The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command: quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)) If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)). Also note that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case). In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the transfer". For example: quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)) This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the remote "src" host. dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF. This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule. It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore file are split on whitespace). dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary file in the same directory as the associated destination file. This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer. In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory in on a different disk partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the destination file, which means that the destination file will contain truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place) it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the new version on the disk at the same time. If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option, which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with an absolute path does not have this side-effect.) dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer. Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some filename exclusions if you need to prevent this. dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that have changed from an earlier backup. Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified for an exact match. If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer. If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory. See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest). dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination directory using a local copy. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have been successfully transferred. Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file. If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer. If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory. See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest). dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory. The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions, possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together. An example: quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/)) Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified for an exact match. If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try to speed up the transfer. This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked versions). Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not link any files together because it only links identical files together as a substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the file is updated. If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory. See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest). Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync. dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection. Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection. dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero, the bf(--compress) option is implied. dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them at both ends. By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids) option is not specified. If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match on the destination system, then the numeric ID from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the users and groups and what you can do about it. dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout. dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this option in the bf(--daemon) mode section. dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this option in the bf(--daemon) mode section. dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the bf(--daemon) mode section. dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh, rsync defaults to using blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.) dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes. This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L'). If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv) with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other verbose messages). The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being modified. The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows: quote(itemization( it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host (sent). it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host (received). it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.). it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires bf(--hard-links)). it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might have attributes that are being modified). )) The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos). The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync). The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows: quote(itemization( it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)). it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated by the file transfer. it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T) means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred without bf(--times). it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)). it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges). it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group). it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for reporting update (access) time changes (a feature that is not yet released). it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed. it() The bf(x) slot is reserved for reporting extended attribute changes (a feature that is not yet released). )) One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of outputting them as a verbose message). dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in the string, the logging of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the output of "%i". The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use bf(--out-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override the format of its per-file output using this option. Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information (followed, of course, by the out-format output). dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format) option if you wish to override this. Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is happening: verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/) This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing unexpectedly. dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file. For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync algorithm is for your data. The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization( it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that were updated via the rsync algorithm, which does not include created dirs, symlinks, etc. it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer. This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does include the size of symlinks. it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes for just the transferred files. it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files. it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when recreating the updated files. it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the list. it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the sending side for this to be present. it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender spent sending the file list to the receiver. it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent from the client side to the server side. it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message" bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent. )) dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's setting. The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\) and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9). dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format. This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024 instead of 1000. dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster. dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file). On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it after it has served its purpose. Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed (since rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm). Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then remove it again when the partial file is deleted. If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other filter rules. If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g. bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the left-over partial-dir data during the current run.) IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp". You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp) along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial) option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below). For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting, bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir). dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each updated file into a holding directory until the end of the transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append). This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1) there is no chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is absolute) and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place). See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a parallel hierarchy of files). dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter rules. Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects destination files). You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list: quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/') Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude): quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest) If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you). dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user something to watch. Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified. While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that looks like this: verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04) In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate is maintained until the end. These statistics can be misleading if the incremental transfer algorithm is in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it was finishing the matched part of the file. When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a summary line that looks like this: verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396)) In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of the 396 total files in the file-list. dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long transfer that may be interrupted. dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a single line. When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's config file). dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy command that includes a destination arg into a file-listing command, (2) to be able to specify more than one local source arg (note: be sure to include the destination), or (3) to avoid the automatically added "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')" options that rsync usually uses as a compatibility kluge when generating a non-recursive listing. Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg without using this option. For example: verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/) dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value of zero specifies no limit. dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE" section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option. dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch. This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch). Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is happening). Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch). dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previously generated by bf(--write-batch). If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details. dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system). dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset separated by a comma (local first), e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). Finally, you can specify a CONVERT_SPEC of "-" to turn off any conversion. The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable. Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files (including include/exclude files), in a files-from file, nor those specified on the command line. It is up to you to ensure that you're requesting the right names from a remote server, and you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for. (In the future there may be a way to specify a UTF-8 filter rule that gets auto-converted to the local side's character set.) dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section. dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed. Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time()) for checksum seed. enddit() manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS) The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows: startdit() dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax. If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more details. dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option. See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage. dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends. The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details. dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified. The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME). dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller). bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or sshd. dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage. dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config file. dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which case transfer logging is turned off. dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax. dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section. dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port, try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon). dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon. enddit() manpagesection(FILTER RULES) The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file). As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the filename is not skipped. Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax: quote( tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl() tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl() ) You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present) must come after either a single space or an underscore (_). Here are the available rule prefixes: quote( bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl() bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl() bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl() bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl() bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl() bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl() bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl() bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl() bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl() ) When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are comment lines that start with a "#". Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file). If a pattern does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the start of the rule. Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options. manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES) You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+", "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns can take several forms: itemization( it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in regular expressions. Thus "/foo" would match a file named "foo" at either the "root of the transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a per-directory rule). An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo" anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root of the transfer. it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a directory, not a file, link, or device. it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard characters: '*', '?', and '[' . it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes). it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes. it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/). it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]]. it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present. it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**", then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is matched only against the final component of the filename. (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on down.) it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if "dir_name/" had been specified) and all the files in the directory (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in version 2.6.7. ) Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and "/foo/bar" must not be excluded). The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work: quote( tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl() tt(+ /file-is-included)nl() tt(- *)nl() ) This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path" directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another solution is to add specific include rules for all the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules works fine: quote( tt(+ /some/)nl() tt(+ /some/path/)nl() tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl() tt(+ /file-also-included)nl() tt(- *)nl() ) Here are some examples of exclude/include matching: itemization( it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the transfer-root directory it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option) it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*") ) manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES) You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "." rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE below). Some examples: quote( tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl() tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl() tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl() tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl() tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl() ) The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule: itemization( it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments. it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments. it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed. it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g. "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules". it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories. it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't also disabled). it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes, while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. ) The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-": itemization( it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example, "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo" would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer. it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all non-directories. it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should follow. it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules, which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes. it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to specify receiver-side includes/excludes. it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C) option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed on the source from being deleted on the destination. ) Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file. Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo" would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter file was found. Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":) quote( tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl() tt(- *.gz)nl() tt(dir-merge .rules)nl() tt(+ *.[ch])nl() tt(- *.o)nl() ) This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root of the transfer). If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)): quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter')) That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all directories from the root down through the parent directory of the transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".) Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files: quote( tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl() tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl() tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl() ) The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path" and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is a part of the transfer. If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns, you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For example: quote( tt(cat < out.dat)) then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements for non-interactive logins. If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will show why each individual file is included or excluded. manpagesection(EXIT VALUES) startdit() dit(bf(0)) Success dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and not by the server. dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid()) dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive enddit() manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES) startdit() dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for more details. dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this environment variable. dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option. dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair. dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a password to a shell transport such as ssh. dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon. If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody". dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's default .cvsignore file. enddit() manpagefiles() /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf manpageseealso() bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) manpagebugs() times are transferred as *nix time_t values When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync unmodified files. See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option. file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical values see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option Please report bugs! See the website at url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/) manpagesection(VERSION) This man page is current for version 2.6.9 of rsync. manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS) The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync, and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance, the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted ssh login. manpagesection(CREDITS) rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file COPYING for details. A WEB site is available at url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this manual page. The primary ftp site for rsync is url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync). We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program. This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler. manpagesection(THANKS) Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have. Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz. manpageauthor() rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. Many people have later contributed to it. Mailing lists for support and development are available at url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)