mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(8 Feb 2006)()()
+manpage(rsync)(1)(22 Apr 2006)()()
manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
manpagesynopsis()
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
+rsync [OPTION]... SRC
+
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
an exception to this latter rule).
-As a special case, if a remote source is specified without a destination,
-the remote files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
+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).
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:
+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)
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 rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config
+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).
-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
- -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
+ -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 change destination permissions
-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 ignore non-existing files on receiving side
- --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
- --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
+ --existing skip creating new files on receiver
+ --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
+ --remove-sent-files sender removes successfully sent files
--del an alias for --delete-during
- --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
+ --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
- --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
+ --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
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 forces the sender to checksum all files using
-a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
-explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
-which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
-receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
+dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum em(every)
+regular file using a 128-bit MD4 checksum. It does this during the initial
+file-system scan as it builds the list of all available files. The receiver
+then checksums its version of each file (if it exists and it has the same
+size as its sender-side counterpart) in order to decide which files need to
+be updated: files with either a changed size or a changed checksum are
+selected for transfer. Since this whole-file checksumming of all files on
+both sides of the connection occurs in addition to the automatic checksum
+verifications that occur during a file's transfer, this option can be quite
+slow.
+
+Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was correctly
+reconstructed on the receiving side by checking its whole-file checksum, 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
quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
-... this would create a file called baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
+... 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 called /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
+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 dir into the source path, like this:
+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 dir must followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
+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:
tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
)
-dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
-implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
-of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
-the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
-path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
-the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
-destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
-the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
-which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
-symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
+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
dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
symlink on the destination.
-dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
+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
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.
+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(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
-the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
-option hard links are treated like regular files.
+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).
-Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
-are in the list of files being sent.
+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).
-This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
+See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
+side.
-dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
-pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
-from the sender.
+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.
-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.
+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
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. By default, the
-preservation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number
-in some circumstances (see the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full
-discussion).
-This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
-super-user and bf(--super) is not specified.
+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)
+option to force rsync to attempt super-user activities).
+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 with the bf(--no-super)
-option), only groups that the
-receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
-is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
-circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
+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.
being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
super-user can use bf(--no-super).
-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(-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.
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
by this option.
dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
-updating files that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is
+creating files (i.e. non-directory items) 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 missing files).
-dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
-already exist on the destination. See also bf(--ignore-non-existing).
+dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files (i.e.
+non-directory items) that
+already exist on the destination. See also bf(--existing).
dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
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.
+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,
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 setsockopt() system call for
+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
on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
algorithm is for your data.
-The current statistics are as follows: itemize(
+The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemize(
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
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
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)
+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 "--include='*/' --exclude='*'" would work fine
single line.
dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
-instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
-specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
-come in handy for a user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
-options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
-non-recursive listing, or to list the files that are involved in a local
-copy (since the destination path is not optional for a local copy, you
-must specify this option explicitly and still include a destination).
+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
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 time(). This option
+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 time()
+Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
for checksum seed.
enddit()
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 rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
+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
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 called "foo" at either the "root of the
+ 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"
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 '[' .
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). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
+"- *" 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:
itemize(
it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
- it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
- it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
+ 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.
+ 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 "*")
option is used. This file's name is created by appending
".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
-batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
+batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
+optionally
passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
path differs from the original destination tree path.
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 waitpid()
+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
manpageseealso()
-rsyncd.conf(5)
+bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
manpagebugs()
manpagesection(VERSION)
-This man page is current for version 2.6.7pre1 of rsync.
+This man page is current for version 2.6.8 of rsync.
manpagesection(CREDITS)
Matt McCutchen's Web Site / rsync / rsync.git / blobdiff