mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Apr 2004)()()
+manpage(rsync)(1)(30 Sep 2004)()()
manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
manpagesynopsis()
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 already
-exists.
+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
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
-quote(rsync *.c foo:src/)
+quote(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
files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
/dest/foo:
-quote(rsync -avz /src/foo /dest)
-quote(rsync -avz /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
+quote(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)
+quote(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)
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
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(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(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(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)
+quote(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)
+
+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 SERVER)
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
--backup-dir make backups into this directory
--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
- --inplace update the destination file inplace
+ --inplace update the destination files inplace
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
-W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
--no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
- -B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size (default 700)
+ -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
--existing only update files that already exist
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
+ --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
+ --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
--modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
- --link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
+ --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
+ --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-P equivalent to --partial --progress
-z, --compress compress file data
-C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
--files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
-0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
--version print version number
- --daemon run as an rsync daemon
- --no-detach do not detach from the parent
- --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
- --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
- --port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
--stats give some file transfer stats
-4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
-h, --help show this help screen
+)
+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 specify alternate rsyncd port number
+ -4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
+ -6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
+ -h, --help show this help screen
)
manpageoptions()
startdit()
dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
-available in rsync
+available in rsync.
-dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit
+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
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 extract the full amount of
-network reduction it might otherwise.
+network reduction it might otherwise (since it does not yet try to sort
+data matches -- a future version may improve this).
-This option is useful for transfer of large files with block based changes
-and also on systems that are disk bound not network bound.
+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 --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
+the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir, --compare-dest, --copy-dest, and
+--link-dest (a future rsync version will hopefully update the protocol to
+remove these restrictions).
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 not update a file inplace that is not writable by the receiving
-user.
+rsync will be unable to update a file inplace that is not writable by the
+receiving user.
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
-they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink.
+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 --keep-dirlinks (-K)
+to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
+an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that case, the -L option
+will still have the side-effect of -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
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 -t or -a will
-cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, and all files will have
-their checksums compared and show up in log messages even if they haven't
-changed.
+cause the next transfer to behave as if it used -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 -t).
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.
files or directories. 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 letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
+may be a fractional value (e.g. "--max-size=1.5m").
+
dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving
side that aren't on the sending side. Files that are excluded from
transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done depth-first.
Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any effect.
-dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in
-the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details.
+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
transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
the temporary files in the receiving directory.
-dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR on
+dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
the destination machine as an additional directory to compare destination
files against when doing transfers if the files are missing in the
-destination directory. 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 (for
-example by moving directories around and removing the old directory,
-although this skips files that haven't changed; see also --link-dest).
-This option increases the usefulness of --partial because partially
-transferred files will remain in the new temporary destination until they
-have a chance to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative
-to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
-
-dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest) but
-also will create hard links from em(DIR) to the destination directory for
-unchanged files. Files with changed ownership or permissions will not be
-linked.
-Like bf(--compare-dest) if DIR is a relative path, it is relative
-to the destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
+destination directory. Files that are identical to one of the specified
+directories are not transferred. This is useful for creating a sparse
+backup into a new hierarchy. If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative
+to the destination directory. See also --copy-dest and --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 the data in the em(DIR) for an efficient 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. If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to
+the destination directory. See also --compare-dest and --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 ownership and permissions--if those items
+are being preserved--in order for the files to be linked together. If
+em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
An example:
verb(
rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
)
+If more than one --link-dest option is specified, rsync will try to find an
+exact match to link with (searching the list in the order specified), and
+if not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be selected to try
+to speed up the transfer. See also --compare-dest and --copy-dest.
+
+Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
+--link-dest from working properly for a non-root user when -o was specified
+(or implied by -a). If the receiving rsync is not new enough, you can work
+around this bug by avoiding the -o option.
+
dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the
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(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
-daemon may be accessed 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 rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
-details.
-
-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(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
-when run as a daemon with the --daemon option or when connecting to a
-rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
-address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
-in conjunction with the --config option.
-
-dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
-the default. This is only relevant when --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 root; in that case
-the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
-
-dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
-rather than the default port 873.
-
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
--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)) Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to
+put a partially transferred file into em(DIR) instead of writing out the
+file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this
+dir as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after
+rsync creates a partial file) and delete such a file after it has served
+its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied) that an
+existing partial-dir file will not be used to speedup the transfer (since
+rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
+
+Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
+whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
+"--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory
+in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to remove the em(DIR)
+if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the
+DIR was specified as a relative path).
+
+If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an
+--exclude of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
+will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
+untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
+the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
+rule at the end of any other include/exclude rules. Note that if you are
+supplying your own include/exclude rules, you may need to manually insert a
+rule for this directory exclusion 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 --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
+
+IMPORTANT: the --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 --partial to be
+enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when --partial (or
+-P) is used. For instance, instead of specifying --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp
+along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
+environment and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the
+.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time the --partial option
+does not look for this environment value is when --inplace was also
+specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir).
+
dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
something to watch.
These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
-dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. I
-found myself typing that combination quite often so I created an
-option to make it easier.
+dit(bf(-P)) The -P option is equivalent to --partial --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 a remote rsync server. Note that this option
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, or the incoming sockets that an rsync daemon uses 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 --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
+rsync daemon (see also these options in the --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
enddit()
+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 may be accessed 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 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 --daemon option or when connecting to a
+rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a specific IP
+address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
+in conjunction with the --config option.
+
+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 --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 --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 root; 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 to use
+rather than the default port 873.
+
+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 --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
+
+dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after --daemon, print a short help
+page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
+
+enddit()
+
manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
-of rsync. The interface or behavior may change before it stabilizes.
+of rsync. The interface and behavior have now stabilized, though, so
+feel free to try this out.
Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
-is encountered the update might fail at that point, leaving the
-destination tree in a partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
+is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
+appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
+and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
+error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
+if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
+always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I
+option (when reading the batch).
+If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
+partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
destination tree.
The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
-one used to generate the batch file.
+one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
+protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
+to handle.
The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
error.
-You should use an equivalent set of options when reading a batch file that
-you used when generating it with a few exceptions. For instance
+When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
+to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
+as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
+For instance
--write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and the
--include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified
-without --delete-excluded. Other options that affect how the update
-happens should generally remain the same as it is possible to confuse rsync
-into expecting a different data stream than the one that is contained in
-the batch file. For example, it would not work to change the setting of
-the -H or -c option, but it would work to add or remove the --delete
-option.
+without --delete-excluded.
The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude
options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
-See bf(http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html) for papers and technical
-reports.
+The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
+version uses a new implementation.
manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
Matt McCutchen's Web Site / rsync / rsync.git / blobdiff