manpagedescription()
-rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
+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.
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(
--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
+ -t, --times preserve modification times
+ -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --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)
--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
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 time-stamp.
+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)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
-already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
-bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
-regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
-after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
-exactly.
+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 looking for files that have changed in 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
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
+file. (If an existing destination file has a modification 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
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)
-option to force rsync to attempt super-user activities).
+and bf(--fake-super) options).
Without this option, the owner is set to the invoking user on the
receiving side.
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 and bf(--super) is not specified.
+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.
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, 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.
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).
+(which can be useful if all you want to do is 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).
+This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
+option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
+a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
+used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
+already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
+permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
+is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
+
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.
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
+The filenames 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:
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).
+ means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
+ anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a regular 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
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
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
+ Thus "/foo" would match a name of "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
+ An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "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
+ end of the filename. 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.
+ directory, not a regular file, symlink, 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 '[' .
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
+ "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
(as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
version 2.6.7.
)
Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
itemization(
- it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
+ it() "- *.o" would exclude all names 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
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.
Matt McCutchen's Web Site / rsync / rsync.git / blobdiff