mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(10 Feb 1999)()()
+manpage(rsync)(1)(1 Mar 1999)()()
manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
manpagesynopsis()
-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
-l, --links preserve soft links
-L, --copy-links treat soft links like regular files
+ --copy-unsafe-links copy links outside the source tree
--safe-links ignore links outside the destination tree
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
-C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
--delete delete files that don't exist on the sending side
+ --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on the receiving side
--partial keep partially transferred files
--force force deletion of directories even if not empty
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set IO timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't exclude files that match length and time
+ --size-only only use file size when determining if a file should be transferred
-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
--compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
-z, --compress compress file data
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(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
already the same length and have the same time-stamp. This option turns
off this behavior.
+dit(bf(-I, --size-only)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
+already the same length and have the same time-stamp. With the
+--size-only option files will be skipped 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(-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 skipped. This option can be quite slow.
-dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptDg. It is a quick way
+dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptg. It is a quick way
of saying you want recursion and want to preserve everything.
-Note: if the user launching rsync is root then the -o option (preserve
-uid) is also implied.
+Note: if the user launching rsync is root then the -o (preserve
+uid) and -D (preserve devices) options are also implied.
-dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively.
+dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
+recursively. If you don't specify this then rsync won't copy
+directories at all.
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
renamed with a ~ extension as each file is transferred. You can
control the backup suffix using the --suffix option.
-dit(bf(--suffix SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
+dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
backup suffix used with the -b option. The default is a ~.
dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files for which the
option, all symbolic links are skipped.
dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links just
-like ordinary files.
+like ordinary files.
+
+dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links that
+point outside the source tree like ordinary files. Absolute symlinks are
+also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the source
+path itself when --relative is used.
dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
which point outside the destination tree. All absolute symlinks are
access to the usernames.
dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group
-of the file to be the same as the local group. Note that if the source
-system is a daemon using chroot, the --numeric-ids option is implied because
-the source system cannot get access to the group names.
+of the file to be the same as the local group. If the receving system is
+not running as the super-user, only groups that the receiver is a member of
+will be preserved (by group name, not group id number).
dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
block device information to the remote system to recreate these
contents of only one filesystem.
dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving
-side that aren't on the sending side. This option can be dangerous if
-used incorrectly!
+side that aren't on the sending side. Files that are excluded from
+transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
-It is a very good idea to run first using the dry run option (-n) to
-see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't
-listed.
+This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
+
+This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
+to run first using the dry run option (-n) to see what files would be
+deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
rsync 1.6.4 changed the behavior of --delete to make it less
dangerous. rsync now only scans directories on the receiving side
sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
destination.
+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 --exclude).
+
dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
they are not empty. This applies to both the --delete option and to
cases where rsync tries to copy a normal file but the destination
-contains a directory of the same name. Normally rsync will refuse to
-do a recursive directory deletion in such cases, by using --force
-the recursive deletion will be done.
+contains a directory of the same name.
-Use this option with caution!
+Since this option was added, deletions were reordered to be done depth-first
+so it is hardly ever needed anymore except in very obscure cases.
-dit(bf(-B , --block_size BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in
+dit(bf(-B , --block_size=BLOCKSIZE)) This controls the block size used in
the rsync algorithm. See the technical report for details.
-dit(bf(-e, --rsh COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
+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. By default, rsync will use rsh, but you may
like to instead use ssh because of its high security.
You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
environment variable.
-dit(bf(--rsync-path PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
+dit(bf(--rsync-path=PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path.
-dit(bf(--exclude pattern)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
+dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most
useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
See the section on exclude patterns for information on the syntax of
this option.
-dit(bf(--exclude-from FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
+dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
option, but instead it adds all filenames listed in the file FILE to
the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with ';' or '#'
are ignored.
-dit(bf(--include pattern)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
+dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to
build up quite complex exclude/include rules.
See the section of exclude patterns for information on the syntax of
this option.
-dit(bf(--include-from FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
+dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
from a file.
dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
Finally in each directory any files listed in the .cvsignore file in
that directory are added to the list.
-dit(bf(--csum-length LENGTH)) By default the primary checksum used in
+dit(bf(--csum-length=LENGTH)) By default the primary checksum used in
rsync is a very strong 16 byte MD4 checksum. In most cases you will
find that a truncated version of this checksum is quite efficient, and
this will decrease the size of the checksum data sent over the link,
if a 2nd pass is required with a longer block checksum. Only use this
option if you have read the source code and know what you are doing.
-dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
+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
the temporary files in the receiving directory.
-dit(bf(--compare-dest DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as an
+dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as an
additional directory to compare destination files against when doing
transfers. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while
leaving existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all
respond to requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
details.
-dit(bf(--config FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
+dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
the default /etc/rsyncd.conf. This is only relevant when --daemon is
specified.
-dit(bf(--port PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
+dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
rather than the default port 873.
dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
directory, not a file, link or device.
it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
- *?[ then regular expression matching is applied using the
- normal shell filename matching rules. Otherwise a simple string
- match is used.
+ *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
+ matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) then it
is matched against the full filename, including any leading
directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / then it is matched
- only against the final component of the filename.
+ only against the final component of the filename. Furthermore, if
+ the pattern includes a double asterisk "**" then all wildcards in
+ the pattern will match slashes, otherwise they will stop at slashes.
it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file in the base directory called foo
it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
+ it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
+ levels below a base directory called foo
+ it() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
+ or more levels below a base directory called foo
it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
directories and C source files
it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
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