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
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
itemize(
- it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups and permissions
+ 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
itemize(
it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
source nor destination path contains a : separator
-
it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
single : separator.
-
it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
contains a : separator.
-
it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
separator or an rsync:// URL.
-
it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
separator or an rsync:// URL.
-
it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
- separator and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is
+ separator and the bf(--rsh=COMMAND) (aka "bf(-e COMMAND)") option is
also provided.
-
it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
destination path contains a :: separator and the
- --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
-
+ bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option is also provided.
it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
- local destination.
+ local destination.
)
Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
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 -e
+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.
One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
security.
Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
-machines.
+machines.
manpagesection(USAGE)
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
-quote(rsync *.c foo:src/)
+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
remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
differences. See the tech report for details.
-quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
+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
in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
size of data portions of the transfer.
-quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp)
+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
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(
+tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
+tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)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.
-quote(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::)
+quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
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 SERVER)
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
-running on TCP port 873.
+running on TCP port 873.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
itemize(
it() you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
separate the hostname from the path or an rsync:// URL.
-
it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
connect.
-
it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
-
it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
specified files on the remote server is provided.
)
Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
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 --password-file option. This
+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 --password-file is recommended.
+users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
-below).
+below).
From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
---rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
+bf(--rsh=COMMAND). (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
this functionality.)
In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
-quote(rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
+verb( rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" \
+ rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
-An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
+An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
-is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
+is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
(typically $HOME).
manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
-server configuration file.
+server configuration file.
Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
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(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup)
+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:
-quote( get:nl()
- rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
-
- put:nl()
- rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
-
- sync: get put)
+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.
+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
+command:
-quote(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba")
+tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
-this is launched from cron every few hours.
+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(
+to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
- -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
+ -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
-c, --checksum always checksum
- -a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
+ -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
+ -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-relative turn off --relative
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
- --backup-dir make backups into this directory
+ --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
- -u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
+ -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
+ --inplace update destination files in-place
+ -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
- -L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
- --copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
- --safe-links ignore "unsafe" 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
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
+ -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
-g, --group preserve group
-D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
-t, --times preserve times
+ -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
- -W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
- --no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
+ -W, --whole-file copy files whole
+ --no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
- -B, --block-size=SIZE checksum blocking size (default 700)
- -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
+ -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
+ -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
--existing only update files that already exist
--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
+ --del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete files that don't exist on sender
- --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
+ --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
--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
--partial keep partially transferred files
- --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
+ --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
+ --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
- -I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
- --size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
- --modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
+ -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
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
- --link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
- -P equivalent to --partial --progress
+ --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
+ --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data
- -C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
+ -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
+ -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
+ -F same as --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
+ repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
- --exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
+ --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
- --include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
- --files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
- -0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
+ --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
+ --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
+ -0 --from0 all *from 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
+ --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate 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
+ --no-blocking-io turn off blocking I/O when it is default
+ --stats give some file-transfer stats
--progress show progress during transfer
- --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
- --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
- --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
- --write-batch=PREFIX write batch fileset starting with PREFIX
- --read-batch=PREFIX read batch fileset starting with PREFIX
+ -P same as --partial --progress
+ --log-format=FORMAT log file-transfers using specified format
+ --password-file=FILE read 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
+ --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
+ --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
-4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
- -h, --help show this help screen
+ -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 listen on alternate port number
+ -v, --verbose increase verbosity
+ -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
-single -v will give you information about what files are being
-transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you
+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 -v flags should only be used if
+information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
you are debugging rsync.
dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
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
---size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
+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.
modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to
set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
transferring to Windows FAT filesystems which cannot represent times
-with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
+with a 1 second resolution bf(--modify-window=1) is useful.
dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
-dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick
+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.
+everything. The only exception to this is if bf(--files-from) was
+specified, in which case bf(-d) is implied instead of bf(-r).
-Note however that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
+Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
specify bf(-H).
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.
+recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
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
you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
example, if you used the command
-verb(rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
+quote(tt( rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
machine. If instead you used
-verb(rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)
+quote(tt( rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
-machine -- the full path name is preserved.
+machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
+path information that is sent, do something like this:
-dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the --relative option. This is only
-needed if you want to use --files-from without its implied --relative
+quote(
+tt( cd /foo)nl()
+tt( rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)nl()
+)
+
+That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
+
+dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the bf(--relative) option. This is only
+needed if you want to use bf(--files-from) without its implied bf(--relative)
file processing.
-dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the --relative option, the
+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 -R,
+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 --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
+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(-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
---backup-dir and --suffix options.
+bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
-dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the --backup option, this
+dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
-specify a backup suffix using the --suffix option
+specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
will keep their original filenames).
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory
(which changes in a recursive transfer).
dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
-backup suffix used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~
-if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
+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 for which the
-destination file already exists and has a date later than the source
-file.
+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 currently implementation, a difference of file format is always
+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),
+bf(--copy-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(-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 was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
+name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). 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).
+
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 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 --relative is used.
+source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
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 --relative may
-give unexpected results.
+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
This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
+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(-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
-target machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
+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 target are on the local machine.
+the source and destination are specified as local paths.
-dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
+dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off bf(--whole-file), for use when it is the
default.
dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
-circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
+circumstances. See 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, 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 --numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
+circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
block device information to the remote system to recreate these
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 -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.
+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).
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.
boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
contents of only one filesystem.
-dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files -
+dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files --
only update files that already exist on the destination.
dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
-This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
-the destination.
+This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
+the destination.
dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
files or directories. This is useful when mirroring very large trees
to prevent disasters.
-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.
+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. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
-This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
+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
+excluded from being deleted unless you use bf(--delete-excluded).
+
+This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.
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
+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
+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 --ignore-errors option.
+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 currently choose the
+bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
+bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
+
+dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
+side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
+or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
+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).
+
+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-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.
+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 --exclude).
-Implies --delete.
-
-dit(bf(--delete-after)) By default rsync does file deletions on the
-receiving side before transferring files to try to ensure that there is
-sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If you want to delete
-after transferring, use the --delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
+delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
+See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
-dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files
+dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
even when there are I/O errors.
dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
-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.
+is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
+Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-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
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
-quote(-e "ssh -p 2234")
+quote(tt( -e "ssh -p 2234"))
(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 -e.
+environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
-See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
+See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
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. Note
The exclude list is initialized to:
-quote(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
+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/)
+.del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
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.
+.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.
-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.
-
-You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like
+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 -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 EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
+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=': /.rsync-filter'))
-dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
+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='- .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 similar to the bf(--exclude)
option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in 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 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.
+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 EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
+See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
from a file.
-If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
+If em(FILE) is "-" 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 "-"
-for stdin). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
-transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For
-instance, the --relative option is enabled by default when this option
-is used (use --no-relative if you want to turn that off), all
-directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
-than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's
-behavior does not imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if
-you want it.
+for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
+transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
+
+quote(itemize(
+ 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) 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.
+ it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
+ (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
+))
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(rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
+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 (but the
-contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified -r
+contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified bf(-r)
or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
-that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to
+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 --files-from file can be read from the remote host
+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(rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
+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 filenames it reads from a
file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
-This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, and --files-from.
-It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
+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
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
-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).
+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 and rsync will search the list in the order specified until it
+finds an existing file. That first discovery is used as the basis file,
+and also determines if the transfer needs to happen.
+
+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 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 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:
-verb(
- rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
-)
+quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
+
+Beginning with version 2.6.4, if more than one bf(--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.
+
+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-root 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 any data from
the files that it sends to the destination machine. This
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 --numeric-ids
+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
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.
+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(--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,
blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
-dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
+dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off bf(--blocking-io), for use when it is the
default.
dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
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
---partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
+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)) Turns on bf(--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 bf(--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
+"bf(--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
+bf(--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 bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
+rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
+supplying your own filter 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 bf(--exclude='*') rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
+
+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 effects 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 time that the bf(--partial)
+option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
+specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
+bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
+
+dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
+updated file into the file's partial-dir (see above) 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. If you don't specify the bf(--partial-dir) option, this option will
+cause it to default to ".~tmp~" (RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR is not consulted for
+this value). Conflicts with bf(--inplace).
+
+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 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).
+
+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(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
something to watch.
-Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
+Implies bf(--verbose) without incrementing verbosity.
When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
-verb(
- 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
-)
+verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
remaining in this transfer.
-After the a file is complete, it the data looks like this:
+After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
-verb(
- 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
-)
+verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
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 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 a remote rsync server. Note that this option
must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
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 power user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
+options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
+non-recursive listing.
+
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
result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
of zero specifies no limit.
-dit(bf(--write-batch=PREFIX)) Generate a set of files that can be
-transferred as a batch update. Each filename in the set starts with
-PREFIX. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
+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.
-dit(bf(--read-batch=PREFIX)) Apply a previously generated change batch,
-using the fileset whose filenames start with PREFIX. See the "BATCH
-MODE" section for details.
+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 "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
+See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
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
+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 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()
+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 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 bf(--daemon) option or when connecting to a
+rsync server. 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 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 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(-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 --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
+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(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
+manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
-The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
-selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip.
+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).
-Rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
-the command line. Rsync checks each file and directory
-name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. 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 include/exclude pattern is found then the
+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.
-The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative
-to the "root of the transfer". If you think of the transfer as a
-subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the root
-is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory.
-This root governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
-
-Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
-trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative
-option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
-changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
-system). The following examples demonstrate this.
-
-Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
-path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
-Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
+Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
+command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
-verb(
- Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
- +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
- +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
- Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
- Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
-
- Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
- +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
- +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
- Target file: /dest/foo/bar
- Target file: /dest/bar/baz
-
- Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
- +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
- +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
- Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
- Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
-
- Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
- +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
- +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
- Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
- Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
+quote(
+tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
+tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
)
-The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just
-look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
-(use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
-
-Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a),
-every subcomponent of
-every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get
-applied recursively to each subcomponent.
-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.
-
-Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern
-each. To add multiple patterns use the --include-from and
---exclude-from options or multiple --include and --exclude options.
+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(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
+)
-The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
+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 "+" and
+"-" 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:
itemize(
-
- it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the
- start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of
- the filename.
- This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regular expressions.
- Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root
- (see above for how this is different from the filesystem-root).
- On the other hand, "foo" would match any file called "foo"
+ 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 called "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.
-
+ 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() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
*?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
-
it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
-
it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
- then it is matched against the full filename, including any leading
- directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
- matched only against the final component of the filename. Again,
- remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can
- actually be any portion of a path below the starting directory.
-
- it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
- then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
- part of an exclude option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
-
- it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)
- then it is always considered an exclude pattern, even if specified as
- part of an include option. The prefix is discarded before matching.
-
- it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current
- include/exclude list is reset, removing all previously defined patterns.
+ 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.)
)
-The +/- rules are most useful in a list that was read from a file, allowing
-you to have a single exclude list that contains both include and exclude
-options in the proper order.
-
-Remember that the matching occurs at every step in the traversal of the
-directory hierarchy, so you must be sure that all the parent directories of
-the files you want to include are not excluded. This is particularly
-important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
+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:
-verb(
- + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
- + /file-is-included
- - *
+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"
+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: --include='*/' (put it somewhere
-before the --exclude='*' rule). 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:
-
-verb(
- + /some/
- + /some/path/
- + /some/path/this-file-is-found
- + /file-also-included
- - *
+to be included by using a single rule: "+_*/" (put it somewhere before the
+"-_*" rule). 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:
itemize(
- it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
- it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
- it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
+ 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() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
+ it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
- directories and C source files
- it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
- only foo/bar.c (the foo/ directory must be explicitly included or
- it would be excluded by the "*")
+ it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
+ directories and C source files but nothing else.
+ 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(BATCH MODE)
+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:
+
+itemize(
+ 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.
+)
+
+The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
+
+itemize(
+ it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude should be treated as an
+ absolute path, relative to the root of the filesystem. For example,
+ "-/_/etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
+ was sending files from the "/etc" directory.
+ it() A "!" 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.
+)
+
+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".)
-bf(Note:) Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version
-of rsync. The interface or behavior may change before it stabilizes.
+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 <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
+tt(+ foo.o)nl()
+tt(:C)nl()
+tt(- *.old)nl()
+tt(EOT)nl()
+tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
+)
+
+Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
+the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
+at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
+that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
+affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
+the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
+omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
+your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
+
+manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
+
+You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
+rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
+list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
+parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
+inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
+out the parent's rules).
+
+manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
+
+As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
+"root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
+anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
+a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
+transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
+directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
+
+Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
+trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
+option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
+changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
+host). The following examples demonstrate this.
+
+Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
+path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
+Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
+
+quote(
+ Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
+ +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
+ +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
+ Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
+ Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
+)
+
+quote(
+ Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
+ +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
+ +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
+ Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
+ Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
+)
+
+quote(
+ Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
+ +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
+ +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
+ Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
+ Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
+)
+
+quote(
+ Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
+ +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
+ +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
+ Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
+ Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
+)
+
+The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
+look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
+(use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
+
+manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
+
+Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
+sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
+without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
+this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
+
+quote(
+tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
+tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
+)
+
+However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
+files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
+receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
+the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
+because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
+rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
+
+quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
+
+However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
+either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
+line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
+the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
+remote .rules files exclude themselves):
+
+verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
+ --delete host:src/dir /dest)
+
+In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
+transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
+merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
+per-directory merge rule.
+
+In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
+files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
+to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
+specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
+deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
+should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
+
+verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
+ host:src/dir /dest
+ rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
+
+manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
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
hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
-client to store the information needed to repeat this operation against
-other destination trees in a batch update fileset (see below). The
-filename of each file in the fileset starts with a prefix specified by
-the user as an argument to the write-batch option. This fileset is
-then copied to each remote host, where rsync is run with the read-batch
-option, again specifying the same prefix, and the destination tree.
-Rsync updates the destination tree using the information stored in the
-batch update fileset.
+client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
+this operation against other, identical destination trees.
+
+To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
+with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
+file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
+using the information stored in the batch file.
+
+For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
+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
+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.
+
+Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
+status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
+updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
+be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
+at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
-The fileset consists of 4 files:
+Examples:
-itemize(
-it() bf(<prefix>.rsync_argvs) command-line arguments
-it() bf(<prefix>.rsync_flist) rsync internal file metadata
-it() bf(<prefix>.rsync_csums) rsync checksums
-it() bf(<prefix>.rsync_delta) data blocks for file update & change
+quote(
+tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
+tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
+tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
)
-The .rsync_argvs file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
-destination tree using that batch update fileset. It can be executed
-using a 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.
-
-Generating the batch update fileset once saves having to perform the
-file status, checksum and data block generation more than once when
-updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
-be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts at
-once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
+quote(
+tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
+tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
+)
-Example:
+In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
+and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
+"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
+into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
+reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
-verb(
- $ rsync --write-batch=pfx -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
- $ rcp pfx.rsync_* remote:
- $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=pfx -a /bdest/dir/
- # or alternatively
- $ ssh remote ./pfx.rsync_argvs /bdest/dir/
+itemize(
+ it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
+ local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
+ remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
+ it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
+ rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
+ it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
+ the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
+ This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
+ bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
+ make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
+ standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
)
-In this example, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ with /source/dir/
-and the information to repeat this operation is stored in the files
-pfx.rsync_*. These files are then copied to the machine named "remote".
-Rsync is then invoked on "remote" to update /bdest/dir/ the same way as
-/adest/dir/. The last line shows the rsync_argvs file being used to
-invoke rsync.
-
Caveats:
-The read-batch option expects the destination tree it is meant to update
+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 will 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 bf(-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 should be identical to the
-one used on the original destination.
-
-The -z/--compress option does not work in batch mode and yields a usage
-error. A separate compression tool can be used instead to reduce the
-size of the batch update files for transport to the destination.
+The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
+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 -n/--dryrun option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
+The bf(--dry-run) (bf(-n)) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
error.
-See bf(http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html) for papers and technical
-reports.
+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 bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
+bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
+bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
+one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
+
+The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
+options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
+shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
+list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
+user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
+to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
+
+The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
+version uses a new implementation.
manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
components to ascend from the directory being copied.
-manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
+manpagediagnostics()
rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
-version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
+version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
remote shell like this:
-verb(
- ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
-)
-
+quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > 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
scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
for non-interactive logins.
-If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude patterns, then
-try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
+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(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(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 waitpid()
-dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
+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 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(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
+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 --cvs-exclude option for
+ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
more details.
-
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 -e option.
-
+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 server.
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()
rsyncd.conf(5)
-manpagediagnostics()
-
manpagebugs()
times are transferred as unix time_t values
When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
unmodified files.
-See the comments on the --modify-window option.
+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 --delete option
+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/)
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.
+Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
manpageauthor()
Many people have later contributed to it.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at
-url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)
+url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)
Matt McCutchen's Web Site / rsync / rsync.git / blobdiff