-mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(13 May 1998)()()
+mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
+manpage(rsync)(1)(9 Feb 1999)()()
manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
manpagesynopsis()
rsync [options] path path
-rsync [options] [user@]host::path path
+rsync [options] [user@]host::module[/path] path
-rsync [options] path [user@]host::path
+rsync [options] path [user@]host::module[/path]
+
+rsync [options] rsync://[user@]host[:port]/module/path path
manpagedescription()
manpagesection(GENERAL)
-There are five different ways of using rsync. They are:
+There are six different ways of using rsync. They are:
itemize(
it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
single : separator.
it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
- using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the local path
+ 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.
+ separator or a rsync:// URL.
it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
separator.
+
+ 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.
)
-Note that in all cases at least one of the source and destination
-paths must be local.
+Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
+and destination paths must be local.
manpagesection(SETUP)
to. rsync uses rsh for its communications, unless both the source and
destination are local.
-You can also specify a alternative to rsh, by either using the -e
+You can also specify an alternative to rsh, by either using the -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
quote(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp)
-recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
+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
files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships etc are preserved
-in the transfer. Additionally compression will be used to reduce 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)
-With a trailing slash on the source this behavior changes to transfer
+a trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to transfer
all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the
-/data/tmp/. With a trailing / on a source name it means "copy the
+/data/tmp/. A trailing / on a source name means "copy the
contents of this directory". Without a trailing slash it means "copy
the directory". This difference becomes particularly important when
using the --delete option.
destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
an improved copy command.
+quote(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(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
running on TCP port 873.
-Using rsync in this was is the same as using it with rsh or ssh except
+Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with rsh or ssh except
that:
itemize(
separate the hostname from the path.
it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
- connect
+ 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. This may be useful when scripting rsync.
+the password you want to use or using the --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.
manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
-To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS word
-files and mail folders I use a cron job that runs
+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)
manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
-Here is a short summary of the options avalable in rsync. Please refer
+Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
to the detailed description below for a complete description.
verb(
+Usage: rsync [OPTION]... SRC [USER@]HOST:DEST
+ or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
+ or rsync [OPTION]... SRC DEST
+ or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
+ or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [USER@]HOST::DEST
+ or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
+
+Options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
+ -q, --quiet decrease verbosity
-c, --checksum always checksum
-a, --archive archive mode
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
-l, --links preserve soft links
-L, --copy-links treat soft links like regular files
+ --safe-links ignore links outside the destination tree
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
--timeout=TIME set IO timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't exclude files that match length and time
-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
+ --compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
-z, --compress compress file data
- --exclude=PATTERN exclude file FILE
- --exclude-from=PATTERN exclude files listed in FILE
- --include=PATTERN don't exclude file FILE
- --include-from=PATTERN don't exclude files listed in FILE
+ --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
+ --exclude-from=FILE exclude files listed in FILE
+ --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
+ --include-from=FILE don't exclude files listed in FILE
--suffix=SUFFIX override backup suffix
--version print version number
--daemon run as a rsync daemon
--port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
--stats give some file transfer stats
--progress show progress during transfer
+ --password-file=FILE get password from FILE
+ --log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
-h, --help show this help screen
)
rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
-below separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
+below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
startdit()
dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
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
+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
information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
information at the end. More than two -v flags should only be used if
-you are debugging rsync
+you are debugging rsync.
+
+dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
+are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
+from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
+cron.
dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
already the same length and have the same time-stamp. This option turns
receiver are skipped. This option can be quite slow.
dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to -rlptDg. It is a quick way
-of saying I want recursion and want to preserve everything.
+of saying you want recursion and want to preserve everything.
Note: if the user launching rsync is root then the -o option (preserve
uid) is also implied.
-dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively
+dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories recursively.
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
just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
-you want to sent several different directories at the same time. For
-example if you used the command
+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/)
dit(bf(-l, --links)) This tells rsync to recreate symbolic links on the
remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
-option all symbolic links are skipped.
+option, all symbolic links are skipped.
dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) This tells rsync to treat symbolic links just
like ordinary files.
+dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
+which point outside the destination tree. All absolute symlinks are
+also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may
+give unexpected results.
+
dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
option hard links are treated like regular files.
is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. This may be
useful when using rsync with a local machine.
-dit(bf(--partial)) By default rsync will delete any partially
+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
dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to update the remote owner
of the file to be the same as the local owner. This is only available
-to the super-user.
+to the super-user. Note that if the source system is a daemon using chroot,
+the --numeric-ids option is implied because the source system cannot get
+access to the usernames.
dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group
-of the file to be the same as the local group.
+of the file to be the same as the local group. Note that if the source
+system is a daemon using chroot, the --numeric-ids option is implied because
+the source system cannot get access to the group names.
dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
block device information to the remote system to recreate these
devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
-with the files and update them on the remote system
+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.
dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
up less space on the destination.
+NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
+filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
+correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
+
dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
contents of only one filesystem.
of the story is to use the -n option until you get used to the
behavior of --delete.
-NOTE: It also may delete files on the destination if the sending side
-can't open them or stat them. This is a bug that hopefully will be
-fixed in a future release.
+If the sending side detects any IO 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.
dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
they are not empty. This applies to both the --delete option and to
dit(bf(-e, --rsh COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
-remote copies of rsync. By default rsync will use rsh, but you may
+remote copies of rsync. By default, rsync will use rsh, but you may
like to instead use ssh because of its high security.
You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
environment variable.
dit(bf(--rsync-path PATH)) Use this to specify the path to the copy of
-rsync on the remote machine. Useful when its not in your path.
+rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not in your path.
dit(bf(--exclude pattern)) This option allows you to selectively exclude
certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is most
You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like
to build up the list of files to exclude.
-See the section of exclude patterns for information on the syntax of
+See the section on exclude patterns for information on the syntax of
this option.
dit(bf(--exclude-from FILE)) This option is similar to the --exclude
option, but instead it adds all filenames listed in the file FILE to
-the exclude list.
+the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with ';' or '#'
+are ignored.
dit(bf(--include pattern)) This option tells rsync to not exclude the
specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as it allows you to
if a 2nd pass is required with a longer block checksum. Only use this
option if you have read the source code and know what you are doing.
-dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This options instructs rsync to use DIR as a
-scratch directory when creating a temporary copies of the files
+dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
+scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
the temporary files in the receiving directory.
+dit(bf(--compare-dest DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as an
+additional directory to compare destination files against when doing
+transfers. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while
+leaving existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all
+files have been successfully transferred (for example by moving directories
+around and removing the old directory, although this requires also doing
+the transfer with -I to avoid skipping files that haven't changed). 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.
+
dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses any data from
the source file(s) which it sends to the destination machine. This
option is useful on slow links. The compression method used is the
By default rsync will use the user name and group name to determine
what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
-0 and never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
+0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the --numeric-ids
option is not specified.
-If a user or group name does not exist on the destination system then
-the numeric id from the source system is used instead.
+If the source system is a daemon using chroot, or if a user or group name
+does not exist on the destination system, then the numeric id from the
+source system is used instead.
dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum IO
timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
specified.
dit(bf(--port PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
-rather than the default port 873.
+rather than the default port 873.
+
+dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
+rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis. The log format is
+specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
+rsyncd.conf.
dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
something to watch.
+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
+is only useful when accessing a rsync server using the built in
+transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
+must not be world readable.
+
enddit()
manpagesection(EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible
-selection of what files to transfer and what files to skip.
+selection of which files to transfer and which files to skip.
-rsync build a ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
-the command line. When a filename is encountered rsync then checks the
+rsync builds a ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on
+the command line. When a filename is encountered, rsync checks the
name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching
pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern than 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
filename is not skipped.
-The patterns themselves can take several forms. The rules are:
+The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
itemize(
it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the
only against the final component of the filename.
it() if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space)
- then it is always considered a include pattern, even if specified as
+ then it is always considered an include pattern, even if specified as
part of an exclude option. The "+ " part is discarded before matching.
it() if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space)
- then it is always considered a exclude pattern, even if specified as
+ then it is always considered an exclude pattern, even if specified as
part of an include option. The "- " part is discarded before matching.
it() if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current
it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file in the base directory called foo
it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
- directories and C source files.
+ 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 "*")
+)
+
+manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
+
+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?".
+
+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(
+ rsh 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
+data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
+it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
+scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
+for non-interactive logins.
manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
are used to determine the default username sent to a rsync server.
-dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the users
+dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
default .cvsignore file.
enddit()
see also the comments on the --delete option
Please report bugs! The rsync bug tracking system is online at
-url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)
+url(http://rsync.samba.org/rsync/)(http://rsync.samba.org/rsync/)
manpagesection(VERSION)
This man page is current for version 2.0 of rsync
rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
COPYING for details.
-The primary ftp site for rsync is
-url(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync)(ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/rsync).
-
A WEB site is available at
-url(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)(http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/)
+url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
+
+The primary ftp site for rsync is
+url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
-This program uses the zlib compression library written by Jean-loup
-Gailly and Mark Adler.
+This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
+Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
manpagesection(THANKS)
manpageauthor()
rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. They may be
-contacted via email at tridge@samba.anu.edu.au and
+contacted via email at tridge@samba.org and
Paul.Mackerras@cs.anu.edu.au
Matt McCutchen's Web Site / rsync / rsync.git / blobdiff