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
+ specified files on the remote server is provided.
)
Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
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]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [USER@]HOST::DEST
- or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC DEST
+ or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
Options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
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(-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 unexpecetd results.
+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
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
of the file to be the same as the local owner. This is only available
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 user names.
+access to the usernames.
dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to update the remote group
of the file to be the same as the local group. Note that if the source
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
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 transfered (for example by moving directories
+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
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 the source system is a daemon using chroot, or if a user or group name
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
+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.
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
manpagesection(DIAGNOSTICS)
-rsync occasinally produces error messages that may seem a little
+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 ot diagnose this problem is to run your
+for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
remote shell like this:
verb(
should be a zero length file. You 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 configued shell startup
+it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
for non-interactive logins.
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()
the same as $A$. The obvious method is to copy $A$ onto $B$.
Now imagine that the two files are on machines connected by a slow
-communications link, for example a dial up IP link. If $A$ is large,
+communications link, for example a dialup IP link. If $A$ is large,
copying $A$ onto $B$ will be slow. To make it faster you could
compress $A$ before sending it, but that will usually only gain a
factor of 2 to 4.
little computation at each point.
Despite its simplicity, this checksum was found to be quite adequate as
-a first level check for a match of two file blocks. We have found in
+a first-level check for a match of two file blocks. We have found in
practice that the probability of this checksum matching when the
blocks are not equal is quite low. This is important because the much
more expensive strong checksum must be calculated for each block where
At each offset in the file the 32-bit rolling checksum and its 16-bit
hash are calculated. If the hash table entry for that hash value is
-not a null value, the second level check is invoked.
+not a null value, the second-level check is invoked.
-The second level check involves scanning the sorted checksum list
+The second-level check involves scanning the sorted checksum list
starting with the entry pointed to by the hash table entry, looking
for an entry whose 32-bit rolling checksum matches the current value.
The scan terminates when it reaches an entry whose 16-bit hash
-differs. If this search finds a match, the third level check is
+differs. If this search finds a match, the third-level check is
invoked.
-The third level check involves calculating the strong checksum for the
+The third-level check involves calculating the strong checksum for the
current offset in the file and comparing it with the strong checksum
value in the current list entry. If the two strong checksums match,
we assume that we have found a block of $A$ which matches a block of
\begin{description}
\item [block size] The size in bytes of the checksummed blocks.
\item [matches] The number of times a block of $B$ was found in $A$.
-\item [tag hits] The number of times the 16 bit hash of the rolling
+\item [tag hits] The number of times the 16-bit hash of the rolling
checksum matched a hash of one of the checksums from $B$.
-\item [false alarms] The number of times the 32 bit rolling checksum
+\item [false alarms] The number of times the 32-bit rolling checksum
matched but the strong checksum didn't.
\item [data] The amount of file data transferred verbatim, in bytes.
-\item [written] The total number of bytes written by $\alpha$
+\item [written] The total number of bytes written by $\alpha$,
including protocol overheads. This is almost all file data.
-\item [read] The total number of bytes read by $\alpha$ including
+\item [read] The total number of bytes read by $\alpha$, including
protocol overheads. This is almost all checksum information.
\end{description}
rolling checksum plus 16 bytes for the 128-bit MD4 checksum.
The number of false alarms was less than $1/1000$ of the number of
-true matches, indicating that the 32 bit rolling checksum is quite
+true matches, indicating that the 32-bit rolling checksum is quite
good at screening out false matches.
The number of tag hits indicates that the second level of the
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