rsync(1)rsync(1)NAMErsync - faster, flexible replacement for rcp
SYNOPSISrsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]...
rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
DESCRIPTIONrsync 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.
The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer
just the differences between two sets of files across the
network link, using an efficient checksum-search algorithm
described in the technical report that accompanies this
package.
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
o support for copying links, devices, owners, groups
and permissions
o exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
o a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that
CVS would ignore
o can use any transparent remote shell, including rsh
or ssh
o does not require root privileges
o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency
costs
o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync
servers (ideal for mirroring)
GENERAL
There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
o for copying local files. This is invoked when nei-
ther source nor destination path contains a : sepa-
rator
o for copying from the local machine to a remote
machine using a remote shell program as the trans-
port (such as rsh or ssh). This is invoked when the
destination path contains a single : separator.
o for copying from a remote machine to the local
machine using a remote shell program. This is
invoked when the source contains a : separator.
o for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
machine. This is invoked when the source path con-
tains a :: separator or a rsync:// URL.
o for copying from the local machine to a remote
rsync server. This is invoked when the destination
path contains a :: separator or a rsync:// URL.
o 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 also
provided.
o for copying from the local machine to a remote
machine using a remote shell program as the trans-
port, using rsync server on the remote machine.
This is invoked when the destination path contains
a :: separator and the --rsh=COMMMAND option is
also provided.
o 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 (other than listing) at least one
of the source and destination paths must be local.
SETUP
See the file README for installation instructions.
Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you
can access via a remote shell (as well as some that you
can access using the rsync daemon-mode protocol). For
remote transfers, rsync typically uses rsh for its commu-
nications, but it may have been configured to use a dif-
ferent remote shell by default, such as ssh.
You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by
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 security.
Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and
destination machines.
USAGE
You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must spec-
ify a source and a destination, one of which may be
remote.
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is some exam-
ples:
rsync *.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 the files already exist on the
remote system then the rsync remote-update protocol is
used to update the file by sending only the differences.
See the tech report for details.
rsync-avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp
this would recursively transfer all files from the direc-
tory 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 pre-
served in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be
used to reduce the size of data portions of the transfer.
rsync-avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp
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/. A trailing / on a source
name means "copy the contents of this directory". Without
a trailing slash it means "copy the directory". This dif-
ference becomes particularly important when using the
--delete option.
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.
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.)
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.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by set-
ting the environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a host-
name:port pair pointing to your web proxy. Note that your
web proxy's configuration must allow proxying to port 873.
Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a
remote shell except that:
o you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon
to separate the hostname from the path or a
rsync:// URL.
o the remote server may print a message of the day
when you connect.
o if you specify no path name on the remote server
then the list of accessible paths on the server
will be shown.
o if you specify no local destination then a listing
of the specified files on the remote server is pro-
vided.
Some paths on the remote server may require authentica-
tion. 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
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.
CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM
It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers
using rsync server capabilities on the remote machine,
while still using rsh or ssh for transport. This is espe-
cially useful when you want to connect 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).
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 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:
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.
RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER
An rsync server is configured using a config 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 com-
puter (typically $HOME).
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.
Several configuration options will not be available unless
the remote user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid,
etc.). There is no need to configure inetd or the ser-
vices map to include the rsync server port if you run an
rsync server only via a remote shell program.
To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, use
the "command=COMMAND" syntax in the remote user's autho-
rized_keys entry, where command would be
rsync--server --daemon .
NOTE: rsync's argument parsing expects the trailing ".",
so make sure that it's there. If you want to use a
rsyncd.conf(5)-style configuration file other than the
default, you can added a --config option to the command:
rsync--server --daemon --config=file .
EXAMPLES
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
rsync-Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup
each night over a PPP link to a duplicate directory on my
machine "arvidsjaur".
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following
Makefile targets:
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 link. I then do cvs operations on the remote
machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote cvs pro-
tocol isn't very efficient.
I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites
with the command
rsync-az-e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nim-
bus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba"
this is launched from cron every few hours.
OPTIONS SUMMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync.
Please refer to the detailed description below for a com-
plete description.
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet decrease verbosity
-c, --checksum always checksum
-a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
-b, --backup make backups (default ~ suffix)
--backup-dir make backups into this directory
--suffix=SUFFIX define backup suffix
-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links copy the referent of symlinks
--copy-unsafe-links copy links outside the source tree
--safe-links ignore links outside the destination tree
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
-g, --group preserve group
-D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
-t, --times preserve 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
-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 to use
--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
-C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
--existing only update files that already exist
--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on the receiving side
--delete delete files that don't exist on the sending side
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files on the receiving side
--delete-after delete after transferring, not before
--ignore-errors delete even if there are IO errors
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--partial keep partially transferred files
--force force deletion of directories even if not empty
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set IO timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't exclude files that match length and time
--size-only only use file size when determining if a file should be transferred
--modify-window=NUM Timestamp window (seconds) for file match (default=0)
-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
--compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
--link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
-P equivalent to --partial --progress
-z, --compress compress file data
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
--version print version number
--daemon run as a 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
--blocking-io use blocking IO for the remote shell
--no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
--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
--read-batch=PREFIX read batch fileset starting with PREFIX
--write-batch=PREFIX write batch fileset starting with PREFIX
-h, --help show this help screen
OPTIONSrsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the com-
mand line options have two variants, one short and one
long. These are shown below, separated by commas. Some
options only have a long variant. The '=' for options
that take a parameter is optional; whitespace can be used
instead.
-h, --help
Print a short help page describing the options
available in rsync--version
print the rsync version number and exit
-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 informa-
tion 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.
-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.
-I, --ignore-times
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already
the same length and have the same time-stamp. This
option turns off this behavior.
--size-only
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already
the same length and have the same time-stamp. With
the --size-only option files will be skipped if
they have the same size, regardless of timestamp.
This is useful when starting to use rsync after
using another mirroring system which may not pre-
serve timestamps exactly.
--modify-window
When comparing two timestamps rsync treats the
timestamps as being equal if they are within the
value of 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 can-
not represent times with a 1 second resolution
--modify-window=1 is useful.
-c, --checksum
This forces the sender to checksum all files using
a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The check-
sum is then explicitly checked on the receiver and
any files of the same name which already exist and
have the same checksum and size on the receiver are
skipped. This option can be quite slow.
-a, --archive
This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way
of saying you want recursion and want to preserve
almost everything.
Note however that -a does not preserve hardlinks,
because finding multiply-linked files is expensive.
You must separately specify -H.
-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively.
If you don't specify this then rsync won't copy
directories at all.
-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 file-
names. This is particularly useful when you want to
send several different directories at the same
time. For example, if you used the command
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
rsync-R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/
then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be cre-
ated on the remote machine. The full path name is
preserved.
-b, --backup
With this option preexisting destination files are
renamed with a ~ extension as each file is
transferred. You can control the backup suffix
using the --suffix option.
--backup-dir=DIR
In combination with the --backup option, this tells
rsync to store all backups in the specified direc-
tory. This is very useful for incremental backups.
You can additionally specify a backup suffix using
the --suffix option (otherwise the files backed up
in the specified directory will keep their original
filenames).
--suffix=SUFFIX
This option allows you to override the default
backup suffix used with the -b option. The default
is a ~. If --backup-dir and --suffix are both
specified, the SUFFIX is appended to the filename
even in the backup directory.
-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.
-l, --links
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink
on the destination.
-L, --copy-links
When symlinks are encountered, the file that they
point to is copied, rather than the symlink.
--copy-unsafe-links
This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic
links that point outside the source tree. Absolute
symlinks are also treated like ordinary files, and
so are any symlinks in the source path itself when
--relative is used.
--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.
-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.
Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both
parts of the link are in the list of files being
sent.
This option can be quite slow, so only use it if
you need it.
-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 "disk" is actually a networked
file system). This is the default when both the
source and target are on the local machine.
--no-whole-file
Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the
default.
-p, --perms
This option causes rsync to update the remote per-
missions to be the same as the local permissions.
-o, --owner
This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
destination file to be the same as the source file.
On most systems, only the super-user can set file
ownership. Note that if the remote system is a
daemon using chroot, the --numeric-ids option is
implied because the remote system cannot get access
to the usernames from /etc/passwd.
-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 mem-
ber of will be preserved (by group name, not group
id number).
-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 avail-
able to the super-user.
-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 mes-
sages even if they haven't changed.
-n, --dry-run
This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
instead it will just report the actions it would
have taken.
-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.
-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.
--existing
This tells rsync not to create any new files - only
update files that already exist on the destination.
--ignore-existing
This tells rsync not to update files that already
exist on the destination.
--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.
--delete
This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiv-
ing side that aren't on the sending side. Files
that are excluded from transfer are excluded from
being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded.
This option has no effect if directory recursion is
not selected.
This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly!
It is a very good idea to run first using the dry
run option (-n) to see what files would be deleted
to make sure important files aren't listed.
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 tempo-
rary 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.
--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.
--delete-after
By default rsync does file deletions before
transferring files to try to ensure that there is
sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If
you want to delete after transferring then use the
--delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even
when there are IO errors.
--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.
-B , --block-size=BLOCKSIZE
This controls the block size used in the rsync
algorithm. See the technical report for details.
-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. Typi-
cally, rsync is configured to use rsh by default,
but you may prefer to use ssh because of its high
security.
If this option is used with [user@]host::mod-
ule/path, then the remote shell COMMMAND will be
used to run an rsync server on the remote host, and
all data will be transmitted through that remote
shell connection, rather than through a direct
socket connection to a running rsync server on the
remote host. See the section "CONNECTING TO AN
RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND
provided that COMMAND is presented to rsync as a
single argument. For example:
-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.
See also the --blocking-io option which is affected
by this option.
--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 that this is the full path to the
binary, not just the directory that the binary is
in.
--exclude=PATTERN
This option allows you to selectively exclude cer-
tain files from the list of files to be trans-
ferred. This is most useful in combination with a
recursive transfer.
You may use as many --exclude options on the com-
mand line as you like to build up the list of files
to exclude.
See the section on exclude patterns for information
on the syntax of this option.
--exclude-from=FILE
This option is similar to the --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
FILE is - the list will be read from standard
input.
--include=PATTERN
This option tells rsync to not exclude the speci-
fied pattern of filenames. This is useful as it
allows you to build up quite complex
exclude/include rules.
See the section of exclude patterns for information
on the syntax of this option.
--include-from=FILE
This specifies a list of include patterns from a
file. If FILE is - the list will be read from
standard input.
-C, --cvs-exclude
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad
range of files that you often don't want to trans-
fer between systems. It uses the same algorithm
that CVS uses to determine if a file should be
ignored.
The exclude list is initialized to:
RCS/ SCCS/ CVS/ .svn/ CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags
TAGS .make.state .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* *.old
*.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* *.a *.o *.obj *.so
*.Z *.elc *.ln core
then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added
to the list and any files listed in the CVSIGNORE
environment variable (space delimited).
Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same
directory as a .cvsignore file and matches one of
the patterns listed therein. See the cvs(1) manual
for more information.
--csum-length=LENGTH
By default the primary checksum used in rsync is a
very strong 16 byte MD4 checksum. In most cases you
will find that a truncated version of this checksum
is quite efficient, and this will decrease the size
of the checksum data sent over the link, making
things faster.
You can choose the number of bytes in the truncated
checksum using the --csum-length option. Any value
less than or equal to 16 is valid.
Note that if you use this option then you run the
risk of ending up with an incorrect target file.
The risk with a value of 16 is microscopic and can
be safely ignored (the universe will probably end
before it fails) but with smaller values the risk
is higher.
Current versions of rsync actually use an adaptive
algorithm for the checksum length by default, using
a 16 byte file checksum to determine 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.
-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.
--compare-dest=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the des-
tination machine as an additional directory to com-
pare destination files against when doing transfers
if the files are missing in the destination direc-
tory. 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 mov-
ing directories around and removing the old direc-
tory, although this skips files that haven't
changed; see also --link-dest). This option
increases the usefulness of --partial because par-
tially 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.
--link-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --compare-dest but also
will create hard links from DIR to the destination
directory for unchanged files. Files with changed
ownership or permissions will not be linked.
-z, --compress
With this option, rsync compresses any data from
the files that it sends to the destination machine.
This option is useful on slow links. The compres-
sion method used is the same method that gzip uses.
Note this this option typically achieves better
compression ratios that can be achieved by using a
compressing remote shell, or a compressing trans-
port, as it takes advantage of the implicit infor-
mation sent for matching data blocks.
--numeric-ids
With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
and user ids rather than using user and group names
and mapping them at both ends.
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 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 does not exist on the des-
tination system, then the numeric id from the
source system is used instead.
--timeout=TIMEOUT
This option allows you to set a maximum IO timeout
in seconds. If no data is transferred for the spec-
ified time then rsync will exit. The default is 0,
which means no timeout.
--daemon
This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon.
The daemon may be accessed using the host::module
or 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.
--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 daemon-
tools or AIX's System Resource Controller. --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.
--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 host-
ing possible in conjunction with the --config
option.
--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).
--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
rather than the default port 873.
--blocking-io
This tells rsync to use blocking IO when launching
a remote shell transport. If -e or --rsh are not
specified or are set to the default "rsh", this
defaults to blocking IO, otherwise it defaults to
non-blocking IO. You may find the --blocking-io
option is needed for some remote shells that can't
handle non-blocking IO. (Note that ssh prefers
non-blocking IO.)
--no-blocking-io
Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the
default.
--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 conven-
tions as the log format option in rsyncd.conf.
--stats
This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statis-
tics on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how
effective the rsync algorithm is for your data.
--partial
By default, rsync will delete any partially trans-
ferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some
circumstances it is more desirable to keep par-
tially transferred files. Using the --partial
option tells rsync to keep the partial file which
should make a subsequent transfer of the rest of
the file much faster.
--progress
This option tells rsync to print information show-
ing the progress of the transfer. This gives a
bored user something to watch.
This option is normally combined with -v. Using
this option without the -v option will produce
weird results on your display.
-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 eas-
ier.
--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. It should contain just the pass-
word as a single line.
--bwlimit=KBPS
This option allows you to specify a maximum trans-
fer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is
most effective when using rsync with large files
(several megabytes and up). Due to the nature of
rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if
rsync determines the transfer was too fast, it will
wait before sending the next data block. The result
is an average transfer rate equalling the specified
limit. A value of zero specifies no limit.
--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.
--read-batch=PREFIX
Apply a previously generated change batch, using
the fileset whose filenames start with PREFIX. See
the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
EXCLUDE PATTERNS
The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow
for flexible selection of which files to transfer and
which files to skip.
rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as
specified on the command line. When a filename is encoun-
tered, rsync checks the 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 filename is not skipped.
Note that when used with -r (which is implied by -a),
every subcomponent of every path is visited from top down,
so include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to
each subcomponent.
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.
The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
o 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. Thus
"/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the base
of the tree. On the other hand, "foo" would match
any file called "foo" anywhere in the tree because
the algorithm is applied recursively from top down;
it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at
being the end of the file name.
o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only
match a directory, not a file, link or device.
o 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.
o if the pattern includes a double asterisk "**" then
all wildcards in the pattern will match slashes,
otherwise they will stop at slashes.
o if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trail-
ing /) then it is matched against the full file-
name, including any leading directory. If the pat-
tern doesn't contain 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.
o 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 "+ " part is discarded before matching.
o 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 "- " part is discarded before matching.
o if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then
the current include/exclude list is reset, removing
all previously defined patterns.
The +/- rules are most useful in exclude lists, allowing
you to have a single exclude list that contains both
include and exclude options.
If you end an exclude list with --exclude '*', note that
since the algorithm is applied recursively that unless you
explicitly include parent directories of files you want to
include then the algorithm will stop at the parent direc-
tories and never see the files below them. To include all
directories, use --include '*/' before the --exclude '*'.
Here are some exclude/include examples:
o --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames match-
ing *.o
o --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file in the base
directory called foo
o --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called
foo
o --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file
called bar two levels below a base directory called
foo
o --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file
called bar two or more levels below a base direc-
tory called foo
o --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would
include all directories and C source files
o --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude
"*" would include only foo/bar.c (the foo/ direc-
tory must be explicitly included or it would be
excluded by the "*")
BATCH MODE
Note: Batch mode should be considered experimental in this
version of rsync. The interface or behaviour may change
before it stabilizes.
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 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes
have been made to this source tree and those changes need
to be propagated to the other 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.
The fileset consists of 4 files:
o <prefix>.rsync_argvs command-line arguments
o <prefix>.rsync_flist rsync internal file metadata
o <prefix>.rsync_csums rsync checksums
o <prefix>.rsync_delta data blocks for file update &
change
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 path-
name 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 genera-
tion more than once when updating multiple destination
trees. Multicast transport protocols can be used to trans-
fer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts at
once, instead of sending the same data to every host indi-
vidually.
Example:
$ rsync --write_batch=pfx -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ rcp pfx.rsync_* remote:
$ rsh remote rsync --read_batch=pfx -a /bdest/dir/
# or alternatively
$ rsh remote ./pfx.rsync_argvs /bdest/dir/
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 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 destina-
tion tree in a partially updated state. In that case,
rsync can be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of oper-
ation to fix up the destination tree.
The rsync version used on all destinations should be iden-
tical 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 -n/--dryrun option does not work in batch mode and
yields a runtime error.
See http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html for
papers and technical reports.
SYMBOLIC LINKS
Three basic behaviours are possible when rsync encounters
a symbolic link in the source directory.
By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A
message "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any
symlinks that exist.
If --links is specified, then symlinks are recreated with
the same target on the destination. Note that --archive
implies --links.
If --copy-links is specified, then symlinks are "col-
lapsed" by copying their referent, rather than the sym-
link.
rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic
links. An example where this might be used is a web site
mirror that wishes ensure the rsync module they copy does
not include symbolic links to /etc/passwd in the public
section of the site. Using --copy-unsafe-links will cause
any links to be copied as the file they point to on the
destination. Using --safe-links will cause unsafe links
to be ommitted altogether.
Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute
symlinks (start with /), empty, or if they contain enough
".." components to ascend from the directory being
copied.
DIAGNOSTICSrsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a
little cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most con-
fusion 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:
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 get-
ting 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.
If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude
patterns, then try specifying the -vv option. At this
level of verbosity rsync will show why each individual
file is included or excluded.
EXIT VALUES
RERR_SYNTAX 1
Syntax or usage error
RERR_PROTOCOL 2
Protocol incompatibility
RERR_FILESELECT 3
Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
RERR_UNSUPPORTED 4
Requested action not supported: an attempt was made
to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that can-
not support them; or an option was speciifed that
is supported by the client and not by the server.
RERR_SOCKETIO 10
Error in socket IO
RERR_FILEIO 11
Error in file IO
RERR_STREAMIO 12
Error in rsync protocol data stream
RERR_MESSAGEIO 13
Errors with program diagnostics
RERR_IPC 14
Error in IPC code
RERR_SIGNAL 20
Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
RERR_WAITCHILD 21
Some error returned by waitpid()
RERR_MALLOC 22
Error allocating core memory buffers
RERR_TIMEOUT 30
Timeout in data send/receive
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CVSIGNORE
The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-
exclude option for more details.
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.
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.
RSYNC_PASSWORD
Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required password
allows you to run authenticated rsync connections
to a rsync daemon without user intervention. Note
that this does not supply a password to a shell
transport such as ssh.
USER or LOGNAME
The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used
to determine the default username sent to a rsync
server.
HOME The HOME environment variable is used to find the
user's default .cvsignore file.
FILES
/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
SEE ALSOrsyncd.conf(5)DIAGNOSTICSBUGS
times are transferred as unix time_t values
When transferring to FAT filesystmes rsync may resync
unmodified files. See the comments on the --modify-window
option.
file permissions, devices etc are transferred as native
numerical values
see also the comments on the --delete option
Please report bugs! See the website at
http://rsync.samba.org/
CREDITSrsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See
the file COPYING for details.
A WEB site is available at http://rsync.samba.org/. The
site includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions
unanswered by this manual page.
The primary ftp site for rsync is
ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync.
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this
program.
This program uses the excellent zlib compression library
written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
THANKS
Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite,
Stephen Rothwell and David Bell for helpful suggestions,
patches and testing of rsync. I've probably missed some
people, my apologies if I have.
Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus,
Sebastian Krahmer.
AUTHORrsync was written by Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org>
and Paul Mackerras.
rsync is now maintained by Martin Pool <mbp@samba.org>.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at
http://lists.samba.org
If you suspect you have found a security vulnerability in
rsync, please send it directly to Martin Pool and Andrew
Tridgell. For other enquiries, please use the mailing
list.
26 Jan 2003 rsync(1)
