SYNOPSIS
rsync [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
DESCRIPTION
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 is being
updated.
The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the dif-
ferences between two sets of files across the network connection, 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 permis-
sions
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 ssh or rsh
o does not require root privileges
o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
mirroring)
GENERAL
Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
current host (it does not support copying files between two remote
hosts).
-l".
As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
host, the copy occurs locally (see also the --list-only option).
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, a modern rsync uses ssh
for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a dif-
ferent remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
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 specify a source
and a destination, one of which may be remote.
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
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 the files
already exist on the remote system then the rsync remote-update proto-
col 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 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 sym-
bolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are
preserved 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 avoid creating
an additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a
rsync -av host: /dest
rsync -av host::module /dest
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.)
ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves
using quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
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.
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:
rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest
rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest
This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the trans-
port. In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon,
typically using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to
be running on the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAE-
MON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell
except that:
An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
rsync -av host::src /dest
Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
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.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the envi-
ronment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to your
web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support proxy
connections to port 873.
USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION
It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such
as named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections
into a system (other than what is already required to allow remote-
shell access). Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote
shell and then spawning a single-use "daemon" server that expects to
read its config file in the home dir of the remote user. This can be
useful if you want to encrypt a daemon-style transfer's data, but since
the daemon is started up fresh by the remote user, you may not be able
to use features such as chroot or change the uid used by the daemon.
(For another way to encrypt a daemon transfer, consider using ssh to
tunnel a local port to a remote machine and configure a normal rsync
daemon on that remote host to only allow connections from "localhost".)
From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell con-
nection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal rsync-dae-
mon transfer, with the only exception being that you must explicitly
set the remote shell program on the command-line with the --rsh=COMMAND
option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
this functionality.) For example:
rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest
If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that
the user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user
STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS
In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have
a daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like
inetd to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular
port). For full information on how to start a daemon that will han-
dling incoming socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page --
that is the config file for the daemon, and it contains the full
details for how to run the daemon (including stand-alone and inetd con-
figurations).
If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer,
there is no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
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 connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
"arvidsjaur".
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile tar-
gets:
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.
I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the com-
mand:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"
This is launched from cron every few hours.
OPTIONS SUMMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
-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 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 files whole (without rsync algorithm)
--no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
--existing only update files that already exist
--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
--remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete files that don't exist on sender
--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
--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 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
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
--log-format=FORMAT output filenames using the 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
--only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
--version print version number
-h, --help show this help screen
Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options
are accepted:
--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
OPTIONS
rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant. The
'=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace can be
used instead.
-h, --help
Print a short help page describing the options available in
rsync.
--version
print the rsync version number and exit.
tion when a file gets its attributes changed. If you ask for an
itemized list of changed attributes (either --itemize-changes or
adding "%i" to the --log-format setting), the output (on the
client) increases to mention all items that are changed in any
way. See the --log-format option for more details.
-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
size and have the same modification time-stamp. This option
turns off this "quick check" behavior.
--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, regardless of timestamp. This is useful when
starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which
may not preserve timestamps exactly.
--modify-window
When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the timestamps as
being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may
find it useful to set this to a larger value in some situations.
In particular, when transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT
filesystem (which represents times with a 2-second resolution),
--modify-window=1 is useful (allowing times to differ by up to 1
second).
-c, --checksum
This forces the sender to checksum all files using a 128-bit MD4
checksum before transfer. The checksum is then explicitly
checked on the receiver and any files of the same name which
already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
receiver are not transferred. 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. The only
exception to this is if --files-from was specified, in which
the last parts of the filenames. 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 created on the
remote machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the
amount of path information that is sent, do something like this:
cd /foo
rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/
That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
--no-relative
Turn off the --relative option. This is only needed if you want
to use --files-from without its implied --relative file process-
ing.
--no-implied-dirs
When combined with the --relative option, the implied directo-
ries 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, 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, which means
that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a sym-
link of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
-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. Note that if you don't
specify --backup-dir, the --omit-dir-times option will be
enabled.
--backup-dir=DIR
In combination with the --backup option, this tells rsync to
This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the destina-
tion 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 dif-
ferent.)
In the current implementation of --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).
--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 --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 --partial (since an interrupted transfer does
not delete the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir and
--delay-updates. Prior to rsync 2.6.4 --inplace was also incom-
patible with --compare-dest and --link-dest.
WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during
the transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets inter-
rupted), 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.
-d, --dirs
Tell the sending side to include any directories that are
encountered. Unlike --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/"). With-
out this option or the --recursive option, rsync will skip all
directories it encounters (and output a message to that effect
for each one).
side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
--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.
--safe-links
This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point out-
side the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are also ignored.
Using this option in conjunction with --relative may give unex-
pected 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.
-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.
-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 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 des-
tination are specified as local paths.
--no-whole-file
Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the default.
-p, --perms
This option causes rsync to set the destination permissions to
be the same as the source permissions.
Without this option, all existing files (including updated
-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 pro-
gram 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.
-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.
-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, causing all files to be updated (though the rsync algo-
rithm will make the update fairly efficient if the files haven't
actually changed, you're much better off using -t).
-O, --omit-dir-times
This tells rsync to omit directories when it is preserving modi-
fication times (see --times). If NFS is sharing the directories
on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use -O. This option
is inferred if you use --backup without --backup-dir.
-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
This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files
and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not
removed, nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely
changed.
--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 also
excluded from being deleted unless you use the --delete-excluded
option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side
(see the include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
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 deleted to make sure important files aren't
listed.
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.
The --delete option may be combined with one of the --delete-
WHEN options without conflict, as well as --delete-excluded.
However, if none of the --delete-WHEN options are specified,
rsync will currently choose the --delete-before algorithm. A
future version may change this to choose the --delete-during
algorithm. See also --delete-after.
--delete-before
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done
before the transfer starts. This is the default if --delete or
--delete-excluded is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN
options. See --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
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 --delete (which is implied)
for more details on file-deletion.
--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).
See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclu-
sions behave this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect
files from --delete-excluded. See --delete (which is implied)
for more details on file-deletion.
--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even when there are
I/O 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.
--max-delete=NUM
This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directo-
ries (NUM must be non-zero). This is useful when mirroring very
large trees to prevent disasters.
--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. "--max-size=1.5m").
-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.
-e, --rsh=COMMAND
This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell
program to use for communication between the local and remote
-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=PROGRAM
Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote
machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in the
default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-
path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM is run with the
help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or command
sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the
standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to communicate.
One tricky example is to set a different default directory on
the remote machine for use with the --relative option. For
instance:
rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/
-C, --cvs-exclude
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files
that you often don't want to transfer 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 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/
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.
Unlike rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on
whitespace. See the cvs(1) manual for more information.
-f, --filter=RULE
This option allows you to add rules to selectively exclude cer-
tain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
You may use as many --filter options on the command line as you
like to build up the list of files to exclude.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this
option.
-F The -F option is a shorthand for adding two --filter rules to
your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this
rule:
--filter=': /.rsync-filter'
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 -F is repeated,
it is a shorthand for this rule:
--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.
--exclude=PATTERN
This option is a simplified form of the --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.
--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 is a simplified form of the --filter option that
defaults to an include rule and does not allow the full rule-
input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
o The --relative (-R) option is implied, which preserves
the path information that is specified for each item in
the file (use --no-relative if you want to turn that
off).
o The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will create
directories specified in the list on the destination
rather than noisily skipping them.
o The --archive (-a) option's behavior does not imply
--recursive (-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:
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. If it contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the
immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without
needing to be explicitly mentioned in the file -- this began in
version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the -r option was enabled,
that dir's entire hierarchy would also be transferred (keep in
mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly with --files-from,
since it is not implied by -a). Also note that the effect of
the (enabled by default) --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 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:
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.
-0, --from0
This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a file
are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or
This option tells rsync that it should look for a basis file for
any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a
file that has an identical size and modified-time, or a simi-
larly-named file. If found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to
try to speed up the transfer.
Note that the use of the --delete option might get rid of any
potential fuzzy-match files, so either use --delete-after or
specify some filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
--compare-dest=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the destination
machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination files
against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the desti-
nation directory). If a file is found in 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 --compare-dest directories
may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in
the order specified for an exact match. If a match is found
that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the
attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from
one of the DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the trans-
fer.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.
--copy-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --compare-dest, but rsync will also
copy unchanged files found in DIR to the destination directory
using a local 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 trans-
ferred.
Multiple --copy-dest directories may be provided, which will
cause rsync to search the list in the order specified for an
unchanged file. If a match is not found, a basis file from one
of the DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --compare-dest and --link-dest.
--link-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --copy-dest, but unchanged files are
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --compare-dest and --copy-dest.
Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could
prevent --link-dest from working properly for a non-root user
when -o was specified (or implied by -a). You can work-around
this bug by avoiding the -o option when sending to an old rsync.
-z, --compress
With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent
to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow con-
nection.
Note this this option typically achieves better compression
ratios that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell
or a compressing transport because it takes advantage of the
implicit information in the matching data blocks that are not
explicitly sent over the connection.
--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 username and groupname to deter-
mine 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 a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no
match on the destination system, then the numeric ID from the
source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information
on how the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the
names of the users and groups and what you can do about it.
--timeout=TIMEOUT
This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in seconds.
If no data is transferred for the specified time then rsync will
exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
--address
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when connect-
ing to an rsync daemon. The --address option allows you to
specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See
also this option in the --daemon mode section.
using non-blocking I/O. (Note that ssh prefers non-blocking
I/O.)
--no-blocking-io
Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the default.
-i, --itemize-changes
Requests a simple itemized list of the changes that are being
made to each file, including attribute changes. This is exactly
the same as specifying --log-format='%i %n%L'.
The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long.
The general format is like the string UXcstpoga), where U is
replaced by the kind of update being done, X is replaced by the
file-type, and the other letters represent attributes that may
be output if they are being modified.
The update types that replace the U are as follows:
o A < means that a file is being transferred to the remote
host (sent).
o A > means that a file is being transferred to the local
host (received).
o A c means that a local change/creation is occurring for
the item (such as the creation of a directory or the
changing of a symlink, etc.).
o A h means that the item is a hard-link to another item
(requires --hard-links).
o A . means that the item is not being updated (though it
might have attributes that are being modified).
The file-types that replace the X are: f for a file, a d for a
directory, an L for a symlink, and a D for a device.
The other letters in the string above are the actual letters
that will be output if the associated attribute for the item is
being updated or a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this
are: (1) a newly created item replaces each letter with a "+",
(2) an identical item replaces the dots with spaces, and (3) an
unknown attribute replaces each letter with a "?" (this can hap-
pen when talking to an older rsync).
The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
updated to the sender's value (requires --perms).
o An o means the owner is different and is being updated to
the sender's value (requires --owner and root privi-
leges).
o A g means the group is different and is being updated to
the sender's value (requires --group and the authority to
set the group).
o The a is reserved for a future enhanced version that sup-
ports extended file attributes, such as ACLs.
One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i"
will output the string "*deleting" for each item that is being
removed (assuming that you are talking to a recent enough rsync
that it logs deletions instead of outputting them as a verbose
message).
--log-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync client outputs
to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text string
containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
with a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape
characters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf man-
page. (Note that this option does not affect what a daemon logs
to its logfile.)
Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that
gets updated in a significant way (a transferred file, a recre-
ated symlink/device, or a touched directory) unless the item-
ized-changes escape (%i) is included in the string, in which
case the logging of names increases to mention any item that is
changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
2.6.4). See the --itemized-changes option for a description of
the output of "%i".
The --verbose option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
--log-format without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can over-
ride the format of its per-file output using this option.
Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's trans-
fer unless one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested,
in which case the logging is done at the end of the file's
transfer. When this late logging is in effect and --progress is
also specified, rsync will also output the name of the file
being transferred prior to its progress information (followed,
of course, by the log-format output).
--stats
A better way to keep partial files than the --partial option is
to specify a DIR that will be used to hold the partial data
(instead of writing it out to the destination file). On the
next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this dir as data
to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
after it has served its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is
specified (or implied), any partial-dir file that is found for a
file that is being updated will simply be removed (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 "--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create
the partial-directory in the destination file's directory when
needed, and then remove it again when the partial file is
deleted.
If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will
also add a directory --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
--partial-dir option would add an "--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 --exclude='*' rule, the
auto-added rule would never be reached).
IMPORTANT: the --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 --partial to be enabled, but rather it effects where par-
tial files go when --partial is specified. For instance,
instead of using --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp along with --progress,
you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your environment
and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the
.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the
--partial option does not look for this environment value is (1)
when --inplace was specified (since --inplace conflicts with
--partial-dir), or (2) when --delay-updates was specified (see
below).
For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" set-
ting, --partial-dir does not imply --partial. This is so that a
refusal of the --partial option can be used to disallow the
overwriting of destination files with a partial transfer, while
still allowing the safer idiom provided by --partial-dir.
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
--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
--link-dest and a parallel hierarchy of files).
--progress
This option tells rsync to print information showing the
progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user something to
watch. Implies --verbose if it wasn't already specified.
When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
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-comple-
tion rate (including both data over the wire and data being
matched locally), and the estimated time remaining in this
transfer.
After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
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 the file, and the addition of a total-transfer
summary in parentheses. These additional numbers tell you how
many files have been updated, and what percent of the total num-
ber of files has been scanned.
-P The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its pur-
pose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for
a long transfer that may be interrupted.
"-r --exclude='/*/*'" options that rsync might use as a compati-
bility kluge when generating a non-recursive listing, or to list
the files that are involved in a local copy (since the destina-
tion path is not optional for a local copy, you must specify
this option explicitly and still include a destination).
--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 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 equaling the specified limit. A value of zero specifies no
limit.
--write-batch=FILE
Record a file that can later be applied to another identical
destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE" section for
details, and also the --only-write-batch option.
--only-write-batch=FILE
Works like --write-batch, except that no updates are made on the
destination system when creating the batch. This lets you
transport the changes to the destination system via some other
means and then apply the changes via --read-batch.
Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some
portable media: if this media fills to capacity before the end
of the transfer, you can just apply that partial transfer to the
destination and repeat the whole process to get the rest of the
changes (as long as you don't mind a partially updated destina-
tion system while the multi-update cycle is happening).
Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a
remote system because this allows the batched data to be
diverted from the sender into the batch file without having to
flow over the wire to the receiver (when pulling, the sender is
remote, and thus can't write the batch).
--read-batch=FILE
Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previously gen-
erated by --write-batch. If FILE is "-" the batch data will be
read from standard input. See the "BATCH MODE" section for
details.
--protocol=NUM
See also these options in the --daemon mode section.
--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 applica-
tions 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.
DAEMON OPTIONS
The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
--daemon
This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The daemon you
start running may be accessed using an rsync client 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.
--address
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when run as a
daemon with the --daemon option. 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. See also the "address" global option in the
rsyncd.conf manpage.
--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 --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.
--config=FILE
This specifies an alternate config file than the default. This
is only relevant when --daemon is specified. The default is
--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.
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information the daemon logs
during its startup phase. After the client connects, the dae-
mon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the
client used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's con-
fig section.
-4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating the incoming sock-
ets 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).
-h, --help
When specified after --daemon, print a short help page describ-
ing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
FILTER RULES
The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to trans-
fer (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).
As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks
each name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude pat-
terns 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.
Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the com-
mand-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
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 fol-
When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
comment lines that start with a "#".
Note that the --include/--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
--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 --filter, --include, and --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 --filter option, or
the --include-from/--exclude-from options.
INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES
You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
"-", etc. 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 trans-
ferred. These patterns can take several forms:
o if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a particu-
lar 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 recur-
sively from the top down; it behaves as if each path component
gets a turn at being the end of the file name. Even the unan-
chored "sub/foo" would match at any point in the hierarchy where
a "foo" was found within a directory named "sub". See the sec-
tion on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for a full discussion
of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root of the
transfer.
o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a direc-
tory, 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 the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a sin-
gle asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
circuit the directory traversal stage when rsync finds the files to
send. If a pattern excludes a particular parent directory, it can ren-
der 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:
+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
+ /file-is-included
- *
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: "+ */" (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:
+ /some/
+ /some/path/
+ /some/path/this-file-is-found
+ /file-also-included
- *
Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
o "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
o "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root
directory
o "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
o "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two levels
below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
o "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two or more
levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root direc-
tory
o The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
directories and C source files but nothing else.
o 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 "*")
MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES
You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
Some examples:
merge /usr/local/etc/rsync/default.rules
. /usr/local/etc/rsync/default.rules
dir-merge .per-dir-filter
dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
o A - specifies that the file should consist of only exclude pat-
terns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
o A + specifies that the file should consist of only include pat-
terns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
o A 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 file-
name is provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
o A e will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
"dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
o An n specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirecto-
ries.
o A w specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace
instead of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off com-
ments. 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).
o 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, while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each
make all their per-directory rules apply only on the sending
side.
The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
o A "/" specifies that the include/exclude should be treated as an
absolute path, relative to the root of the filesystem. For
example, "-/ /usr/local/etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd
file any time the transfer was sending files from the "/etc"
directory.
ing-side includes/excludes.
o An r is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files
from being deleted. See the s modifier for more info. See also
the protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way
to specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the direc-
tory 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 --filter=".
file":
merge /home/user/.global-filter
- *.gz
dir-merge .rules
+ *.[ch]
- *.o
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 par-
ent dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the
indicated per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter
(see -F):
--filter=': /.rsync-filter'
That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all direc-
tories 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
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 .cvsig-
nore file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can use this to
affect where the --cvs-exclude (-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:
cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b
+ foo.o
:C
- *.old
EOT
rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b
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 $CVSIG-
NORE) you should omit the -C command-line option and instead insert a
"-C" rule into your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
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).
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 --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
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
The easiest way to see what name you should filter 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).
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 them-
selves without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' mod-
ifier adds this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent com-
mands:
rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest
rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest
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
--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:
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 com-
mand 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):
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
host:src/dir /dest
rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest
BATCH MODE
Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many identi-
cal 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 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 desti-
nation 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 multi-
ple 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.
Examples:
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ scp foo* remote:
$ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
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:
needed to use a modified --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 "--exclude-from=-" option).
Caveats:
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 might be discarded with a warning (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 -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 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. See also the --protocol option for a way to
have the creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can
understand. (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so
mixing versions older than that with newer versions will not work.)
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 --write-batch changes to --read-batch,
--files-from is dropped, and the --filter/--include/--exclude options
are not needed unless one of the --delete options is specified.
The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any fil-
ter/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
--delete is desired. A normal user can ignore this detail and just use
the shell script as an easy way to run the appropriate --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.
SYMBOLIC LINKS
Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
link in the source directory.
to on the destination. Using --safe-links will cause unsafe links to
be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify --links for --safe-
links to have any effect.)
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.
Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list
is in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't men-
tioned, use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
--copy-links
Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no symlinks for any
other options to affect).
--links --copy-unsafe-links
Turn all unsafe symlinks into files and duplicate all safe sym-
links.
--copy-unsafe-links
Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily skip all safe sym-
links.
--links --safe-links
Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe ones.
--links
Duplicate all symlinks.
DIAGNOSTICS
rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little cryp-
tic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol ver-
sion 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:
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
data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing it.
2 Protocol incompatibility
3 Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
4 Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to manipu-
late 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.
5 Error starting client-server protocol
6 Daemon unable to append to log-file
10 Error in socket I/O
11 Error in file I/O
12 Error in rsync protocol data stream
13 Errors with program diagnostics
14 Error in IPC code
20 Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
21 Some error returned by waitpid()
22 Error allocating core memory buffers
23 Partial transfer due to error
24 Partial transfer due to vanished source files
25 The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
30 Timeout in data send/receive
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CVSIGNORE
The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any ignore pat-
terns 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
HOME The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's default
.cvsignore file.
FILES
/usr/local/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
SEE ALSO
rsyncd.conf(5)
BUGS
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.
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/
VERSION
This man page is current for version 2.6.6 of rsync.
CREDITS
rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file COPY-
ING 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,
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