1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(17 May 2008)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
75 See the file README for installation instructions.
77 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
78 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
79 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
80 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
81 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
83 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
84 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
86 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
91 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
92 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
94 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
96 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
98 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
99 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
100 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
101 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
102 differences. See the tech report for details.
104 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
106 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
107 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
108 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
109 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
110 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
111 size of data portions of the transfer.
113 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
115 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
116 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
117 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
118 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
119 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
120 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
121 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
125 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
126 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
129 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
130 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
131 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
134 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
135 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
138 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
139 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
140 an improved copy command.
142 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
143 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
145 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
147 See the following section for more details.
149 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
151 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
152 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
153 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
155 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
156 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
157 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
159 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
162 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
163 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
165 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
166 not as easy to use as the first method.
168 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
169 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
170 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
173 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
175 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
177 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
178 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
179 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
180 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
181 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
183 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
187 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
188 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
189 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
190 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
192 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
193 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
194 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
195 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
196 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
199 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
201 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
203 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
204 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
205 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
206 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
207 may be useful when scripting rsync.
209 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
210 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
212 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
213 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
214 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
215 proxy connections to port 873.
217 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
218 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
219 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
220 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
221 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
224 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
225 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
226 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
228 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
229 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
232 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
234 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
235 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
236 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
237 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
238 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
239 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
240 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
241 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
242 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
243 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
244 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
245 connections from "localhost".)
247 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
248 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
249 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
250 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
251 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
252 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
254 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
256 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
257 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
258 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
259 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
260 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
262 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
264 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
265 used to log-in to the "module".
267 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
269 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
270 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
271 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
272 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
273 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
274 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
275 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
277 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
278 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
280 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
282 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
284 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
285 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
287 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
289 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
292 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
296 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
298 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
301 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
302 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
303 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
305 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
308 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
310 This is launched from cron every few hours.
312 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
314 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
315 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
316 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
317 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
318 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
319 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
320 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
321 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
322 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
323 -R, --relative use relative path names
324 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
325 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
326 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
327 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
328 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
329 --inplace update destination files in-place
330 --append append data onto shorter files
331 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
332 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
333 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
334 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
335 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
336 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
337 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
338 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
339 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
340 -p, --perms preserve permissions
341 -E, --executability preserve executability
342 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
343 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
344 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
345 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
346 -g, --group preserve group
347 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
348 --specials preserve special files
349 -D same as --devices --specials
350 -t, --times preserve modification times
351 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
352 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
353 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
354 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
355 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
356 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
357 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
358 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
359 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
360 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
361 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
362 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
363 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
364 --del an alias for --delete-during
365 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
366 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
367 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
368 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
369 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
370 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
371 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
372 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
373 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
374 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
375 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
376 --partial keep partially transferred files
377 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
378 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
379 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
380 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
381 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
382 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
383 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
384 --size-only skip files that match in size
385 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
386 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
387 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
388 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
389 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
390 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
391 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
392 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
393 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
394 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
395 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
396 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
397 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
398 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
399 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
400 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
401 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
402 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
403 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
404 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
405 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
406 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
407 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
408 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
409 --stats give some file-transfer stats
410 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
411 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
412 --progress show progress during transfer
413 -P same as --partial --progress
414 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
415 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
416 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
417 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
418 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
419 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
420 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
421 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
422 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
423 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
424 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
425 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
426 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
427 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
428 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
429 --version print version number
430 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
432 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
434 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
435 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
436 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
437 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
438 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
439 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
440 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
441 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
442 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
443 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
444 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
445 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
446 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
450 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
451 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
452 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
453 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
457 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
458 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
459 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
460 option without any other args.
462 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
464 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
465 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
466 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
467 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) flags will give you
468 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
469 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) flags should only be used if
470 you are debugging rsync.
472 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
473 a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
474 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
475 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
476 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
477 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
478 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
479 any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
481 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
482 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
483 from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
486 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
487 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
488 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
489 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
490 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
491 request the list of modules from the daemon.
493 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
494 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
495 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
498 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
499 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
500 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
501 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
502 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
503 not preserve timestamps exactly.
505 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
506 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
507 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
508 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
509 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
510 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
511 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
513 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
514 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
515 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
516 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
517 changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a
518 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
519 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
520 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
521 so this can slow things down significantly.
523 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
524 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
525 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
526 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
527 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
529 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
530 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
531 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
532 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
533 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
535 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
536 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
537 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
538 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
539 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
541 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
542 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
545 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
546 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
547 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
548 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
549 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
550 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
551 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
553 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
554 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
555 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
557 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
558 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
559 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
560 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
561 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
564 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
565 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
567 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
568 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
569 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
570 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
571 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
572 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
574 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
575 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
576 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
577 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
578 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
579 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
580 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
581 than using bf(--delete-after).
583 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
584 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
586 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
587 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
588 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
589 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
590 example, if you used this command:
592 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
594 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
595 machine. If instead you used
597 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
599 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
600 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
601 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
604 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
605 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
606 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
607 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
608 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
609 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
610 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
611 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
613 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
614 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
615 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
616 the source path, like this:
618 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
620 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
621 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
622 (2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
623 source path. For example, when pushing files:
625 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
627 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
628 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
629 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
630 for a non-daemon transfer):
633 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
634 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
637 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
638 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
639 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
640 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
641 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
642 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
643 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
646 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
647 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
648 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
649 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
650 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
651 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
652 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
653 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
654 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
655 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
657 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
658 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
659 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
661 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
662 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
663 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
664 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
666 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
667 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
668 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
669 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
670 (e.g. bf(-f "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
671 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
672 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
673 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
674 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
675 rule would never be reached).
677 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
678 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
679 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
680 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
681 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
682 will keep their original filenames).
684 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
685 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
686 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
688 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
689 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
690 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
691 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
693 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
694 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
695 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
696 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
697 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
700 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when the
701 file's data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
702 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
703 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
705 This has several effects: (1) in-use binaries cannot be updated (either the
706 OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in
707 their data will misbehave or crash), (2) the file's data will be in an
708 inconsistent state during the transfer, (3) a file's data may be left in an
709 inconsistent state after the transfer if the transfer is interrupted or if
710 an update fails, (4) a file that does not have write permissions can not be
711 updated, and (5) the efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be
712 reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
713 be copied to a position later in the file (one exception to this is if you
714 combine this option with bf(--backup), since rsync is smart enough to use
715 the backup file as the basis file for the transfer).
717 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
718 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
720 This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes
721 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
724 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
725 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
726 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
729 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
730 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
731 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
732 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
733 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
734 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
735 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
736 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
737 Implies bf(--inplace),
738 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
741 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
742 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
743 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
744 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
745 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
747 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
748 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
749 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
750 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
752 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
753 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
754 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
755 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
756 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
757 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
758 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
760 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
761 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
762 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
763 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
764 if you want to turn this off.
766 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
767 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
768 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
770 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
771 symlink on the destination.
773 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
774 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
775 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
776 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
777 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
778 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
779 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
780 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
782 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
783 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
784 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
785 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
786 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
788 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
789 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
790 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
791 give unexpected results.
793 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
794 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
795 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
796 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
798 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
799 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
800 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
801 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
803 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
806 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
807 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
808 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
809 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
811 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
812 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
813 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
814 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
815 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
818 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
819 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
820 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
821 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
822 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
823 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
824 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
826 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
828 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
829 the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
830 side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
831 as though they were separate files.
833 When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
834 that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
835 together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
836 already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
837 the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
838 have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
839 are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
841 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
842 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
843 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
844 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
845 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
846 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
847 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
849 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
850 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
851 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
852 the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
853 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
855 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
856 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
857 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
858 be the source permissions.)
860 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
863 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
864 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
865 the execute permission for the file.
866 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
867 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
868 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
869 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
870 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
871 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
874 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
875 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
876 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
878 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
879 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
880 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
881 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
882 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
883 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
884 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
885 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
887 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
889 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
891 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
893 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
894 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
896 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
897 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
898 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
899 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
900 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
901 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
902 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
903 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
906 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
907 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
908 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
909 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
910 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
911 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
914 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
916 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
917 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
920 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
922 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
923 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
924 The option also implies bf(--perms).
926 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
927 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
928 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
930 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
931 extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
933 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
934 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
935 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
936 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
938 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
939 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
940 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
941 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
942 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
944 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
945 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
946 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
947 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
949 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
951 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
952 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
954 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
955 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
957 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
958 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
959 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
960 and bf(--fake-super) options).
961 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
962 the invoking user on the receiving side.
964 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
965 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
966 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
968 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
969 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
970 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
971 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
972 is a member of will be preserved.
973 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
974 user on the receiving side.
976 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
977 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
978 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
980 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
981 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
982 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
983 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
985 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
986 such as named sockets and fifos.
988 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
990 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
991 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
992 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
993 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
994 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
995 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
996 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
998 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
999 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1000 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1001 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1003 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1004 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1005 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1006 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1007 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1008 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1009 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1010 being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1011 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1013 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1014 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1015 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1016 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1017 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1018 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1019 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1020 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1021 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1022 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1023 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1025 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1026 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1028 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1029 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1032 quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1034 Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
1035 the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
1036 "localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1037 script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1038 shell (see bf(--rsh)).
1040 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1042 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1044 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1045 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1046 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1048 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1049 filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
1050 correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
1052 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1053 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1054 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1055 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1056 to do before one actually runs it.
1058 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1059 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1060 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
1061 extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1062 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1063 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1064 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1065 where no file transfers are needed.
1067 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1068 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1069 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1070 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1071 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1072 the source and destination are specified as local paths.
1074 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1075 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1076 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1077 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1078 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1079 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1082 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1083 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1084 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1085 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1087 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1088 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1089 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1092 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1093 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1094 yet on the destination. If this option is
1095 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1096 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1098 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1099 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1100 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1102 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1103 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1104 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1105 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1106 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1107 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1108 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1110 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1111 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1112 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1114 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1115 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1116 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1117 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1118 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1119 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1120 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are
1121 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1122 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1123 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1125 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1126 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1127 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1129 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1130 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1131 going to be deleted.
1133 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1134 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1135 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1136 sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the
1137 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1139 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1140 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1141 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1142 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to an rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1143 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1144 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1146 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1147 side be done before the transfer starts.
1148 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1150 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1151 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1152 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1153 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1154 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1155 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1156 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1158 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1159 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
1160 a faster method than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm,
1161 but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
1162 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1164 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1165 side be computed during the transfer, and then removed after the transfer
1166 completes. If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1167 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1168 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1169 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1170 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1173 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1174 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1175 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1176 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1177 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1178 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1179 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1180 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1182 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1183 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1184 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1185 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1186 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1187 bf(--delete-excluded).
1188 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1190 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1191 even when there are I/O errors.
1193 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1194 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1195 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1197 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1198 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1199 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1201 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1202 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1203 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1205 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1206 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1207 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1208 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1209 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1210 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1212 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1213 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1214 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1215 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1217 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1218 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1219 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1220 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1221 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1222 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1223 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1225 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1228 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1229 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1230 transferring small, junk files.
1231 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
1233 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1234 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1235 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1237 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1238 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1239 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1240 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1242 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1243 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1244 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1245 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1246 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1247 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1249 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1250 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1251 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1252 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1253 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1254 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1255 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1256 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1259 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1260 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1263 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1264 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1266 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1267 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1269 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1271 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1272 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1273 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1274 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1275 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1276 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1279 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1280 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1282 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1284 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1285 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1286 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1287 a file should be ignored.
1289 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1290 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1292 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1293 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1294 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
1296 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1297 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1298 are delimited by whitespace).
1300 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1301 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1302 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1303 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1305 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1306 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1307 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1308 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1309 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1310 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1311 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1312 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1313 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1314 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1317 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1318 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1319 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1321 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1322 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1323 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1324 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1325 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1327 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1329 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1330 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1332 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1334 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1335 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1336 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1339 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1341 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1343 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1346 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1347 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1348 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1350 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1352 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1353 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1354 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1355 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1357 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1358 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1359 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1361 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1363 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1364 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1365 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1366 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1368 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1369 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1370 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1371 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1374 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1375 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1376 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1377 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1378 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1379 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1380 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1381 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1382 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1383 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1384 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1385 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1388 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1389 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1390 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1393 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1395 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1396 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1397 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1398 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1399 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1400 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1401 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1402 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1404 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1405 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1406 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1408 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1409 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1410 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1411 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1412 transfer". For example:
1414 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1416 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1417 was located on the remote "src" host.
1419 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1420 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1421 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1422 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1423 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1424 file are split on whitespace).
1426 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1427 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1428 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1429 receiving host's charset.
1431 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
1432 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1433 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1434 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1435 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1437 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
1438 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1439 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1441 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1442 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1443 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1444 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1446 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1447 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1448 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1449 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1450 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1451 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1452 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1453 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1454 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1455 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1456 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1457 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1458 new version on the disk at the same time.
1460 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1461 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1462 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1463 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1464 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1465 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1466 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1467 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1468 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1469 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1470 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1471 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1473 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1474 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1475 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1476 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1477 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1479 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1480 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1481 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1483 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1484 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1485 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1486 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1487 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1488 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1489 have changed from an earlier backup.
1491 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1492 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1494 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1495 and the attributes updated.
1496 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1497 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1499 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1500 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1502 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1503 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1504 directory using a local copy.
1505 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1506 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1507 been successfully transferred.
1509 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1510 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1511 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1512 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1514 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1515 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1517 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1518 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1519 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1520 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1523 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1525 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1526 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1528 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1529 and the attributes updated.
1530 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1531 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1533 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1534 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1535 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1536 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1539 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1540 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1541 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1544 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1545 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1547 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1548 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1549 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1550 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1552 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1553 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1554 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1556 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1557 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1558 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1559 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1561 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1562 that will not be compressed.
1564 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1565 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1566 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1568 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1569 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1570 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1572 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1574 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1575 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1576 "[:alpha:]", are supported).
1578 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1580 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1581 matches 2 suffixes):
1583 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1585 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
1586 of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
1588 verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
1590 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1591 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1592 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1595 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1596 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1599 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1600 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1601 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1602 option is not specified.
1604 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1605 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1606 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1607 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1608 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1609 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1611 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1612 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1613 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1615 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1616 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1617 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1619 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1620 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1621 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1622 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1624 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1625 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1626 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1627 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1628 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1630 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1631 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1632 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1633 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1634 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1635 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1636 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1637 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1639 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1640 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1641 rsync defaults to using
1642 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1643 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1645 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1646 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1647 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1648 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1649 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1650 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1653 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1654 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1655 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1656 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1659 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1662 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1664 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1666 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1667 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1668 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1670 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1671 have attributes that are being modified).
1672 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1673 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1676 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1677 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1678 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1680 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1681 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1682 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1683 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1684 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1685 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1687 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1690 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1691 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1693 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1694 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1695 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1696 by the file transfer.
1697 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1698 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1699 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1700 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1701 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1702 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1703 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1704 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1705 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1706 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1707 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1708 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1709 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1710 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1711 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1712 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1715 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1716 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1717 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1718 outputting them as a verbose message).
1720 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1721 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text
1722 string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
1723 a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
1724 the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1726 Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
1727 in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
1728 touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is
1729 included in the string, the logging of names increases to mention any
1730 item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
1731 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
1734 The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
1735 bf(--out-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
1736 the format of its per-file output using this option.
1738 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1739 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1740 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1741 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1742 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1743 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1745 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1746 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1747 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1748 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1749 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1750 option if you wish to override this.
1752 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1755 verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1757 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1760 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1761 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1762 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1763 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1764 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1765 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1767 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1768 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
1769 algorithm is for your data.
1771 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1772 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1773 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1774 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1775 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
1776 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1777 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1778 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1779 include the size of symlinks.
1780 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1781 for just the transferred files.
1782 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1783 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1784 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1785 recreating the updated files.
1786 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1787 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1788 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1790 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1791 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1792 sending side for this to be present.
1793 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1794 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1795 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1796 from the client side to the server side.
1797 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1798 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1799 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1800 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1803 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1804 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1805 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1806 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1809 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1810 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1811 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1812 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1814 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1815 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1816 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1817 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1820 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1821 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1822 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1823 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1824 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1826 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1827 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1828 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1829 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1830 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1831 after it has served its purpose.
1833 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1834 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1836 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
1838 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1839 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1840 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1841 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1842 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1844 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1845 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1846 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1847 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1848 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1849 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1852 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1853 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1854 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1855 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1856 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1857 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1858 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1859 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1860 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1862 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1863 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1865 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1866 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1867 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1868 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1869 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1870 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1871 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1872 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1873 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1874 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1876 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1877 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1878 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1879 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1880 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1882 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1883 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1884 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1885 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1886 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1887 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1888 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1889 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1890 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1891 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
1892 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
1894 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
1895 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
1896 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
1897 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
1899 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
1900 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
1902 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
1903 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
1905 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
1906 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
1907 parallel hierarchy of files).
1909 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
1910 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
1911 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
1912 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
1913 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
1916 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
1917 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
1918 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
1919 being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
1922 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
1923 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
1924 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
1926 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
1928 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
1929 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
1930 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
1931 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
1933 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
1935 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
1936 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
1937 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
1939 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
1940 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
1942 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
1944 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
1947 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
1949 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
1950 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
1951 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
1952 is maintained until the end.
1954 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
1955 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
1956 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
1957 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
1958 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
1959 was finishing the matched part of the file.
1961 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
1962 summary line that looks like this:
1964 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
1966 In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
1967 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
1968 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
1969 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
1970 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
1971 the 396 total files in the file-list.
1973 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
1974 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
1975 transfer that may be interrupted.
1977 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
1978 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
1979 It should contain just the password as a single line.
1981 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
1982 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
1983 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
1984 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
1985 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
1988 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
1989 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
1990 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
1991 command that includes a
1992 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
1993 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
1994 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
1995 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
1996 without using this option. For example:
1998 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2000 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2001 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2002 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2003 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2004 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2005 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2006 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2008 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2009 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2010 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2011 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2012 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2013 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2014 of zero specifies no limit.
2016 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2017 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2018 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2020 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2021 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2022 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2023 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2025 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2026 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2027 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2028 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2029 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2032 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2033 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2034 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2035 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2037 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2038 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2039 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2040 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2042 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2043 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2044 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2045 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2046 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2047 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2048 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2050 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2051 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2052 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2053 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2054 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2055 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2056 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2057 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2058 to turn off any conversion.
2059 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2060 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2062 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2065 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2066 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2067 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2069 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2070 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2071 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2072 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2073 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2075 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2076 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2077 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2078 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2080 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2081 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2082 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2083 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2085 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2086 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2089 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
2090 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2091 MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2092 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2093 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2094 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2095 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2096 Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2100 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2102 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2105 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2106 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2107 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2109 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2110 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2111 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2112 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2113 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2116 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2117 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2118 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2119 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2120 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2122 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2123 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2124 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2125 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2126 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2128 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2129 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2130 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2131 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2132 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2134 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2135 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2136 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2137 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2138 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2139 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2140 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2143 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2144 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2145 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2147 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2148 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2151 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2152 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2153 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2154 case transfer logging is turned off.
2156 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2157 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2159 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2160 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2161 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2162 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2164 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2165 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2166 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2167 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2168 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2169 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2171 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2172 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2175 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2176 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2179 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2181 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2182 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2183 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2184 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2186 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2187 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2188 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2189 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2190 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2191 filename is not skipped.
2193 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2194 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2197 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2198 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2201 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2202 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2203 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2204 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2205 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2208 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2209 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2210 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2211 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2212 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2213 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2214 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2215 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2216 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2219 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2220 comment lines that start with a "#".
2222 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2223 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2224 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2225 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2227 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2228 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2229 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2230 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2233 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2234 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2235 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2236 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2238 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2240 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2241 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2242 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2243 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2244 can take several forms:
2247 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2248 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2249 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2250 regular expressions.
2251 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2252 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2253 per-directory rule).
2254 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2255 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2256 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2257 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2258 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2259 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2260 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2262 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2263 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2264 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2265 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2266 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2267 it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
2268 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2269 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2270 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2271 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2272 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2273 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2274 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2275 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2276 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2277 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2278 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2280 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2281 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2282 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2286 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2287 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2288 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2289 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2290 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2291 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2292 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2293 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2294 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2295 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2296 For instance, this won't work:
2299 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2300 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2304 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2305 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2306 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2307 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2308 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2309 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2310 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2315 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2316 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2317 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2321 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2324 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2325 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2326 transfer-root directory
2327 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2328 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2329 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2330 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2331 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2332 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2333 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2334 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2335 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2336 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2337 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2340 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2342 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2343 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2346 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2347 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2348 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2349 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2350 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2351 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2352 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2353 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2354 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2355 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2361 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2362 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2363 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2364 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2365 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2368 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2371 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2372 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2373 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2374 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2375 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2376 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2377 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2378 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2379 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2380 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2381 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2382 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2383 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2384 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2385 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2387 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2388 (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2389 default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2390 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2391 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2392 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
2395 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2398 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2399 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2400 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2401 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2402 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2403 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2404 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2405 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2407 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2408 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2410 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2411 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2412 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2413 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2414 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2415 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2416 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2417 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2418 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2419 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2420 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2421 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2422 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2423 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2424 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2425 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2428 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2429 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2430 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2431 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2432 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2433 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2434 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2435 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2436 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2438 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2439 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2440 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2441 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2444 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2447 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2449 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2454 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2455 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2456 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2457 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2460 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2461 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2462 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2463 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2465 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2467 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2468 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2469 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2470 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2471 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2473 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2476 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2477 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2478 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2481 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2482 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2483 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2484 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2485 a part of the transfer.
2487 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2488 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2489 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2490 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2491 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2492 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2493 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2494 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2498 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2503 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2506 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2507 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2508 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2509 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2510 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2511 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2512 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2513 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2515 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2517 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2518 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2519 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2520 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2521 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2522 out the parent's rules).
2524 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2526 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2527 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2528 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2529 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2530 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2531 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2533 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2534 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2535 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2536 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2537 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2539 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2540 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2541 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2544 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2545 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2546 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2547 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2548 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2552 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2553 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2554 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2555 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2556 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2560 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2561 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2562 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2563 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2564 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2568 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2569 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2570 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2571 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2572 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2575 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2576 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2577 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2579 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2581 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2582 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2583 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2584 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2587 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2588 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2591 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2592 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2593 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2594 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2595 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2596 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2598 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2600 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2601 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2602 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2603 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2604 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2606 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2607 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2609 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2610 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2611 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2612 per-directory merge rule.
2614 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2615 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2616 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2617 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2618 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2619 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2621 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2623 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2625 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2627 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2628 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2629 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2630 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2631 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2632 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2633 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2634 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2635 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2637 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2638 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2639 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2640 using the information stored in the batch file.
2642 For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch
2643 option is used. This file's name is created by appending
2644 ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
2645 a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
2646 batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
2648 passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
2649 instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
2650 path differs from the original destination tree path.
2652 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2653 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2654 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2655 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2656 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2661 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2662 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2663 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2667 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2668 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2671 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2672 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2673 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2674 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2675 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2678 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2679 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2680 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2681 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2682 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2683 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2684 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2685 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2686 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2687 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2688 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2693 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2694 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2695 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2696 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2697 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2698 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2699 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2700 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2701 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2702 option (when reading the batch).
2703 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2704 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2705 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2708 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2709 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2710 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2711 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2712 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2713 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2714 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2716 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2717 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2718 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2719 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2720 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2721 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2722 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2724 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2725 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2726 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2727 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2728 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2729 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2731 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2732 version uses a new implementation.
2734 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2736 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2737 link in the source directory.
2739 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2740 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2742 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2743 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2746 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2747 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2749 rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2750 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes
2751 ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
2752 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2753 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2754 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2755 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2756 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2758 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2759 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2760 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2762 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2763 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2764 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2766 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2767 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2769 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2770 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2772 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2773 skip all safe symlinks.
2775 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2778 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2780 manpagediagnostics()
2782 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2783 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2784 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2786 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2787 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2788 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2789 remote shell like this:
2791 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2793 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2794 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2795 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2796 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2797 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2798 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2799 for non-interactive logins.
2801 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2802 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2803 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2805 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2809 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2810 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2811 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2812 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2813 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2814 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2816 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2817 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2818 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2819 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2820 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2821 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2822 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2823 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2824 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2825 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2826 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2827 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2828 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2829 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2830 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2833 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2836 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2837 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2839 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2840 environment variable.
2841 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2842 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2843 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2844 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2845 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2846 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2847 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2848 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2849 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2850 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2851 consult the remote shell's documentation.
2852 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2853 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2854 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2855 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2856 default .cvsignore file.
2861 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2869 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2871 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2873 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2875 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2878 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2880 Please report bugs! See the web site at
2881 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
2883 manpagesection(VERSION)
2885 This man page is current for version 3.0.3pre2 of rsync.
2887 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
2889 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
2890 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
2891 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
2892 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
2893 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
2894 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
2897 manpagesection(CREDITS)
2899 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
2900 COPYING for details.
2902 A WEB site is available at
2903 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
2904 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
2907 The primary ftp site for rsync is
2908 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
2910 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
2911 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
2913 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
2914 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
2916 manpagesection(THANKS)
2918 Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
2919 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
2920 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
2922 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
2923 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
2927 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
2928 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
2931 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
2932 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)