3 rsync - a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool
9 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
11 Access via remote shell:
13 rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
15 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
17 Access via rsync daemon:
19 rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
20 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
22 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
23 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
26 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files instead
31 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can copy
32 locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a remote rsync
33 daemon. It offers a large number of options that control every aspect of its
34 behavior and permit very flexible specification of the set of files to be
35 copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm, which reduces the
36 amount of data sent over the network by sending only the differences between
37 the source files and the existing files in the destination. Rsync is widely
38 used for backups and mirroring and as an improved copy command for everyday
41 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check" algorithm
42 (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or in last-modified
43 time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as requested by options)
44 are made on the destination file directly when the quick check indicates that
45 the file's data does not need to be updated.
47 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
49 - support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
50 - exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
51 - a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
52 - can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
53 - does not require super-user privileges
54 - pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
55 - support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for mirroring)
59 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the current
60 host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
62 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
63 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
64 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever the
65 source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after a host
66 specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the source or
67 destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a host
68 specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the "USING
69 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for an exception
72 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a destination,
73 the files are listed in an output format similar to "`ls -l`".
75 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote host,
76 the copy occurs locally (see also the `--list-only` option).
78 Rsync refers to the local side as the client and the remote side as the server.
79 Don't confuse server with an rsync daemon. A daemon is always a server, but a
80 server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
84 See the file README.md for installation instructions.
86 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via a
87 remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync daemon-mode
88 protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh for its
89 communications, but it may have been configured to use a different remote shell
90 by default, such as rsh or remsh.
92 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the `-e`
93 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
95 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination machines.
99 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source and a
100 destination, one of which may be remote.
102 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
104 > rsync -t *.c foo:src/
106 This would transfer all files matching the pattern `*.c` from the current
107 directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of the files already
108 exist on the remote system then the rsync remote-update protocol is used to
109 update the file by sending only the differences in the data. Note that the
110 expansion of wildcards on the commandline (`*.c`) into a list of files is
111 handled by the shell before it runs rsync and not by rsync itself (exactly the
112 same as all other posix-style programs).
114 > rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp
116 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
117 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The files
118 are transferred in archive mode, which ensures that symbolic links, devices,
119 attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the transfer.
120 Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the size of data portions of
123 > rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp
125 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
126 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing /
127 on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed to
128 "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
129 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
130 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the files
131 in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of /dest/foo:
133 > rsync -av /src/foo /dest
134 > rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo
136 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
137 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these copy
138 the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
140 > rsync -av host: /dest
141 > rsync -av host::module /dest
143 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
144 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like an
145 improved copy command.
147 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a particular
148 rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
150 > rsync somehost.mydomain.com::
152 See the following section for more details.
156 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
157 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first, or with
158 the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
160 > rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/
161 > rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/
162 > rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}
164 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
167 > rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest
168 > rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest
170 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is not as
171 easy to use as the first method.
173 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
174 specify the `--protect-args` (`-s`) option, or you'll need to escape the
175 whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For instance:
177 > rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest
179 # CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON
181 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport. In
182 this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically using
183 TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on the remote
184 system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS section
185 below for information on that.)
187 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
190 - you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to separate the
191 hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
192 - the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
193 - the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you connect.
194 - if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the list of accessible
195 paths on the daemon will be shown.
196 - if you specify no local destination then a listing of the specified files on
197 the remote daemon is provided.
198 - you must not specify the `--rsh` (`-e`) option (since that overrides the
199 daemon connection to use ssh -- see USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A
200 REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION below).
202 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
204 > rsync -av host::src /dest
206 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so, you will
207 receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the password prompt
208 by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to the password you want to
209 use or using the `--password-file` option. This may be useful when scripting
212 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all users. On
213 those systems using `--password-file` is recommended.
215 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the environment
216 variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to your web proxy. Note
217 that your web proxy's configuration must support proxy connections to port 873.
219 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
220 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you wish to
221 run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may contain the
222 escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync command (so use
223 "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For example:
225 > export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
226 > rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
227 > rsync -av rsync://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/
229 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost, which
230 forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost (%H).
232 Note also that if the RSYNC_SHELL environment variable is set, that program
233 will be used to run the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG command instead of using the default
234 shell of the **system()** call.
236 # USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION
238 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning a
242 single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the home dir
243 of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a daemon-style
244 transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by the remote user,
245 you may not be able to use features such as chroot or change the uid used by
246 the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon transfer, consider using ssh
247 to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and configure a normal rsync daemon
248 on that remote host to only allow connections from "localhost".)
250 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell connection
251 uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal rsync-daemon transfer,
252 with the only exception being that you must explicitly set the remote shell
253 program on the command-line with the `--rsh=COMMAND` option. (Setting the
254 RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
256 > rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest
258 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
259 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
260 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must give
261 the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in this
262 example that uses the short version of the `--rsh` option:
264 > rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest
266 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be used to
267 log-in to the "module".
269 # STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS
271 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
272 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd to
273 spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port). For full
274 information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming socket
275 connections, see the **rsyncd.conf**(5) man page -- that is the config file for
276 the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the daemon
277 (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
279 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
280 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
282 # SORTED TRANSFER ORDER
284 Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list.
285 This handles the merging together of the contents of identically named
286 directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse
287 someone when the files are transferred in a different order than what was given
290 If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either
291 separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using
292 `--delay-updates` (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but does
293 make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
297 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
299 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word files and
300 mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
302 > rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup
304 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
307 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile targets:
310 > rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
312 > rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
315 This allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the connection.
316 I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a lot of time as
317 the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
319 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the command:
321 > rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"
323 This is launched from cron every few hours.
327 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer to the
328 detailed description below for a complete description.
330 [comment]: # (help-rsync.h)
331 [comment]: # (Keep these short enough that they'll be under 80 chars when indented by 8 chars.)
334 --verbose, -v increase verbosity
335 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
336 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
337 --msgs2stderr output messages directly to stderr
338 --quiet, -q suppress non-error messages
339 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD
340 --checksum, -c skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
341 --archive, -a archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
342 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
343 --recursive, -r recurse into directories
344 --relative, -R use relative path names
345 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
346 --backup, -b make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
347 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
348 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
349 --update, -u skip files that are newer on the receiver
350 --inplace update destination files in-place
351 --append append data onto shorter files
352 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
353 --dirs, -d transfer directories without recursing
354 --links, -l copy symlinks as symlinks
355 --copy-links, -L transform symlink into referent file/dir
356 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
357 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
358 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safe & unusable
359 --copy-dirlinks, -k transform symlink to dir into referent dir
360 --keep-dirlinks, -K treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
361 --hard-links, -H preserve hard links
362 --perms, -p preserve permissions
363 --executability, -E preserve executability
364 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
365 --acls, -A preserve ACLs (implies --perms)
366 --xattrs, -X preserve extended attributes
367 --owner, -o preserve owner (super-user only)
368 --group, -g preserve group
369 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
370 --specials preserve special files
371 -D same as --devices --specials
372 --times, -t preserve modification times
373 --atimes, -U preserve access (use) times
374 --open-noatime avoid changing the atime on opened files
375 --omit-dir-times, -O omit directories from --times
376 --omit-link-times, -J omit symlinks from --times
377 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
378 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
379 --sparse, -S turn sequences of nulls into sparse blocks
380 --preallocate allocate dest files before writing them
381 --write-devices write to devices as files (implies --inplace)
382 --dry-run, -n perform a trial run with no changes made
383 --whole-file, -W copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
384 --checksum-choice=STR choose the checksum algorithms
385 --one-file-system, -x don't cross filesystem boundaries
386 --block-size=SIZE, -B force a fixed checksum block-size
387 --rsh=COMMAND, -e specify the remote shell to use
388 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
389 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
390 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
391 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
392 --del an alias for --delete-during
393 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
394 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
395 --delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
396 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
397 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
398 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
399 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
400 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
401 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
402 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
403 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
404 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
405 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
406 --partial keep partially transferred files
407 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
408 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
409 --prune-empty-dirs, -m prune empty directory chains from file-list
410 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
411 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
412 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
413 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
414 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
415 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
416 --ignore-times, -I don't skip files that match size and time
417 --size-only skip files that match in size
418 --modify-window=NUM, -@ set the accuracy for mod-time comparisons
419 --temp-dir=DIR, -T create temporary files in directory DIR
420 --fuzzy, -y find similar file for basis if no dest file
421 --compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
422 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
423 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
424 --compress, -z compress file data during the transfer
425 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
426 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
427 --cvs-exclude, -C auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
428 --filter=RULE, -f add a file-filtering RULE
429 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
430 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
431 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
432 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
433 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
434 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
435 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
436 --from0, -0 all *-from/filter files are delimited by 0s
437 --protect-args, -s no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
438 --copy-as=USER[:GROUP] specify user & optional group for the copy
439 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
440 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
441 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
442 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
443 --outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
444 --stats give some file-transfer stats
445 --8-bit-output, -8 leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
446 --human-readable, -h output numbers in a human-readable format
447 --progress show progress during transfer
448 -P same as --partial --progress
449 --itemize-changes, -i output a change-summary for all updates
450 --remote-option=OPT, -M send OPTION to the remote side only
451 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
452 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
453 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
454 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
455 --early-input=FILE use FILE for daemon's early exec input
456 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
457 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
458 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
459 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
460 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
461 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
462 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
463 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
464 --ipv4, -4 prefer IPv4
465 --ipv6, -6 prefer IPv6
466 --version, -V print the version + other info and exit
467 --help, -h (*) show this help (* -h is help only on its own)
470 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
473 [comment]: # (help-rsyncd.h)
476 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
477 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
478 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
479 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
480 --dparam=OVERRIDE, -M override global daemon config parameter
481 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
482 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
483 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
484 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
485 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
486 --verbose, -v increase verbosity
487 --ipv4, -4 prefer IPv4
488 --ipv6, -6 prefer IPv6
489 --help, -h show this help (when used with --daemon)
494 Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter)
495 options. The full list of the available options are described below. If an
496 option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated.
497 Some options only have a long variant, not a short. If the option takes a
498 parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it
499 must also be specified for the short. When specifying a parameter, you can
500 either use the form `--option=param` or replace the '=' with whitespace. The
501 parameter may need to be quoted in some manner for it to survive the shell's
502 command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (`~`) in a filename is
503 substituted by your shell, so `--option=~/foo` will not change the tilde into
504 your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
506 [comment]: # (An OL starting at 0 is converted into a DL by the parser.)
508 0. `--help`, `-h` `(*)`
510 Print a short help page describing the options available in rsync and exit.
511 (*) The `-h` short option will only invoke `--help` when used without other
512 options since it normally means `--human-readable`.
516 Print the rsync version plus other info and exit.
518 The output includes the default list of checksum algorithms, the default
519 list of compression algorithms, a list of compiled-in capabilities, a link
520 to the rsync web site, and some license/copyright info.
522 Repeat the option (`-VV`) to include some optimization info at the end of
523 the capabilities list.
527 This option increases the amount of information you are given during the
528 transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A single `-v` will give you
529 information about what files are being transferred and a brief summary at
530 the end. Two `-v` options will give you information on what files are
531 being skipped and slightly more information at the end. More than two `-v`
532 options should only be used if you are debugging rsync.
534 In a modern rsync, the `-v` option is equivalent to the setting of groups
535 of `--info` and `--debug` options. You can choose to use these newer
536 options in addition to, or in place of using `--verbose`, as any
537 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of `-v`. Both `--info`
538 and `--debug` have a way to ask for help that tells you exactly what flags
539 are set for each increase in verbosity.
541 However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "`max verbosity`" setting will limit
542 how high of a level the various individual flags can be set on the daemon
543 side. For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that
544 is set to a higher value than what would be set by `-vv` will be downgraded
545 to the `-vv` level in the daemon's logging.
549 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the information output
550 you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
551 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
552 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
553 that support higher levels). Use `--info=help` to see all the available
554 flag names, what they output, and what flag names are added for each
555 increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
557 > rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
558 > rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/
560 Note that `--info=name`'s output is affected by the `--out-format` and
561 `--itemize-changes` (`-i`) options. See those options for more information
562 on what is output and when.
564 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
565 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
566 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
567 See also the "`max verbosity`" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
571 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug output you
572 want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level number,
573 with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output level,
574 and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those that
575 support higher levels). Use `--debug=help` to see all the available flag
576 names, what they output, and what flag names are added for each increase in
577 the verbose level. Some examples:
579 > rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
580 > rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/
582 Note that some debug messages will only be output when `--msgs2stderr` is
583 specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
585 Beginning in 3.2.0, this option is no longer auto-forwared to the server
586 side in order to allow you to specify different debug values for each side
587 of the transfer, as well as to specify a new debug option that is only
588 present in one of the rsync versions. If you want to duplicate the same
589 option on both sides, using brace expansion is an easy way to save you some
590 typing. This works in zsh and bash:
592 > rsync -aiv {-M,}--debug=del2 src/ dest/
596 This option changes rsync to send all its output directly to stderr rather
597 than to send messages to the client side via the protocol. The protocol
598 allows rsync to output normal messages via stdout and errors via stderr,
599 but it can delay messages behind a slew of data.
601 One case where this is helpful is when sending really large files, since
602 errors that happen on a remote receiver tend to get delayed until after the
603 file's data is fully sent. It is also helpful for debugging, since it
604 helps to avoid overpopulating the protocol data with extra message data.
606 The option does not affect the remote side of a transfer without using
607 `--remote-option` -- e.g. `-M--msgs2stderr` or `{-M,}--msgs2stderr`.
609 Also keep in mind that connecting to a normal (non-remote-shell) daemon
610 does not have a stderr channel to send messages back to the client side, so
611 a modern rsync only allows the option on a remote-shell-run daemon.
613 This option has the side-effect of making stderr output get line-buffered
614 so that the merging of the output of 3 programs happens in a more readable
619 This option decreases the amount of information you are given during the
620 transfer, notably suppressing information messages from the remote server.
621 This option is useful when invoking rsync from cron.
625 This option affects the information that is output by the client at the
626 start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the message-of-the-day (MOTD)
627 text, but it also affects the list of modules that the daemon sends in
628 response to the "rsync host::" request (due to a limitation in the rsync
629 protocol), so omit this option if you want to request the list of modules
632 0. `--ignore-times`, `-I`
634 Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the same size and have
635 the same modification timestamp. This option turns off this "quick check"
636 behavior, causing all files to be updated.
640 This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for finding files that need
641 to be transferred, changing it from the default of transferring files with
642 either a changed size or a changed last-modified time to just looking for
643 files that have changed in size. This is useful when starting to use rsync
644 after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
647 0. `--modify-window`, `-@`
649 When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the timestamps as being equal
650 if they differ by no more than the modify-window value. The default is 0,
651 which matches just integer seconds. If you specify a negative value (and
652 the receiver is at least version 3.1.3) then nanoseconds will also be taken
653 into account. Specifying 1 is useful for copies to/from MS Windows FAT
654 filesystems, because FAT represents times with a 2-second resolution
655 (allowing times to differ from the original by up to 1 second).
657 If you want all your transfers to default to comparing nanoseconds, you can
658 create a `~/.popt` file and put these lines in it:
660 > rsync alias -a -a@-1
661 > rsync alias -t -t@-1
663 With that as the default, you'd need to specify `--modify-window=0` (aka
664 `-@0`) to override it and ignore nanoseconds, e.g. if you're copying
665 between ext3 and ext4, or if the receiving rsync is older than 3.1.3.
667 0. `--checksum`, `-c`
669 This changes the way rsync checks if the files have been changed and are in
670 need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync uses a "quick check" that
671 (by default) checks if each file's size and time of last modification match
672 between the sender and receiver. This option changes this to compare a
673 128-bit checksum for each file that has a matching size. Generating the
674 checksums means that both sides will expend a lot of disk I/O reading all
675 the data in the files in the transfer, so this can slow things down
676 significantly (and this is prior to any reading that will be done to
677 transfer changed files)
679 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
680 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
681 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
682 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
683 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
685 Note that rsync always verifies that each _transferred_ file was correctly
686 reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file checksum that
687 is generated as the file is transferred, but that automatic
688 after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this option's
689 before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
691 The checksum used is auto-negotiated between the client and the server, but
692 can be overridden using either the `--checksum-choice` option or an
693 environment variable that is discussed in that option's section.
697 This is equivalent to `-rlptgoD`. It is a quick way of saying you want
698 recursion and want to preserve almost everything (with `-H` being a notable
699 omission). The only exception to the above equivalence is when
700 `--files-from` is specified, in which case `-r` is not implied.
702 Note that `-a` **does not preserve hardlinks**, because finding
703 multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately specify `-H`.
707 You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing the option name
708 with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-": only options that
709 are implied by other options (e.g. `--no-D`, `--no-perms`) or have
710 different defaults in various circumstances (e.g. `--no-whole-file`,
711 `--no-blocking-io`, `--no-dirs`). You may specify either the short or the
712 long option name after the "no-" prefix (e.g. `--no-R` is the same as
715 For example: if you want to use `-a` (`--archive`) but don't want `-o`
716 (`--owner`), instead of converting `-a` into `-rlptgD`, you could specify
717 `-a --no-o` (or `-a --no-owner`).
719 The order of the options is important: if you specify `--no-r -a`, the
720 `-r` option would end up being turned on, the opposite of `-a --no-r`.
721 Note also that the side-effects of the `--files-from` option are NOT
722 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
723 changes the meaning of `-a` (see the `--files-from` option for more
726 0. `--recursive`, `-r`
728 This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also `--dirs` (`-d`).
730 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
731 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
732 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
733 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
734 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
735 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
737 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
738 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: `--delete-before`,
739 `--delete-after`, `--prune-empty-dirs`, and `--delay-updates`. Because of
740 this, the default delete mode when you specify `--delete` is now
741 `--delete-during` when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0 (use
742 `--del` or `--delete-during` to request this improved deletion mode
743 explicitly). See also the `--delete-delay` option that is a better choice
744 than using `--delete-after`.
746 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the `--no-inc-recursive` option
747 or its shorter `--no-i-r` alias.
749 0. `--relative`, `-R`
751 Use relative paths. This means that the full path names specified on the
752 command line are sent to the server rather than just the last parts of the
753 filenames. This is particularly useful when you want to send several
754 different directories at the same time. For example, if you used this
757 > rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
759 would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote machine. If instead
762 > rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
764 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
765 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
766 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
769 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
770 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
771 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected behaviors
772 when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had a symlink
773 in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink, include both
774 the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real path. If
775 you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may need to use
776 the `--no-implied-dirs` option.
778 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
779 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
780 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
781 the source path, like this:
783 > rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
785 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the dot
786 must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.) For
787 older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the source
788 path. For example, when pushing files:
790 > (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
792 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
793 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.) If you're
794 pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only for a
795 non-daemon transfer):
797 > rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \
798 > remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/
800 0. `--no-implied-dirs`
802 This option affects the default behavior of the `--relative` option. When
803 it is specified, the attributes of the implied directories from the source
804 names are not included in the transfer. This means that the corresponding
805 path elements on the destination system are left unchanged if they exist,
806 and any missing implied directories are created with default attributes.
807 This even allows these implied path elements to have big differences, such
808 as being a symlink to a directory on the receiving side.
810 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
811 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
812 are implied when `--relative` is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to "bar"
813 on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily delete
814 "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into the new
815 directory. With `--no-implied-dirs`, the receiving rsync updates
816 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
817 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
818 preservation is to use the `--keep-dirlinks` option (which will also affect
819 symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
821 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
822 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
823 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
827 With this option, preexisting destination files are renamed as each file is
828 transferred or deleted. You can control where the backup file goes and
829 what (if any) suffix gets appended using the `--backup-dir` and `--suffix`
832 Note that if you don't specify `--backup-dir`, (1) the `--omit-dir-times`
833 option will be forced on, and (2) if `--delete` is also in effect (without
834 `--delete-excluded`), rsync will add a "protect" filter-rule for the backup
835 suffix to the end of all your existing excludes (e.g. `-f "P *~"`). This
836 will prevent previously backed-up files from being deleted. Note that if
837 you are supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert
838 your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list so that it
839 has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify a
840 trailing inclusion/exclusion of `*`, the auto-added rule would never be
843 0. `--backup-dir=DIR`
845 In combination with the `--backup` option, this tells rsync to store all
846 backups in the specified directory on the receiving side. This can be used
847 for incremental backups. You can additionally specify a backup suffix
848 using the `--suffix` option (otherwise the files backed up in the specified
849 directory will keep their original filenames).
851 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
852 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
853 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
854 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
855 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
859 This option allows you to override the default backup suffix used with the
860 `--backup` (`-b`) option. The default suffix is a `~` if no `--backup-dir`
861 was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
865 This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the destination and have
866 a modified time that is newer than the source file. (If an existing
867 destination file has a modification time equal to the source file's, it
868 will be updated if the sizes are different.)
870 Note that this does not affect the copying of dirs, symlinks, or other
871 special files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and
872 receiver is always considered to be important enough for an update, no
873 matter what date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a
874 directory where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
875 regardless of the timestamps.
877 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
878 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
879 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
883 This option changes how rsync transfers a file when its data needs to be
884 updated: instead of the default method of creating a new copy of the file
885 and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync instead writes the
886 updated data directly to the destination file.
888 This has several effects:
890 - Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
891 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
892 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
893 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and
895 - In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
896 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave
898 - The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer and
899 will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
901 - A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
902 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission
903 for the open of the file for writing to be successful.
904 - The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if some
905 data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to a
906 position later in the file. This does not apply if you use `--backup`,
907 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for
910 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
911 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
913 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
914 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
915 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
916 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
918 The option implies `--partial` (since an interrupted transfer does not
919 delete the file), but conflicts with `--partial-dir` and `--delay-updates`.
920 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 `--inplace` was also incompatible with
921 `--compare-dest` and `--link-dest`.
925 This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto the end of the
926 file, which presumes that the data that already exists on the receiving
927 side is identical with the start of the file on the sending side. If a
928 file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is the same or
929 longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This does not
930 interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes (e.g.
931 permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
932 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
935 The use of `--append` can be dangerous if you aren't 100% sure that the
936 files that are longer have only grown by the appending of data onto the
937 end. You should thus use include/exclude/filter rules to ensure that such
938 a transfer is only affecting files that you know to be growing via appended
943 This works just like the `--append` option, but the existing data on the
944 receiving side is included in the full-file checksum verification step,
945 which will cause a file to be resent if the final verification step fails
946 (rsync uses a normal, non-appending `--inplace` transfer for the resend).
947 It otherwise has the exact same caveats for files that have not grown
948 larger, so don't use this for a general copy.
950 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the `--append` option worked like
951 `--append-verify`, so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
952 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
953 will initiate an `--append-verify` transfer.
957 Tell the sending side to include any directories that are encountered.
958 Unlike `--recursive`, a directory's contents are not copied unless the
959 directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash (e.g. ".",
960 "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the `--recursive` option,
961 rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and output a message to that
962 effect for each one). If you specify both `--dirs` and `--recursive`,
963 `--recursive` takes precedence.
965 The `--dirs` option is implied by the `--files-from` option or the
966 `--list-only` option (including an implied `--list-only` usage) if
967 `--recursive` wasn't specified (so that directories are seen in the
968 listing). Specify `--no-dirs` (or `--no-d`) if you want to turn this off.
970 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, `--old-dirs` (or
971 `--old-d`) that tells rsync to use a hack of `-r --exclude='/*/*'` to get
972 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
976 When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the destination.
978 0. `--copy-links`, `-L`
980 When symlinks are encountered, the item that they point to (the referent)
981 is copied, rather than the symlink. In older versions of rsync, this
982 option also had the side-effect of telling the receiving side to follow
983 symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a modern rsync such as this
984 one, you'll need to specify `--keep-dirlinks` (`-K`) to get this extra
985 behavior. The only exception is when sending files to an rsync that is too
986 old to understand `-K` -- in that case, the `-L` option will still have the
987 side-effect of `-K` on that older receiving rsync.
989 0. `--copy-unsafe-links`
991 This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic links that point outside
992 the copied tree. Absolute symlinks are also treated like ordinary files,
993 and so are any symlinks in the source path itself when `--relative` is
994 used. This option has no additional effect if `--copy-links` was also
997 Note that the cut-off point is the top of the transfer, which is the part
998 of the path that rsync isn't mentioning in the verbose output. If you copy
999 "/src/subdir" to "/dest/" then the "subdir" directory is a name inside the
1000 transfer tree, not the top of the transfer (which is /src) so it is legal
1001 for created relative symlinks to refer to other names inside the /src and
1002 /dest directories. If you instead copy "/src/subdir/" (with a trailing
1003 slash) to "/dest/subdir" that would not allow symlinks to any files outside
1008 This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point outside the
1009 copied tree. All absolute symlinks are also ignored. Using this option in
1010 conjunction with `--relative` may give unexpected results.
1014 This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on the receiving side in
1015 a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see below), or (2) to
1016 unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in a munged
1017 state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data to
1018 not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
1020 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
1021 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long
1022 as that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will
1023 refuse to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
1025 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it
1026 to affect the server, specify it via `--remote-option`. (Note that in a
1027 local transfer, the client side is the sender.)
1029 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether
1030 it wants munged symlinks via its "`munge symlinks`" parameter. See also the
1031 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
1033 0. `--copy-dirlinks`, `-k`
1035 This option causes the sending side to treat a symlink to a directory as
1036 though it were a real directory. This is useful if you don't want symlinks
1037 to non-directories to be affected, as they would be using `--copy-links`.
1039 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
1040 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
1041 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
1042 `--force` or `--delete` is in effect).
1044 See also `--keep-dirlinks` for an analogous option for the receiving side.
1046 `--copy-dirlinks` applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
1047 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
1048 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using
1049 `--relative` to make the paths match up right. For example:
1051 > rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/
1053 This works because rsync calls **lstat**(2) on the source arg as given, and
1054 the trailing slash makes **lstat**(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a
1055 directory in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the
1058 0. `--keep-dirlinks`, `-K`
1060 This option causes the receiving side to treat a symlink to a directory as
1061 though it were a real directory, but only if it matches a real directory
1062 from the sender. Without this option, the receiver's symlink would be
1063 deleted and replaced with a real directory.
1065 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
1066 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
1067 `--keep-dirlinks`, the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
1068 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
1069 `--keep-dirlinks`, the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
1072 One note of caution: if you use `--keep-dirlinks`, you must trust all the
1073 symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to create
1074 their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a subsequent
1075 copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the content of
1076 whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies, you are
1077 better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink to modify
1078 your receiving hierarchy.
1080 See also `--copy-dirlinks` for an analogous option for the sending side.
1082 0. `--hard-links`, `-H`
1084 This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in the source and link
1085 together the corresponding files on the destination. Without this option,
1086 hard-linked files in the source are treated as though they were separate
1089 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on
1090 the destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
1091 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
1093 - If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than what
1094 is present in the source file list), the copying algorithm will not break
1095 them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
1096 differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
1097 (unless you are using the `--inplace` option).
1098 - If you specify a `--link-dest` directory that contains hard links, the
1099 linking of the destination files against the `--link-dest` files can
1100 cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
1101 `--link-dest` associations.
1103 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
1104 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
1105 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
1106 you are tempted to use the `--inplace` option to avoid this breakage, be
1107 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
1108 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
1109 see the `--inplace` option for more caveats).
1111 If incremental recursion is active (see `--recursive`), rsync may transfer
1112 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that
1113 contents exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the
1114 accuracy of the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just
1115 its efficiency (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a
1116 hard-linked file that could have been found later in the transfer in
1117 another member of the hard-linked set of files). One way to avoid this
1118 inefficiency is to disable incremental recursion using the
1119 `--no-inc-recursive` option.
1123 This option causes the receiving rsync to set the destination permissions
1124 to be the same as the source permissions. (See also the `--chmod` option
1125 for a way to modify what rsync considers to be the source permissions.)
1127 When this option is _off_, permissions are set as follows:
1129 - Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
1130 permissions, though the `--executability` option might change just the
1131 execute permission for the file.
1132 - New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source file's
1133 permissions masked with the receiving directory's default permissions
1134 (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions specified via
1135 the destination directory's default ACL), and their special permission
1136 bits disabled except in the case where a new directory inherits a setgid
1137 bit from its parent directory.
1139 Thus, when `--perms` and `--executability` are both disabled, rsync's
1140 behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities, such as **cp**(1)
1143 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
1144 permissions, use `--perms`. To give new files the destination-default
1145 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
1146 `--perms` option is off and use `--chmod=ugo=rwX` (which ensures that all
1147 non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter behavior
1148 easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as putting this
1149 line in the file `~/.popt` (the following defines the `-Z` option, and
1150 includes `--no-g` to use the default group of the destination dir):
1152 > rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX
1154 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1156 > rsync -avZ src/ dest/
1158 (Caveat: make sure that `-a` does not follow `-Z`, or it will re-enable the
1159 two `--no-*` options mentioned above.)
1161 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1162 directories when `--perms` is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1163 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1164 newly-created files when `--perms` was off, while overriding the
1165 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1166 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1167 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1168 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1171 0. `--executability`, `-E`
1173 This option causes rsync to preserve the executability (or
1174 non-executability) of regular files when `--perms` is not enabled. A
1175 regular file is considered to be executable if at least one 'x' is turned
1176 on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's executability
1177 differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync modifies the
1178 destination file's permissions as follows:
1180 - To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x' permissions.
1181 - To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that has a
1182 corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1184 If `--perms` is enabled, this option is ignored.
1188 This option causes rsync to update the destination ACLs to be the same as
1189 the source ACLs. The option also implies `--perms`.
1191 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for
1192 this option to work properly. See the `--fake-super` option for a way to
1193 backup and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1197 This option causes rsync to update the destination extended attributes to
1198 be the same as the source ones.
1200 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done
1201 by a super-user copies all namespaces except system.\*. A normal user only
1202 copies the user.\* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user
1203 namespaces as a normal user, see the `--fake-super` option.
1205 The above name filtering can be overridden by using one or more filter
1206 options with the **x** modifier. When you specify an xattr-affecting
1207 filter rule, rsync requires that you do your own system/user filtering, as
1208 well as any additional filtering for what xattr names are copied and what
1209 names are allowed to be deleted. For example, to skip the system
1210 namespace, you could specify:
1212 > --filter='-x system.*'
1214 To skip all namespaces except the user namespace, you could specify a
1217 > --filter='-x! user.*'
1219 To prevent any attributes from being deleted, you could specify a
1220 receiver-only rule that excludes all names:
1224 Note that the `-X` option does not copy rsync's special xattr values (e.g.
1225 those used by `--fake-super`) unless you repeat the option (e.g. `-XX`).
1226 This "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with `--fake-super`.
1230 This option tells rsync to apply one or more comma-separated "chmod" modes
1231 to the permission of the files in the transfer. The resulting value is
1232 treated as though it were the permissions that the sending side supplied
1233 for the file, which means that this option can seem to have no effect on
1234 existing files if `--perms` is not enabled.
1236 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the **chmod**(1)
1237 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1238 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1239 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1240 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1241 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1242 consistent executability across all bits:
1244 > --chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X
1246 Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1248 > --chmod=D2775,F664
1250 It is also legal to specify multiple `--chmod` options, as each additional
1251 option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1253 See the `--perms` and `--executability` options for how the resulting
1254 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1258 This option causes rsync to set the owner of the destination file to be the
1259 same as the source file, but only if the receiving rsync is being run as
1260 the super-user (see also the `--super` and `--fake-super` options). Without
1261 this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to the
1262 invoking user on the receiving side.
1264 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1265 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1266 `--numeric-ids` option for a full discussion).
1270 This option causes rsync to set the group of the destination file to be the
1271 same as the source file. If the receiving program is not running as the
1272 super-user (or if `--no-super` was specified), only groups that the
1273 invoking user on the receiving side is a member of will be preserved.
1274 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1275 user on the receiving side.
1277 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1278 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1279 (see also the `--numeric-ids` option for a full discussion).
1283 This option causes rsync to transfer character and block device files to
1284 the remote system to recreate these devices. This option has no effect if
1285 the receiving rsync is not run as the super-user (see also the `--super`
1286 and `--fake-super` options).
1290 This option causes rsync to transfer special files such as named sockets
1295 The `-D` option is equivalent to `--devices --specials`.
1297 0. `--write-devices`
1299 This tells rsync to treat a device on the receiving side as a regular file,
1300 allowing the writing of file data into a device.
1302 This option implies the `--inplace` option.
1304 Be careful using this, as you should know what devices are present on the
1305 receiving side of the transfer, especially if running rsync as root.
1307 This option is refused by an rsync daemon.
1311 This tells rsync to transfer modification times along with the files and
1312 update them on the remote system. Note that if this option is not used,
1313 the optimization that excludes files that have not been modified cannot be
1314 effective; in other words, a missing `-t` or `-a` will cause the next
1315 transfer to behave as if it used `-I`, causing all files to be updated
1316 (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly
1317 efficient if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off
1322 This tells rsync to set the access (use) times of the destination files to
1323 the same value as the source files.
1325 If repeated, it also sets the `--open-noatime` option, which can help you
1326 to make the sending and receiving systems have the same access times on the
1327 transferred files without needing to run rsync an extra time after a file
1330 Note that some older rsync versions (prior to 3.2.0) may have been built
1331 with a pre-release `--atimes` patch that does not imply `--open-noatime`
1332 when this option is repeated.
1336 This tells rsync to open files with the O_NOATIME flag (on systems that
1337 support it) to avoid changing the access time of the files that are being
1338 transferred. If your OS does not support the O_NOATIME flag then rsync
1339 will silently ignore this option. Note also that some filesystems are
1340 mounted to avoid updating the atime on read access even without the
1341 O_NOATIME flag being set.
1343 0. `--omit-dir-times`, `-O`
1345 This tells rsync to omit directories when it is preserving modification
1346 times (see `--times`). If NFS is sharing the directories on the receiving
1347 side, it is a good idea to use `-O`. This option is inferred if you use
1348 `--backup` without `--backup-dir`.
1350 This option also has the side-effect of avoiding early creation of
1351 directories in incremental recursion copies. The default `--inc-recursive`
1352 copying normally does an early-create pass of all the sub-directories in a
1353 parent directory in order for it to be able to then set the modify time of
1354 the parent directory right away (without having to delay that until a bunch
1355 of recursive copying has finished). This early-create idiom is not
1356 necessary if directory modify times are not being preserved, so it is
1357 skipped. Since early-create directories don't have accurate mode, mtime,
1358 or ownership, the use of this option can help when someone wants to avoid
1359 these partially-finished directories.
1361 0. `--omit-link-times`, `-J`
1363 This tells rsync to omit symlinks when it is preserving modification times
1368 This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user activities even if the
1369 receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These activities include:
1370 preserving users via the `--owner` option, preserving all groups (not just
1371 the current user's groups) via the `--groups` option, and copying devices
1372 via the `--devices` option. This is useful for systems that allow such
1373 activities without being the super-user, and also for ensuring that you
1374 will get errors if the receiving side isn't being run as the super-user.
1375 To turn off super-user activities, the super-user can use `--no-super`.
1379 When this option is enabled, rsync simulates super-user activities by
1380 saving/restoring the privileged attributes via special extended attributes
1381 that are attached to each file (as needed). This includes the file's owner
1382 and group (if it is not the default), the file's device info (device &
1383 special files are created as empty text files), and any permission bits
1384 that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g. the real file gets
1385 u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's access (since the
1386 real super-user can always access/change a file, the files we create can
1387 always be accessed/changed by the creating user). This option also handles
1388 ACLs (if `--acls` was specified) and non-user extended attributes (if
1389 `--xattrs` was specified).
1391 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1392 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1394 The `--fake-super` option only affects the side where the option is used.
1395 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1396 `--remote-option` (`-M`) option:
1398 > rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/
1400 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1401 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1402 files, specify `-M--fake-super`. If you wish a local copy to enable this
1403 option just for the source files, combine `--fake-super` with `-M--super`.
1405 This option is overridden by both `--super` and `--no-super`.
1407 See also the "`fake super`" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1411 Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up less space on the
1412 destination. If combined with `--inplace` the file created might not end
1413 up with sparse blocks with some combinations of kernel version and/or
1414 filesystem type. If `--whole-file` is in effect (e.g. for a local copy)
1415 then it will always work because rsync truncates the file prior to writing
1416 out the updated version.
1418 Note that versions of rsync older than 3.1.3 will reject the combination of
1419 `--sparse` and `--inplace`.
1423 This tells the receiver to allocate each destination file to its eventual
1424 size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use the real
1425 filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's **fallocate**(2)
1426 system call or Cygwin's **posix_fallocate**(3), not the slow glibc
1427 implementation that writes a null byte into each block.
1429 Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
1430 filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If
1431 the destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs,
1432 NTFS, etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
1434 If combined with `--sparse`, the file will only have sparse blocks (as
1435 opposed to allocated sequences of null bytes) if the kernel version and
1436 filesystem type support creating holes in the allocated data.
1438 0. `--dry-run`, `-n`
1440 This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't make any changes (and
1441 produces mostly the same output as a real run). It is most commonly used
1442 in combination with the `--verbose`, `-v` and/or `--itemize-changes`, `-i`
1443 options to see what an rsync command is going to do before one actually
1446 The output of `--itemize-changes` is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1447 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1448 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1449 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not send
1450 the actual data for file transfers, so `--progress` has no effect, the
1451 "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1452 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1453 where no file transfers were needed.
1455 0. `--whole-file`, `-W`
1457 This option disables rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which causes all
1458 transferred files to be sent whole. The transfer may be faster if this
1459 option is used when the bandwidth between the source and destination
1460 machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the "disk"
1461 is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both the
1462 source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1463 batch-writing option is in effect.
1465 0. `--checksum-choice=STR`, `--cc=STR`
1467 This option overrides the checksum algorithms. If one algorithm name is
1468 specified, it is used for both the transfer checksums and (assuming
1469 `--checksum` is specified) the pre-transfer checksums. If two
1470 comma-separated names are supplied, the first name affects the transfer
1471 checksums, and the second name affects the pre-transfer checksums (`-c`).
1473 The checksum options that you may be able to use are:
1475 - `auto` (the default)
1476 - `xxh64` (aka xxhash)
1481 Run `rsync -V` to see the default checksum list compiled into your version.
1483 If "none" is specified for the first (or only) name, the `--whole-file`
1484 option is forced on and no checksum verification is performed on the
1485 transferred data. If "none" is specified for the second (or only) name,
1486 the `--checksum` option cannot be used.
1488 The "auto" option is the default, where rsync bases its algorithm choice on
1489 a negotiation between the client and the server as follows:
1491 If both the client and the server are at least version 3.2.0, they will
1492 exchange a list of checksum names and choose the first one in the list that
1493 they have in common. This typically means that they will choose xxh64 if
1494 they both support it and fall back to MD5. If one side of the transfer is
1495 not new enough to support this checksum negotiation, then a value is chosen
1496 based on the protocol version (which chooses between MD5 and various
1497 flavors of MD4 based on protocol age).
1499 You can also override the checksum using the RSYNC_CHECKSUM_LIST
1500 environment variable by setting it to a space-separated list of checksum
1501 names that you consider acceptable. If no common checksum is found, the
1502 client exits with an error. This method does not allow you to specify the
1503 transfer checksum separately from the pre-transfer checksum, and it ignores
1504 "auto" and all unknown checksum names. If the remote rsync is not new
1505 enough to handle a checksum negotiation list, the list is silently ignored
1506 unless it contains the string "FAIL".
1508 The use of the `--checksum-choice` option overrides this environment list.
1510 0. `--one-file-system`, `-x`
1512 This tells rsync to avoid crossing a filesystem boundary when recursing.
1513 This does not limit the user's ability to specify items to copy from
1514 multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion through the hierarchy of each
1515 directory that the user specified, and also the analogous recursion on the
1516 receiving side during deletion. Also keep in mind that rsync treats a
1517 "bind" mount to the same device as being on the same filesystem.
1519 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1520 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1521 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1522 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1524 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via `--copy-links` or
1525 `--copy-unsafe-links`), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1526 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected by
1529 0. `--existing`, `--ignore-non-existing`
1531 This tells rsync to skip creating files (including directories) that do not
1532 exist yet on the destination. If this option is combined with the
1533 `--ignore-existing` option, no files will be updated (which can be useful
1534 if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1536 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1537 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1538 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1540 0. `--ignore-existing`
1542 This tells rsync to skip updating files that already exist on the
1543 destination (this does _not_ ignore existing directories, or nothing would
1544 get done). See also `--existing`.
1546 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1547 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1548 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1550 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the `--link-dest`
1551 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1552 a `--link-dest` run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1553 used properly), using `--ignore-existing` will ensure that the
1554 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1555 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option is
1556 only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1558 0. `--remove-source-files`
1560 This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files (meaning
1561 non-directories) that are a part of the transfer and have been successfully
1562 duplicated on the receiving side.
1564 Note that you should only use this option on source files that are
1565 quiescent. If you are using this to move files that show up in a
1566 particular directory over to another host, make sure that the finished
1567 files get renamed into the source directory, not directly written into it,
1568 so that rsync can't possibly transfer a file that is not yet fully written.
1569 If you can't first write the files into a different directory, you should
1570 use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid transferring files that are not
1571 yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new" when it is written, rename it to
1572 "foo" when it is done, and then use the option `--exclude='*.new'` for the
1575 Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an
1576 error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unchanged.
1580 This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the receiving side (ones
1581 that aren't on the sending side), but only for the directories that are
1582 being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to send the whole directory
1583 (e.g. "`dir`" or "`dir/`") without using a wildcard for the directory's
1584 contents (e.g. "`dir/*`") since the wildcard is expanded by the shell and
1585 rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not the files'
1586 parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are also
1587 excluded from being deleted unless you use the `--delete-excluded` option
1588 or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1589 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1591 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless `--recursive`
1592 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when `--dirs`
1593 (`-d`) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being
1596 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1597 first try a run using the `--dry-run` option (`-n`) to see what files are
1598 going to be deleted.
1600 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any files
1601 at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to prevent
1602 temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the sending side from
1603 causing a massive deletion of files on the destination. You can override
1604 this with the `--ignore-errors` option.
1606 The `--delete` option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1607 without conflict, as well as `--delete-excluded`. However, if none of the
1608 `--delete-WHEN` options are specified, rsync will choose the
1609 `--delete-during` algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and the
1610 `--delete-before` algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1611 `--delete-delay` and `--delete-after`.
1613 0. `--delete-before`
1615 Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done before the
1616 transfer starts. See `--delete` (which is implied) for more details on
1619 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for
1620 space and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer
1621 possible. However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the
1622 transfer, and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if
1623 `--timeout` was specified). It also forces rsync to use the old,
1624 non-incremental recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the
1625 files in the transfer into memory at once (see `--recursive`).
1627 0. `--delete-during`, `--del`
1629 Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done incrementally
1630 as the transfer happens. The per-directory delete scan is done right
1631 before each directory is checked for updates, so it behaves like a more
1632 efficient `--delete-before`, including doing the deletions prior to any
1633 per-directory filter files being updated. This option was first added in
1634 rsync version 2.6.4. See `--delete` (which is implied) for more details on
1639 Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be computed during
1640 the transfer (like `--delete-during`), and then removed after the transfer
1641 completes. This is useful when combined with `--delay-updates` and/or
1642 `--fuzzy`, and is more efficient than using `--delete-after` (but can
1643 behave differently, since `--delete-after` computes the deletions in a
1644 separate pass after all updates are done). If the number of removed files
1645 overflows an internal buffer, a temporary file will be created on the
1646 receiving side to hold the names (it is removed while open, so you
1647 shouldn't see it during the transfer). If the creation of the temporary
1648 file fails, rsync will try to fall back to using `--delete-after` (which it
1649 cannot do if `--recursive` is doing an incremental scan). See `--delete`
1650 (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1654 Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done after the
1655 transfer has completed. This is useful if you are sending new
1656 per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and you want their
1657 exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the current transfer. It
1658 also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion algorithm that
1659 requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into memory at once
1660 (see `--recursive`). See `--delete` (which is implied) for more details on
1663 0. `--delete-excluded`
1665 In addition to deleting the files on the receiving side that are not on the
1666 sending side, this tells rsync to also delete any files on the receiving
1667 side that are excluded (see `--exclude`). See the FILTER RULES section for
1668 a way to make individual exclusions behave this way on the receiver, and
1669 for a way to protect files from `--delete-excluded`. See `--delete` (which
1670 is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1672 0. `--ignore-missing-args`
1674 When rsync is first processing the explicitly requested source files (e.g.
1675 command-line arguments or `--files-from` entries), it is normally an error
1676 if the file cannot be found. This option suppresses that error, and does
1677 not try to transfer the file. This does not affect subsequent
1678 vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be present and later
1681 0. `--delete-missing-args`
1683 This option takes the behavior of (the implied) `--ignore-missing-args`
1684 option a step farther: each missing arg will become a deletion request of
1685 the corresponding destination file on the receiving side (should it exist).
1686 If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will only be
1687 successfully deleted if `--force` or `--delete` are in effect. Other than
1688 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1690 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1691 display as a "`*missing`" entry in the `--list-only` output.
1693 0. `--ignore-errors`
1695 Tells `--delete` to go ahead and delete files even when there are I/O
1700 This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory when it is to be
1701 replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if deletions are not
1702 active (see `--delete` for details).
1704 Note for older rsync versions: `--force` used to still be required when
1705 using `--delete-after`, and it used to be non-functional unless the
1706 `--recursive` option was also enabled.
1708 0. `--max-delete=NUM`
1710 This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directories. If that
1711 limit is exceeded, all further deletions are skipped through the end of the
1712 transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning (including a count of the
1713 skipped deletions) and exits with an error code of 25 (unless some more
1714 important error condition also occurred).
1716 Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify `--max-delete=0` to be warned
1717 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1718 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1719 version the client is, you can use the less obvious `--max-delete=-1` as a
1720 backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1721 really old versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1723 0. `--max-size=SIZE`
1725 This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is larger than the
1726 specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a
1727 size multiplier, and may be a fractional value (e.g. `--max-size=1.5m`).
1729 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1730 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1731 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1733 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024), "M" (or
1734 "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024\*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a gibibyte
1735 (1024\*1024\*1024). If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024,
1736 use "KB", "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all
1737 values.) Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1738 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1740 Examples: `--max-size=1.5mb-1` is 1499999 bytes, and `--max-size=2g+1` is
1743 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow `--max-size=0`.
1745 0. `--min-size=SIZE`
1747 This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is smaller than the
1748 specified SIZE, which can help in not transferring small, junk files. See
1749 the `--max-size` option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1751 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow `--min-size=0`.
1753 0. `--block-size=BLOCKSIZE`, `-B`
1755 This forces the block size used in rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a
1756 fixed value. It is normally selected based on the size of each file being
1757 updated. See the technical report for details.
1759 0. `--rsh=COMMAND`, `-e`
1761 This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell program to use
1762 for communication between the local and remote copies of rsync. Typically,
1763 rsync is configured to use ssh by default, but you may prefer to use rsh on
1766 If this option is used with `[user@]host::module/path`, then the remote
1767 shell _COMMAND_ will be used to run an rsync daemon on the remote host, and
1768 all data will be transmitted through that remote shell connection, rather
1769 than through a direct socket connection to a running rsync daemon on the
1770 remote host. See the section "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A
1771 REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1773 Beginning with rsync 3.2.0, the RSYNC_PORT environment variable will be set
1774 when a daemon connection is being made via a remote-shell connection. It
1775 is set to 0 if the default daemon port is being assumed, or it is set to
1776 the value of the rsync port that was specified via either the `--port`
1777 option or a non-empty port value in an rsync:// URL. This allows the
1778 script to discern if a non-default port is being requested, allowing for
1779 things such as an SSL or stunnel helper script to connect to a default or
1782 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1783 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs or
1784 other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other, and you
1785 can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an argument (but
1786 not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote inside a single-quoted
1787 string gives you a single-quote; likewise for double-quotes (though you
1788 need to pay attention to which quotes your shell is parsing and which
1789 quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1792 > -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"'
1794 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1795 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1797 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1798 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as `-e`.
1800 See also the `--blocking-io` option which is affected by this option.
1802 0. `--rsync-path=PROGRAM`
1804 Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote machine to
1805 start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in the default remote-shell's
1806 path (e.g. `--rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync`). Note that PROGRAM is run
1807 with the help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or command
1808 sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the standard-in
1809 & standard-out that rsync is using to communicate.
1811 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1812 machine for use with the `--relative` option. For instance:
1814 > rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/
1816 0. `--remote-option=OPTION`, `-M`
1818 This option is used for more advanced situations where you want certain
1819 effects to be limited to one side of the transfer only. For instance, if
1820 you want to pass `--log-file=FILE` and `--fake-super` to the remote system,
1821 specify it like this:
1823 > rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/
1825 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1826 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1829 > rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/
1831 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will
1832 cause rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over
1833 the socket, and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1835 Note that it is best to use a separate `--remote-option` for each option
1836 you want to pass. This makes your usage compatible with the
1837 `--protect-args` option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote
1838 options will be split by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect
1841 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1842 "remote" side is the receiver.
1844 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them
1845 that prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a
1846 short option letter (e.g. `-M--log-file=/tmp/foo`). If this bug affects
1847 your version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with
1850 0. `--cvs-exclude`, `-C`
1852 This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files that you
1853 often don't want to transfer between systems. It uses a similar algorithm
1854 to CVS to determine if a file should be ignored.
1856 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1857 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1859 [comment]: # (This list gets used for the default-cvsignore.h file.)
1898 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1899 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names are
1900 delimited by whitespace).
1902 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a .cvsignore
1903 file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike rsync's
1904 filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace. See the
1905 **cvs**(1) manual for more information.
1907 If you're combining `-C` with your own `--filter` rules, you should note
1908 that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1909 regardless of where the `-C` was placed on the command-line. This makes
1910 them a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want
1911 to control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules,
1912 you should omit the `-C` as a command-line option and use a combination of
1913 `--filter=:C` and `--filter=-C` (either on your command-line or by putting
1914 the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules). The
1915 first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore file.
1916 The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes mentioned
1919 0. `--filter=RULE`, `-f`
1921 This option allows you to add rules to selectively exclude certain files
1922 from the list of files to be transferred. This is most useful in
1923 combination with a recursive transfer.
1925 You may use as many `--filter` options on the command line as you like to
1926 build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1927 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1928 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1929 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1931 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1935 The `-F` option is a shorthand for adding two `--filter` rules to your
1936 command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1938 > --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
1940 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1941 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1942 files in the transfer. If `-F` is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1945 > --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'
1947 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1949 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1952 0. `--exclude=PATTERN`
1954 This option is a simplified form of the `--filter` option that defaults to
1955 an exclude rule and does not allow the full rule-parsing syntax of normal
1958 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1960 0. `--exclude-from=FILE`
1962 This option is related to the `--exclude` option, but it specifies a FILE
1963 that contains exclude patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the file and
1964 lines starting with '`;`' or '`#`' are ignored. If _FILE_ is '`-`', the
1965 list will be read from standard input.
1967 0. `--include=PATTERN`
1969 This option is a simplified form of the `--filter` option that defaults to
1970 an include rule and does not allow the full rule-parsing syntax of normal
1973 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1975 0. `--include-from=FILE`
1977 This option is related to the `--include` option, but it specifies a FILE
1978 that contains include patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the file and
1979 lines starting with '`;`' or '`#`' are ignored. If _FILE_ is '`-`', the
1980 list will be read from standard input.
1982 0. `--files-from=FILE`
1984 Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer
1985 (as read from the specified FILE or '`-`' for standard input). It also
1986 tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make transferring just the
1987 specified files and directories easier:
1989 - The `--relative` (`-R`) option is implied, which preserves the path
1990 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1991 `--no-relative` or `--no-R` if you want to turn that off).
1992 - The `--dirs` (`-d`) option is implied, which will create directories
1993 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1994 them (use `--no-dirs` or `--no-d` if you want to turn that off).
1995 - The `--archive` (`-a`) option's behavior does not imply `--recursive`
1996 (`-r`), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1997 - These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of
1998 the `--files-from` option on the command-line has no bearing on how other
1999 options are parsed (e.g. `-a` works the same before or after
2000 `--files-from`, as does `--no-R` and all other options).
2002 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source
2003 dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed
2004 to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command:
2006 > rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
2008 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
2009 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
2010 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the
2011 directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly mentioned in
2012 the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the `-r`
2013 option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would also be transferred
2014 (keep in mind that `-r` needs to be specified explicitly with
2015 `--files-from`, since it is not implied by `-a`). Also note that the
2016 effect of the (enabled by default) `--relative` option is to duplicate only
2017 the path info that is read from the file -- it does not force the
2018 duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
2020 In addition, the `--files-from` file can be read from the remote host
2021 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
2022 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
2023 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the transfer".
2026 > rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy
2028 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
2029 was located on the remote "src" host.
2031 If the `--iconv` and `--protect-args` options are specified and the
2032 `--files-from` filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
2033 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
2034 receiving host's charset.
2036 NOTE: sorting the list of files in the `--files-from` input helps rsync to
2037 be more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are
2038 shared between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path
2039 elements (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and
2040 rsync will eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list
2045 This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a file are
2046 terminated by a null ('\\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF. This
2047 affects `--exclude-from`, `--include-from`, `--files-from`, and any merged
2048 files specified in a `--filter` rule. It does not affect `--cvs-exclude`
2049 (since all names read from a .cvsignore file are split on whitespace).
2051 0. `--protect-args`, `-s`
2053 This option sends all filenames and most options to the remote rsync
2054 without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This means that
2055 spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special characters are
2056 not translated (such as `~`, `$`, `;`, `&`, etc.). Wildcards are expanded
2057 on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
2059 If you use this option with `--iconv`, the args related to the remote side
2060 will also be translated from the local to the remote character-set. The
2061 translation happens before wild-cards are expanded. See also the
2062 `--files-from` option.
2064 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
2065 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be
2066 enabled by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state
2067 is overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this
2068 option (note that `--no-s` and `--no-protect-args` are the negative
2069 versions). Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to
2070 make sure it's disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync
2071 that is older than that.
2073 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
2074 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
2075 Run `rsync -V` to check if this is the case, as it will display "default
2076 protect-args" or "optional protect-args" depending on how it was compiled.
2078 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
2079 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
2081 0. `--copy-as=USER[:GROUP]`
2083 This option instructs rsync to use the USER and (if specified after a
2084 colon) the GROUP for the copy operations. This only works if the user that
2085 is running rsync has the ability to change users. If the group is not
2086 specified then the user's default groups are used.
2088 This option can help to reduce the risk of an rsync being run as root into
2089 or out of a directory that might have live changes happening to it and you
2090 want to make sure that root-level read or write actions of system files are
2091 not possible. While you could alternatively run all of rsync as the
2092 specified user, sometimes you need the root-level host-access credentials
2093 to be used, so this allows rsync to drop root for the copying part of the
2094 operation after the remote-shell or daemon connection is established.
2096 The option only affects one side of the transfer unless the transfer is
2097 local, in which case it affects both sides. Use the `--remote-option` to
2098 affect the remote side, such as `-M--copy-as=joe`. For a local transfer,
2099 the lsh (or lsh.sh) support file provides a local-shell helper script that
2100 can be used to allow a "localhost:" or "lh:" host-spec to be specified
2101 without needing to setup any remote shells, allowing you to specify remote
2102 options that affect the side of the transfer that is using the host-spec
2103 (and using hostname "lh" avoids the overriding of the remote directory to
2104 the user's home dir).
2106 For example, the following rsync writes the local files as user "joe":
2108 > sudo rsync -aiv --copy-as=joe host1:backups/joe/ /home/joe/
2110 This makes all files owned by user "joe", limits the groups to those that
2111 are available to that user, and makes it impossible for the joe user to do
2112 a timed exploit of the path to induce a change to a file that the joe user
2113 has no permissions to change.
2115 The following command does a local copy into the "dest/" dir as user "joe"
2116 (assumimg you've installed support/lsh into a dir on your $PATH):
2118 > sudo rsync -aive lsh -M--copy-as=joe src/ lh:dest/
2120 0. `--temp-dir=DIR`, `-T`
2122 This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a scratch directory when creating
2123 temporary copies of the files transferred on the receiving side. The
2124 default behavior is to create each temporary file in the same directory as
2125 the associated destination file. Beginning with rsync 3.1.1, the temp-file
2126 names inside the specified DIR will not be prefixed with an extra dot
2127 (though they will still have a random suffix added).
2129 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
2130 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
2131 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
2132 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
2133 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
2134 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
2135 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
2136 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
2137 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
2138 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
2139 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
2140 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
2141 new version on the disk at the same time.
2143 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
2144 space, you may wish to combine it with the `--delay-updates` option, which
2145 will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
2146 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't have
2147 enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
2148 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned about
2149 disk space is to use the `--partial-dir` option with a relative path;
2150 because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a single file
2151 in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the partial-dir as
2152 a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then rename it into place
2153 from there. (Specifying a `--partial-dir` with an absolute path does not
2154 have this side-effect.)
2158 This option tells rsync that it should look for a basis file for any
2159 destination file that is missing. The current algorithm looks in the same
2160 directory as the destination file for either a file that has an identical
2161 size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If found, rsync uses
2162 the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
2164 If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching
2165 alternate destination directories that are specified via `--compare-dest`,
2166 `--copy-dest`, or `--link-dest`.
2168 Note that the use of the `--delete` option might get rid of any potential
2169 fuzzy-match files, so either use `--delete-after` or specify some filename
2170 exclusions if you need to prevent this.
2172 0. `--compare-dest=DIR`
2174 This option instructs rsync to use _DIR_ on the destination machine as an
2175 additional hierarchy to compare destination files against doing transfers
2176 (if the files are missing in the destination directory). If a file is
2177 found in _DIR_ that is identical to the sender's file, the file will NOT be
2178 transferred to the destination directory. This is useful for creating a
2179 sparse backup of just files that have changed from an earlier backup. This
2180 option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created)
2183 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple `--compare-dest` directories may be
2184 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
2185 for an exact match. If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a
2186 local copy is made and the attributes updated. If a match is not found, a
2187 basis file from one of the _DIRs_ will be selected to try to speed up the
2190 If _DIR_ is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2191 See also `--copy-dest` and `--link-dest`.
2193 NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a
2194 non-empty destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of the
2195 compare-dest hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh
2198 0. `--copy-dest=DIR`
2200 This option behaves like `--compare-dest`, but rsync will also copy
2201 unchanged files found in _DIR_ to the destination directory using a local
2202 copy. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while
2203 leaving existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all
2204 files have been successfully transferred.
2206 Multiple `--copy-dest` directories may be provided, which will cause rsync
2207 to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file. If a
2208 match is not found, a basis file from one of the _DIRs_ will be selected to
2209 try to speed up the transfer.
2211 If _DIR_ is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2212 See also `--compare-dest` and `--link-dest`.
2214 0. `--link-dest=DIR`
2216 This option behaves like `--copy-dest`, but unchanged files are hard linked
2217 from _DIR_ to the destination directory. The files must be identical in
2218 all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions, possibly ownership) in order
2219 for the files to be linked together. An example:
2221 > rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
2223 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if
2224 some attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount
2225 option that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive
2226 with generic ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume"
2229 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple `--link-dest` directories may be
2230 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
2231 for an exact match (there is a limit of 20 such directories). If a match
2232 is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the
2233 attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the
2234 _DIRs_ will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.
2236 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
2237 existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can affect
2238 alternate destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can
2239 get a bit muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0, an
2240 alternate-directory exact match would never be found (nor linked into the
2241 destination) when a destination file already exists.
2243 Note that if you combine this option with `--ignore-times`, rsync will not
2244 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
2245 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after
2246 the file is updated.
2248 If _DIR_ is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2249 See also `--compare-dest` and `--copy-dest`.
2251 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
2252 `--link-dest` from working properly for a non-super-user when `-o` was
2253 specified (or implied by `-a`). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
2254 the `-o` option when sending to an old rsync.
2256 0. `--compress`, `-z`
2258 With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent to the
2259 destination machine, which reduces the amount of data being transmitted --
2260 something that is useful over a slow connection.
2262 The "zlib" compression method typically achieves better compression ratios
2263 than can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing
2264 transport because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the
2265 matching data blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
2266 This matching-data compression comes at a cost of CPU, though, and can be
2267 disabled by using the "zlibx" compresson method instead. This can be
2268 selected by repeating the `-z` option or specifying
2269 `--compress-choice=zlibx`, but it only works if both sides of the transfer
2270 are at least version 3.1.1.
2272 Note that if you see an error about an option named `--old-compress` or
2273 `--new-compress`, this is rsync trying to send the `--compress-choice=zlib`
2274 or `--compress-choice=zlibx` option in a backward-compatible manner that
2275 more rsync versions understand. This error indicates that the older rsync
2276 version will not allow you to force the compression type.
2278 See the `--skip-compress` option for the default list of file suffixes that
2279 will not be compressed.
2281 0. `--compress-choice=STR`, `--zc=STR`
2283 This option can be used to override the automatic selection of the
2284 compression algorithm that is the default when `--compress` is used.
2286 The compression options that you may be able to use are:
2294 Run `rsync -V` to see the compress list compiled into your version.
2296 The "zlibx" algorithm is given preference over "zlib" if both sides of the
2297 transfer are at least version 3.2.0, otherwise it will choose "zlib" unless
2298 you override it via something like `-zz`. These 2 algorithms are the stame
2299 except that "zlibx" does not try to include matched data that was not
2300 transferred in the compression computations.
2302 If "none" is specified, that is equivalent to using `--no-compress`.
2304 This option implies `--compress` unless "none" was specified.
2306 You can also override the compression negotiation using the
2307 RSYNC_COMPRESS_LIST environment variable by setting it to a space-separated
2308 list of compression names that you consider acceptable. If no common
2309 compress choice is found, the client exits with an error. It ignores
2310 "auto" and all unknown compression names. If the remote rsync is not new
2311 enough to handle a compression negotiation list, the list is silently
2312 ignored unless it contains the string "FAIL".
2314 0. `--compress-level=NUM`
2316 Explicitly set the compression level to use (see `--compress`) instead of
2317 letting it default. If NUM is non-zero, the `--compress` option is
2320 0. `--skip-compress=LIST`
2322 Override the list of file suffixes that will be compressed as little as
2323 possible. Rsync sets the compression level on a per-file basis based on
2324 the file's suffix. If the compression algorithm has an "off" level (such
2325 as zlib/zlibx) then no compression occurs for those files. Other
2326 algorithms have the level minimized to reduces the CPU usage as much as
2329 The **LIST** should be one or more file suffixes (without the dot) separated
2330 by slashes (`/`). You may specify an empty string to indicate that no files
2333 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
2334 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
2335 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
2337 The characters asterisk (`*`) and question-mark (`?`) have no special meaning.
2339 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
2340 matches 2 suffixes):
2342 > --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2
2344 The default file suffixes in the skip-compress list in this version of
2347 [comment]: # (This list gets used for the default-dont-compress.h file.)
2410 This list will be replaced by your `--skip-compress` list in all but one
2411 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to its
2412 list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
2417 With this option rsync will transfer numeric group and user IDs rather than
2418 using user and group names and mapping them at both ends.
2420 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine what
2421 ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group 0 are
2422 never mapped via user/group names even if the `--numeric-ids` option is not
2425 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match on
2426 the destination system, then the numeric ID from the source system is used
2427 instead. See also the comments on the "`use chroot`" setting in the
2428 rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how the chroot setting affects
2429 rsync's ability to look up the names of the users and groups and what you
2432 0. `--usermap=STRING`, `--groupmap=STRING`
2434 These options allow you to specify users and groups that should be mapped
2435 to other values by the receiving side. The **STRING** is one or more
2436 **FROM**:**TO** pairs of values separated by commas. Any matching **FROM**
2437 value from the sender is replaced with a **TO** value from the receiver.
2438 You may specify usernames or user IDs for the **FROM** and **TO** values,
2439 and the **FROM** value may also be a wild-card string, which will be
2440 matched against the sender's names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID
2441 numbers, though see below for why a '`*`' matches everything). You may
2442 instead specify a range of ID numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH.
2445 > --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr
2447 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
2448 all your user mappings using a single `--usermap` option, and/or all your
2449 group mappings using a single `--groupmap` option.
2451 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted to
2452 the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use the
2453 names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
2454 **FROM** names match those in use on the sending side. All **TO** names
2455 match those in use on the receiving side.
2457 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having
2458 an empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched
2459 via a "`*`" or using an empty name. For instance:
2461 > --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody
2463 When the `--numeric-ids` option is used, the sender does not send any
2464 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
2465 you will need to specify numeric **FROM** values if you want to map these
2466 nameless IDs to different values.
2468 For the `--usermap` option to have any effect, the `-o` (`--owner`) option
2469 must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running as a
2470 super-user (see also the `--fake-super` option). For the `--groupmap`
2471 option to have any effect, the `-g` (`--groups`) option must be used (or
2472 implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that group.
2474 0. `--chown=USER:GROUP`
2476 This option forces all files to be owned by USER with group GROUP. This is
2477 a simpler interface than using `--usermap` and `--groupmap` directly, but
2478 it is implemented using those options internally, so you cannot mix them.
2479 If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for the omitted user/group
2480 will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may be omitted, but if
2481 USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
2483 If you specify "`--chown=foo:bar`", this is exactly the same as specifying
2484 "`--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar`", only easier.
2486 0. `--timeout=TIMEOUT`
2488 This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in seconds. If no data
2489 is transferred for the specified time then rsync will exit. The default is
2490 0, which means no timeout.
2494 This option allows you to set the amount of time that rsync will wait for
2495 its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed. If the timeout is reached,
2496 rsync exits with an error.
2500 By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when connecting to an
2501 rsync daemon. The `--address` option allows you to specify a specific IP
2502 address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this option in the `--daemon`
2507 This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use rather than the default
2508 of 873. This is only needed if you are using the double-colon (::) syntax
2509 to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL syntax has a way to specify
2510 the port as a part of the URL). See also this option in the `--daemon`
2515 This option can provide endless fun for people who like to tune their
2516 systems to the utmost degree. You can set all sorts of socket options
2517 which may make transfers faster (or slower!). Read the man page for the
2518 `setsockopt()` system call for details on some of the options you may be
2519 able to set. By default no special socket options are set. This only
2520 affects direct socket connections to a remote rsync daemon.
2522 This option also exists in the `--daemon` mode section.
2526 This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching a remote shell
2527 transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh, rsync defaults to
2528 using blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note
2529 that ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
2533 This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be None (aka
2534 Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little as a
2535 single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
2537 The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering
2538 when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
2540 0. `--itemize-changes`, `-i`
2542 Requests a simple itemized list of the changes that are being made to each
2543 file, including attribute changes. This is exactly the same as specifying
2544 `--out-format='%i %n%L'`. If you repeat the option, unchanged files will
2545 also be output, but only if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7
2546 (you can use `-vv` with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the
2547 output of other verbose messages).
2549 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
2550 format is like the string `YXcstpoguax`, where **Y** is replaced by the type
2551 of update being done, **X** is replaced by the file-type, and the other
2552 letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being modified.
2554 The update types that replace the **Y** are as follows:
2556 - A `<` means that a file is being transferred to the remote host (sent).
2557 - A `>` means that a file is being transferred to the local host
2559 - A `c` means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item (such
2560 as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
2561 - A `h` means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
2563 - A `.` means that the item is not being updated (though it might have
2564 attributes that are being modified).
2565 - A `*` means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains a message
2568 The file-types that replace the **X** are: `f` for a file, a `d` for a
2569 directory, an `L` for a symlink, a `D` for a device, and a `S` for a
2570 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
2572 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that will be
2573 output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or a "."
2574 for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created item
2575 replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the dots
2576 with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with a "?"
2577 (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
2579 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
2581 - A `c` means either that a regular file has a different checksum (requires
2582 `--checksum`) or that a symlink, device, or special file has a changed
2583 value. Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1,
2584 this change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular
2586 - A `s` means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
2587 by the file transfer.
2588 - A `t` means the modification time is different and is being updated to
2589 the sender's value (requires `--times`). An alternate value of `T` means
2590 that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which
2591 happens when a file/symlink/device is updated without `--times` and when
2592 a symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time. (Note: when
2593 using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the `s` flag combined with `t`
2594 instead of the proper `T` flag for this time-setting failure.)
2595 - A `p` means the permissions are different and are being updated to the
2596 sender's value (requires `--perms`).
2597 - An `o` means the owner is different and is being updated to the sender's
2598 value (requires `--owner` and super-user privileges).
2599 - A `g` means the group is different and is being updated to the sender's
2600 value (requires `--group` and the authority to set the group).
2601 - A `u` means the access (use) time is different and is being updated to
2602 the sender's value (requires `--atimes`). An alternate value of `U`
2603 means that the access time will be set to the transfer time, which
2604 happens when a symlink or directory is updated.
2605 - The `a` means that the ACL information changed.
2606 - The `x` means that the extended attribute information changed.
2608 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output the
2609 string "`*deleting`" for each item that is being removed (assuming that you
2610 are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2611 outputting them as a verbose message).
2613 0. `--out-format=FORMAT`
2615 This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync client outputs to the
2616 user on a per-update basis. The format is a text string containing
2617 embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with a percent (%)
2618 character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if either `--info=name`
2619 or `-v` is specified (this tells you just the name of the file and, if the
2620 item is a link, where it points). For a full list of the possible escape
2621 characters, see the "`log format`" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2623 Specifying the `--out-format` option implies the `--info=name` option,
2624 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2625 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2626 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2627 the string (e.g. if the `--itemize-changes` option was used), the logging
2628 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2629 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the `--itemize-changes`
2630 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2632 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2633 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2634 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2635 is in effect and `--progress` is also specified, rsync will also output the
2636 name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2637 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2639 0. `--log-file=FILE`
2641 This option causes rsync to log what it is doing to a file. This is
2642 similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be requested for the
2643 client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon transfer. If specified
2644 as a client option, transfer logging will be enabled with a default format
2645 of "%i %n%L". See the `--log-file-format` option if you wish to override
2648 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2651 > rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/
2653 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2656 0. `--log-file-format=FORMAT`
2658 This allows you to specify exactly what per-update logging is put into the
2659 file specified by the `--log-file` option (which must also be specified for
2660 this option to have any effect). If you specify an empty string, updated
2661 files will not be mentioned in the log file. For a list of the possible
2662 escape characters, see the "`log format`" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2664 The default FORMAT used if `--log-file` is specified and this option is not
2669 This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics on the file transfer,
2670 allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is for
2671 your data. This option is equivalent to `--info=stats2` if combined with 0
2672 or 1 `-v` options, or `--info=stats3` if combined with 2 or more `-v`
2675 The current statistics are as follows:
2677 - `Number of files` is the count of all "files" (in the generic sense),
2678 which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will be
2679 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero). For
2680 example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the totals
2681 for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special files. If
2682 any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2683 - `Number of created files` is the count of how many "files" (generic
2684 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2685 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2686 - `Number of deleted files` is the count of how many "files" (generic
2687 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2688 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2689 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2690 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2691 - `Number of regular files transferred` is the count of normal files that
2692 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include
2693 dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word "regular" into
2695 - `Total file size` is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2696 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2697 include the size of symlinks.
2698 - `Total transferred file size` is the total sum of all files sizes for
2699 just the transferred files.
2700 - `Literal data` is how much unmatched file-update data we had to send to
2701 the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2702 - `Matched data` is how much data the receiver got locally when recreating
2704 - `File list size` is how big the file-list data was when the sender sent
2705 it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the file
2706 list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2708 - `File list generation time` is the number of seconds that the sender
2709 spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2710 sending side for this to be present.
2711 - `File list transfer time` is the number of seconds that the sender spent
2712 sending the file list to the receiver.
2713 - `Total bytes sent` is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent from the
2714 client side to the server side.
2715 - `Total bytes received` is the count of all non-message bytes that rsync
2716 received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message" bytes
2717 means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the server
2718 sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2720 0. `--8-bit-output`, `-8`
2722 This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters unescaped in the output
2723 instead of trying to test them to see if they're valid in the current
2724 locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control characters (but never
2725 tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's setting.
2727 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash
2728 (`\`) and a hash (`#`), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a
2729 newline would output as "`\#012`". A literal backslash that is in a
2730 filename is not escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2732 0. `--human-readable`, `-h`
2734 Output numbers in a more human-readable format. There are 3 possible
2735 levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each set of 3 digits
2736 (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point is
2737 represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2738 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output
2739 numbers in units of 1024.
2741 The default is human-readable level 1. Each `-h` option increases the
2742 level by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure
2743 digits) by specifying the `--no-human-readable` (`--no-h`) option.
2745 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M
2746 (mega), G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would
2747 output as 1.23M in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal
2750 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not
2751 support human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus,
2752 specifying one or two `-h` options will behave in a comparable manner in
2753 old and new versions as long as you didn't specify a `--no-h` option prior
2754 to one or more `-h` options. See the `--list-only` option for one
2759 By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred file if the
2760 transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances it is more desirable to
2761 keep partially transferred files. Using the `--partial` option tells rsync
2762 to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent transfer of the
2763 rest of the file much faster.
2765 0. `--partial-dir=DIR`
2767 A better way to keep partial files than the `--partial` option is to
2768 specify a _DIR_ that will be used to hold the partial data (instead of
2769 writing it out to the destination file). On the next transfer, rsync will
2770 use a file found in this dir as data to speed up the resumption of the
2771 transfer and then delete it after it has served its purpose.
2773 Note that if `--whole-file` is specified (or implied), any partial-dir file
2774 that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2775 (since rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer
2778 Rsync will create the _DIR_ if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the
2779 whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2780 "`--partial-dir=.rsync-partial`") to have rsync create the
2781 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2782 remove it again when the partial file is deleted. Note that the directory
2783 is only removed if it is a relative pathname, as it is expected that an
2784 absolute path is to a directory that is reserved for partial-dir work.
2786 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2787 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2788 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2789 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2790 receiving side. An example: the above `--partial-dir` option would add the
2791 equivalent of "`-f '-p .rsync-partial/'`" at the end of any other filter
2794 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2795 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2796 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2797 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2798 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2799 should specify `--delete-after` and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2800 `-f 'R .rsync-partial/'`. (Avoid using `--delete-before` or
2801 `--delete-during` unless you don't need rsync to use any of the left-over
2802 partial-dir data during the current run.)
2804 IMPORTANT: the `--partial-dir` should not be writable by other users or it
2805 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2807 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2808 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force `--partial` to be
2809 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when `--partial` is
2810 specified. For instance, instead of using `--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp` along
2811 with `--progress`, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2812 environment and then just use the `-P` option to turn on the use of the
2813 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the `--partial`
2814 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when `--inplace`
2815 was specified (since `--inplace` conflicts with `--partial-dir`), and (2)
2816 when `--delay-updates` was specified (see below).
2818 When a modern rsync resumes the transfer of a file in the partial-dir, that
2819 partial file is now updated in-place instead of creating yet another
2820 tmp-file copy (so it maxes out at dest + tmp instead of dest + partial +
2821 tmp). This requires both ends of the transfer to be at least version
2824 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "`refuse options`" setting,
2825 `--partial-dir` does _not_ imply `--partial`. This is so that a refusal of
2826 the `--partial` option can be used to disallow the overwriting of
2827 destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the safer
2828 idiom provided by `--partial-dir`.
2830 0. `--delay-updates`
2832 This option puts the temporary file from each updated file into a holding
2833 directory until the end of the transfer, at which time all the files are
2834 renamed into place in rapid succession. This attempts to make the updating
2835 of the files a little more atomic. By default the files are placed into a
2836 directory named `.~tmp~` in each file's destination directory, but if
2837 you've specified the `--partial-dir` option, that directory will be used
2838 instead. See the comments in the `--partial-dir` section for a discussion
2839 of how this `.~tmp~` dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you
2840 can do if you want rsync to cleanup old `.~tmp~` dirs that might be lying
2841 around. Conflicts with `--inplace` and `--append`.
2843 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2844 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving side
2845 to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that you
2846 should not use an absolute path to `--partial-dir` unless (1) there is no
2847 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2848 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2849 absolute) and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2850 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2852 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2853 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses `--link-dest` and a
2854 parallel hierarchy of files).
2856 0. `--prune-empty-dirs`, `-m`
2858 This option tells the receiving rsync to get rid of empty directories from
2859 the file-list, including nested directories that have no non-directory
2860 children. This is useful for avoiding the creation of a bunch of useless
2861 directories when the sending rsync is recursively scanning a hierarchy of
2862 files using include/exclude/filter rules.
2864 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the `--min-size` option, does
2865 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave
2866 directories empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the
2869 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2870 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2871 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2872 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2873 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2876 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2877 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2878 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2880 > --filter 'protect emptydir/'
2882 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2883 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2884 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2885 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2887 > rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest
2889 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2890 time-honored options of `--include='*/' --exclude='*'` would work
2891 fine in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2895 This option tells rsync to print information showing the progress of the
2896 transfer. This gives a bored user something to watch. With a modern rsync
2897 this is the same as specifying `--info=flist2,name,progress`, but any
2898 user-supplied settings for those info flags takes precedence (e.g.
2899 "`--info=flist0 --progress`").
2901 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2904 > 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
2906 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2907 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2908 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2909 is maintained until the end.
2911 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2912 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2913 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2914 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2915 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2916 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2918 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2919 summary line that looks like this:
2921 > 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396)
2923 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average
2924 rate of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over
2925 the 8 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a
2926 regular file during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files
2927 for the receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining
2928 out of the 396 total files in the file-list.
2930 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of
2931 files in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it
2932 starts to transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the
2933 text "ir-chk" (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until
2934 the point that it knows the full size of the list, at which point it will
2935 switch to using "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the
2936 total count of files in the file list is still going to increase (and each
2937 time it does, the count of files left to check will increase by the number
2938 of the files added to the list).
2942 The `-P` option is equivalent to `--partial --progress`. Its purpose is
2943 to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long transfer
2944 that may be interrupted.
2946 There is also a `--info=progress2` option that outputs statistics based on
2947 the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2948 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid `-v` or specify `--info=name0`) if you
2949 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2950 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the `--progress` option in order
2951 to use `--info=progress2`.)
2953 Finally, you can get an instant progress report by sending rsync a signal
2954 of either SIGINFO or SIGVTALRM. On BSD systems, a SIGINFO is generated by
2955 typing a Ctrl+T (Linux doesn't currently support a SIGINFO signal). When
2956 the client-side process receives one of those signals, it sets a flag to
2957 output a single progress report which is output when the current file
2958 transfer finishes (so it may take a little time if a big file is being
2959 handled when the signal arrives). A filename is output (if needed)
2960 followed by the `--info=progress2` format of progress info. If you don't
2961 know which of the 3 rsync processes is the client process, it's OK to
2962 signal all of them (since the non-client processes ignore the signal).
2964 CAUTION: sending SIGVTALRM to an older rsync (pre-3.2.0) will kill it.
2966 0. `--password-file=FILE`
2968 This option allows you to provide a password for accessing an rsync daemon
2969 via a file or via standard input if **FILE** is `-`. The file should
2970 contain just the password on the first line (all other lines are ignored).
2971 Rsync will exit with an error if **FILE** is world readable or if a
2972 root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
2974 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2975 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2976 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2977 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2978 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2981 0. `--early-input=FILE`
2983 This option allows rsync to send up to 5K of data to the "early exec"
2984 script on its stdin. One possible use of this data is to give the script a
2985 secret that can be used to mount an encrypted filesystem (which you should
2986 unmount in the the "post-xfer exec" script).
2988 The daemon must be at least version 3.2.1.
2992 This option will cause the source files to be listed instead of
2993 transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source arg and
2994 no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy command
2995 that includes a destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be
2996 able to specify more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the
2997 destination). Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is
2998 expanded by the shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to
2999 list such an arg without using this option. For example:
3001 > rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/
3003 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by `--list-only` are affected
3004 by the `--human-readable` option. By default they will contain digit
3005 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
3006 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
3007 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
3008 `--no-h` if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width of
3011 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
3012 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
3013 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the `--dirs`
3014 option w/o `--recursive`, and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
3015 avoid this problem, either specify the `--no-dirs` option (if you don't
3016 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude the
3017 content of subdirectories: `-r --exclude='/*/*'`.
3021 This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer rate for the data
3022 sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The RATE value can be
3023 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may be a
3024 fractional value (e.g. "`--bwlimit=1.5m`"). If no suffix is specified, the
3025 value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
3026 been appended). See the `--max-size` option for a description of all the
3027 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
3029 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
3030 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is
3033 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits
3034 the size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average
3035 transfer rate at the requested limit. Some burstiness may be seen where
3036 rsync writes out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate
3039 Due to the internal buffering of data, the `--progress` option may not be
3040 an accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because
3041 some files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly
3042 buffered, while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the
3043 output buffer occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
3045 0. `--write-batch=FILE`
3047 Record a file that can later be applied to another identical destination
3048 with `--read-batch`. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details, and also
3049 the `--only-write-batch` option.
3051 0. `--only-write-batch=FILE`
3053 Works like `--write-batch`, except that no updates are made on the
3054 destination system when creating the batch. This lets you transport the
3055 changes to the destination system via some other means and then apply the
3056 changes via `--read-batch`.
3058 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
3059 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
3060 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
3061 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
3062 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
3065 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
3066 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
3067 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
3068 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
3070 0. `--read-batch=FILE`
3072 Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previously generated by
3073 `--write-batch`. If _FILE_ is `-`, the batch data will be read from
3074 standard input. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
3078 Force an older protocol version to be used. This is useful for creating a
3079 batch file that is compatible with an older version of rsync. For
3080 instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the `--write-batch` option, but
3081 rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the `--read-batch` option, you
3082 should use "--protocol=28" when creating the batch file to force the older
3083 protocol version to be used in the batch file (assuming you can't upgrade
3084 the rsync on the reading system).
3086 0. `--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC`
3088 Rsync can convert filenames between character sets using this option.
3089 Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up the default
3090 character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can fully specify
3091 what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset separated by a
3092 comma in the order `--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE`, e.g. `--iconv=utf8,iso88591`.
3093 This order ensures that the option will stay the same whether you're
3094 pushing or pulling files. Finally, you can specify either `--no-iconv` or
3095 a CONVERT_SPEC of "-" to turn off any conversion. The default setting of
3096 this option is site-specific, and can also be affected via the RSYNC_ICONV
3097 environment variable.
3099 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
3100 run "`iconv --list`".
3102 If you specify the `--protect-args` option (`-s`), rsync will translate the
3103 filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the remote
3104 host. See also the `--files-from` option.
3106 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
3107 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
3108 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
3109 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
3110 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
3112 When you pass an `--iconv` option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
3113 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
3114 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel
3115 free to specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g.
3118 0. `--ipv4`, `-4` or `--ipv6`, `-6`
3120 Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating sockets or running ssh. This
3121 affects sockets that rsync has direct control over, such as the outgoing
3122 socket when directly contacting an rsync daemon, as well as the forwarding
3123 of the `-4` or `-6` option to ssh when rsync can deduce that ssh is being
3124 used as the remote shell. For other remote shells you'll need to specify
3125 the "`--rsh SHELL -4`" option directly (or whatever ipv4/ipv6 hint options
3128 These options also exist in the `--daemon` mode section.
3130 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the `--ipv6` option will
3131 have no effect. The `rsync -V` output will contain "`no IPv6`" if is the
3134 0. `--checksum-seed=NUM`
3136 Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is
3137 included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation (the more modern
3138 MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum seed is
3139 generated by the server and defaults to the current **time**(). This
3140 option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
3141 applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case where the
3142 user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to
3143 use the default of **time**() for checksum seed.
3147 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
3151 This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The daemon you start
3152 running may be accessed using an rsync client using the `host::module` or
3153 `rsync://host/module/` syntax.
3155 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being run
3156 via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and become a
3157 background daemon. The daemon will read the config file (rsyncd.conf) on
3158 each connect made by a client and respond to requests accordingly. See the
3159 **rsyncd.conf**(5) man page for more details.
3163 By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when run as a daemon
3164 with the `--daemon` option. The `--address` option allows you to specify a
3165 specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting
3166 possible in conjunction with the `--config` option. See also the "address"
3167 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
3171 This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer rate for the data
3172 the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still specify a smaller
3173 `--bwlimit` value, but no larger value will be allowed. See the client
3174 version of this option (above) for some extra details.
3178 This specifies an alternate config file than the default. This is only
3179 relevant when `--daemon` is specified. The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf
3180 unless the daemon is running over a remote shell program and the remote
3181 user is not the super-user; in that case the default is rsyncd.conf in the
3182 current directory (typically $HOME).
3184 0. `--dparam=OVERRIDE`, `-M`
3186 This option can be used to set a daemon-config parameter when starting up
3187 rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding the parameter at the end
3188 of the global settings prior to the first module's definition. The
3189 parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so desire. For
3192 > rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid
3196 When running as a daemon, this option instructs rsync to not detach itself
3197 and become a background process. This option is required when running as a
3198 service on Cygwin, and may also be useful when rsync is supervised by a
3199 program such as `daemontools` or AIX's `System Resource Controller`.
3200 `--no-detach` is also recommended when rsync is run under a debugger. This
3201 option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or sshd.
3205 This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the daemon to listen on
3206 rather than the default of 873. See also the "port" global option in the
3207 rsyncd.conf manpage.
3209 0. `--log-file=FILE`
3211 This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given log-file name instead
3212 of using the "`log file`" setting in the config file.
3214 0. `--log-file-format=FORMAT`
3216 This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given FORMAT string instead
3217 of using the "`log format`" setting in the config file. It also enables
3218 "`transfer logging`" unless the string is empty, in which case transfer
3219 logging is turned off.
3223 This overrides the `socket options` setting in the rsyncd.conf file and has
3226 0. `--verbose`, `-v`
3228 This option increases the amount of information the daemon logs during its
3229 startup phase. After the client connects, the daemon's verbosity level
3230 will be controlled by the options that the client used and the
3231 "`max verbosity`" setting in the module's config section.
3233 0. `--ipv4`, `-4` or `--ipv6`, `-6`
3235 Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating the incoming sockets that the
3236 rsync daemon will use to listen for connections. One of these options may
3237 be required in older versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the
3238 kernel (if you see an "address already in use" error when nothing else is
3239 using the port, try specifying `--ipv6` or `--ipv4` when starting the
3242 These options also exist in the regular rsync options section.
3244 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the `--ipv6` option will
3245 have no effect. The `rsync -V` output will contain "`no IPv6`" if is the
3250 When specified after `--daemon`, print a short help page describing the
3251 options available for starting an rsync daemon.
3255 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
3256 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly specify
3257 include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more include/exclude
3258 patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
3260 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each name
3261 to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in turn, and the
3262 first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude pattern, then that file
3263 is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that filename is not skipped; if
3264 no matching pattern is found, then the filename is not skipped.
3266 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the command-line.
3267 Filter rules have the following syntax:
3269 > RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
3270 > RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
3272 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
3273 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
3274 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
3275 must come after either a single space or an underscore (\_). Here are the
3276 available rule prefixes:
3278 0. `exclude, '-'` specifies an exclude pattern.
3279 0. `include, '+'` specifies an include pattern.
3280 0. `merge, '.'` specifies a merge-file to read for more rules.
3281 0. `dir-merge, ':'` specifies a per-directory merge-file.
3282 0. `hide, 'H'` specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer.
3283 0. `show, 'S'` files that match the pattern are not hidden.
3284 0. `protect, 'P'` specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion.
3285 0. `risk, 'R'` files that match the pattern are not protected.
3286 0. `clear, '!'` clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg)
3288 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are comment
3289 lines that start with a "#".
3291 [comment]: # (Remember that markdown strips spaces from start/end of ` ... ` sequences!)
3292 [comment]: # (Thus, the `x ` sequences below use a literal non-breakable space!)
3294 Note that the `--include` & `--exclude` command-line options do not allow the
3295 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
3296 specification of include / exclude patterns plus a "`!`" token to clear the
3297 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file). If a
3298 pattern does not begin with "`-Â `" (dash, space) or "`+Â `" (plus, space), then
3299 the rule will be interpreted as if "`+Â `" (for an include option) or "`-Â `"
3300 (for an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A `--filter` option, on
3301 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
3304 Note also that the `--filter`, `--include`, and `--exclude` options take one
3305 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on the
3306 command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the `--filter` option, or the
3307 `--include-from` / `--exclude-from` options.
3309 # INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES
3311 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+", "-",
3312 etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The
3313 include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against the names
3314 of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns can take several
3317 - if the pattern starts with a `/` then it is anchored to a particular spot in
3318 the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched against the end of the
3319 pathname. This is similar to a leading `^` in regular expressions. Thus
3320 `/foo` would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the transfer" (for
3321 a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a per-directory rule).
3322 An unqualified `foo` would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the tree because
3323 the algorithm is applied recursively from the top down; it behaves as if each
3324 path component gets a turn at being the end of the filename. Even the
3325 unanchored "sub/foo" would match at any point in the hierarchy where a "foo"
3326 was found within a directory named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING
3327 INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for a full discussion of how to specify a pattern
3328 that matches at the root of the transfer.
3329 - if the pattern ends with a `/` then it will only match a directory, not a
3330 regular file, symlink, or device.
3331 - rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard matching by
3332 checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard characters:
3333 '`*`', '`?`', and '`[`' .
3334 - a '`*`' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
3335 - use '`**`' to match anything, including slashes.
3336 - a '`?`' matches any character except a slash (`/`).
3337 - a '`[`' introduces a character class, such as `[a-z]` or `[[:alpha:]]`.
3338 - in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
3339 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present. This
3340 means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a pattern
3341 contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has none. e.g. if
3342 you add a wildcard to "`foo\bar`" (which matches the backslash) you would
3343 need to use "`foo\\bar*`" to avoid the "`\b`" becoming just "b".
3344 - if the pattern contains a `/` (not counting a trailing /) or a "`**`", then it
3345 is matched against the full pathname, including any leading directories. If
3346 the pattern doesn't contain a `/` or a "`**`", then it is matched only against
3347 the final component of the filename. (Remember that the algorithm is applied
3348 recursively so "full filename" can actually be any portion of a path from the
3349 starting directory on down.)
3350 - a trailing "`dir_name/***`" will match both the directory (as if "dir_name/"
3351 had been specified) and everything in the directory (as if "`dir_name/**`"
3352 had been specified). This behavior was added in version 2.6.7.
3354 Note that, when using the `--recursive` (`-r`) option (which is implied by
3355 `-a`), every subdir component of every path is visited left to right, with each
3356 directory having a chance for exclusion before its content. In this way
3357 include/exclude patterns are applied recursively to the pathname of each node
3358 in the filesystem's tree (those inside the transfer). The exclude patterns
3359 short-circuit the directory traversal stage as rsync finds the files to send.
3361 For instance, to include "`/foo/bar/baz`", the directories "`/foo`" and "`/foo/bar`"
3362 must not be excluded. Excluding one of those parent directories prevents the
3363 examination of its content, cutting off rsync's recursion into those paths and
3364 rendering the include for "`/foo/bar/baz`" ineffectual (since rsync can't match
3365 something it never sees in the cut-off section of the directory hierarchy).
3367 The concept path exclusion is particularly important when using a trailing '`*`'
3368 rule. For instance, this won't work:
3370 > + /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
3371 > + /file-is-included
3374 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '`*`' rule, so
3375 rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path" directories.
3376 One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy to be included by
3377 using a single rule: "`+ */`" (put it somewhere before the "`- *`" rule), and
3378 perhaps use the `--prune-empty-dirs` option. Another solution is to add
3379 specific include rules for all the parent dirs that need to be visited. For
3380 instance, this set of rules works fine:
3384 > + /some/path/this-file-is-found
3385 > + /file-also-included
3388 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
3390 - "`- *.o`" would exclude all names matching `*.o`
3391 - "`- /foo`" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the transfer-root
3393 - "`- foo/`" would exclude any directory named foo
3394 - "`- /foo/*/bar`" would exclude any file named bar which is at two levels
3395 below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
3396 - "`- /foo/**/bar`" would exclude any file named bar two or more levels below a
3397 directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
3398 - The combination of "`+ */`", "`+ *.c`", and "`- *`" would include all
3399 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
3400 `--prune-empty-dirs` option)
3401 - The combination of "`+ foo/`", "`+ foo/bar.c`", and "`- *`" would include
3402 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be explicitly
3403 included or it would be excluded by the "`*`")
3405 The following modifiers are accepted after a "`+`" or "`-`":
3407 - A `/` specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched against the
3408 absolute pathname of the current item. For example, "`-/ /etc/passwd`" would
3409 exclude the passwd file any time the transfer was sending files from the
3410 "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo" would always exclude "foo" when it is
3411 in a dir named "subdir", even if "foo" is at the root of the current
3413 - A `!` specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if the pattern
3414 fails to match. For instance, "`-! */`" would exclude all non-directories.
3415 - A `C` is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules should be
3416 inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should follow.
3417 - An `s` is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending side. When a
3418 rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from being transferred. The
3419 default is for a rule to affect both sides unless `--delete-excluded` was
3420 specified, in which case default rules become sender-side only. See also the
3421 hide (H) and show (S) rules, which are an alternate way to specify
3422 sending-side includes/excludes.
3423 - An `r` is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving side. When
3424 a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from being deleted. See
3425 the `s` modifier for more info. See also the protect (P) and risk (R) rules,
3426 which are an alternate way to specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
3427 - A `p` indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is ignored in
3428 directories that are being deleted. For instance, the `-C` option's default
3429 rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "`*.o`" are marked as perishable,
3430 and will not prevent a directory that was removed on the source from being
3431 deleted on the destination.
3432 - An `x` indicates that a rule affects xattr names in xattr copy/delete
3433 operations (and is thus ignored when matching file/dir names). If no
3434 xattr-matching rules are specified, a default xattr filtering rule is used
3435 (see the `--xattrs` option).
3437 # MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES
3439 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a merge
3440 (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section
3443 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and per-directory
3444 (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and its rules are
3445 incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "." rule. For
3446 per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that it traverses
3447 for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists into the current
3448 list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files must be created on the
3449 sending side because it is the sending side that is being scanned for the
3450 available files to transfer. These rule files may also need to be transferred
3451 to the receiving side if you want them to affect what files don't get deleted
3452 (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE below).
3456 > merge /etc/rsync/default.rules
3457 > . /etc/rsync/default.rules
3458 > dir-merge .per-dir-filter
3459 > dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
3460 > :n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
3462 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
3464 - A `-` specifies that the file should consist of only exclude patterns, with
3465 no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
3466 - A `+` specifies that the file should consist of only include patterns, with
3467 no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
3468 - A `C` is a way to specify that the file should be read in a CVS-compatible
3469 manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also allows the list-clearing
3470 token (!) to be specified. If no filename is provided, ".cvsignore" is
3472 - A `e` will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g. "dir-merge,e
3473 .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
3474 - An `n` specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
3475 - A `w` specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead of the
3476 normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the space that
3477 separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so "- foo + bar" is
3478 parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't also disabled).
3479 - You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules (above) in
3480 order to have the rules that are read in from the file default to having that
3481 modifier set (except for the `!` modifier, which would not be useful). For
3482 instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path
3483 excludes, while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
3484 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
3485 specifies sides to affect (via the `s` or `r` modifier or both), then the
3486 rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or a rule prefix
3489 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory where
3490 the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each subdirectory's
3491 rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules from its parents, which
3492 gives the newest rules a higher priority than the inherited rules. The entire
3493 set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in the spot where the merge-file
3494 was specified, so it is possible to override dir-merge rules via a rule that
3495 got specified earlier in the list of global rules. When the list-clearing rule
3496 ("!") is read from a per-directory file, it only clears the inherited rules for
3497 the current merge file.
3499 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited
3500 is to anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
3501 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
3502 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
3505 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via `--filter=". file":`
3507 > merge /home/user/.global-filter
3514 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the start
3515 of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory filter
3516 file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan follow the
3517 global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root of the
3520 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
3521 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent dirs
3522 from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
3523 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see `-F`):
3525 > --filter=': /.rsync-filter'
3527 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all directories
3528 from the root down through the parent directory of the transfer prior to the
3529 start of the normal directory scan of the file in the directories that are sent
3530 as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an rsync daemon, the root is always the
3531 same as the module's "path".)
3533 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
3535 > rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir
3536 > rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
3537 > rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
3539 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and "/src"
3540 before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path" and its
3541 subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan and only looks for
3542 the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is a part of the transfer.
3544 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns, you
3545 should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore file, but
3546 parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can use this to affect where the
3547 `--cvs-exclude` (`-C`) option's inclusion of the per-directory .cvsignore file
3548 gets placed into your rules by putting the ":C" wherever you like in your
3549 filter rules. Without this, rsync would add the dir-merge rule for the
3550 .cvsignore file at the end of all your other rules (giving it a lower priority
3551 than your command-line rules). For example:
3554 > cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b
3559 > rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b
3562 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all the
3563 per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than at the
3564 end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules that follow
3565 the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To affect the other CVS
3566 exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions, the contents of
3567 $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should omit the `-C`
3568 command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into your filter rules; e.g.
3571 # LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE
3573 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter rule (as
3574 introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current" list is either
3575 the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while parsing the filter
3576 options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are inherited in their own
3577 sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear out the parent's rules).
3579 # ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS
3581 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the "root
3582 of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are anchored at
3583 the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as a subtree of
3584 names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the transfer-root is where
3585 the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory. This root
3586 governs where patterns that start with a / match.
3588 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the trailing
3589 slash on a source path or changing your use of the `--relative` option affects
3590 the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to changing how much of
3591 the file tree is duplicated on the destination host). The following examples
3594 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
3595 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
3596 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
3599 > Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
3600 > +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
3601 > +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
3602 > Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
3603 > Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
3607 > Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
3608 > +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
3609 > +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
3610 > Target file: /dest/foo/bar
3611 > Target file: /dest/bar/baz
3615 > Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
3616 > +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
3617 > +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
3618 > Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
3619 > Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
3623 > Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
3624 > +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
3625 > +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
3626 > Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
3627 > Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
3630 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
3631 look at the output when using `--verbose` and put a / in front of the name
3632 (use the `--dry-run` option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
3634 # PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
3636 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the sending
3637 side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves without
3638 affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds this exclude
3639 for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
3641 > rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest
3642 > rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest
3644 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
3645 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
3646 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include the
3647 per-directory merge files in the transfer and use `--delete-after`, because
3648 this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude rules as the
3649 sending side before it tries to delete anything:
3651 > rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest
3653 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
3654 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command line),
3655 or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on the receiving
3656 side. An example of the first is this (assume that the remote .rules files
3657 exclude themselves):
3659 > rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
3660 > --delete host:src/dir /dest
3662 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
3663 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
3664 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
3665 per-directory merge rule.
3667 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter files from
3668 the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files to control what
3669 gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must specifically exclude
3670 the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get deleted) and then put
3671 rules into the local files to control what else should not get deleted. Like
3672 one of these commands:
3675 > rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3676 > host:src/dir /dest
3677 > rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest
3682 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many identical
3683 systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a number of hosts. Now
3684 suppose some changes have been made to this source tree and those changes need
3685 to be propagated to the other hosts. In order to do this using batch mode,
3686 rsync is run with the write-batch option to apply the changes made to the
3687 source tree to one of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the
3688 rsync client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3689 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3691 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file status,
3692 checksum, and data block generation more than once when updating multiple
3693 destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can be used to transfer the
3694 batch update files in parallel to many hosts at once, instead of sending the
3695 same data to every host individually.
3697 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync with the
3698 read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch file, and the
3699 destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree using the information
3700 stored in the batch file.
3702 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch option
3703 is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh" appended. This
3704 script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree
3705 using the associated batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or
3706 Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate destination tree
3707 pathname which is then used instead of the original destination path. This is
3708 useful when the destination tree path on the current host differs from the one
3709 used to create the batch file.
3713 > $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
3714 > $ scp foo* remote:
3715 > $ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
3717 > $ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
3718 > $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
3720 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/ and
3721 the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and "foo.sh". The
3722 host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going into the directory
3723 /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples reveals some of the
3724 flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3726 - The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be local -- you
3727 can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the remote-shell
3728 syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3729 - The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right rsync
3730 options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3731 - The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that the batch
3732 file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first. This example
3733 avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified `--read-batch`
3734 option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to make use of it
3735 (just be sure that no other option is trying to use standard input, such as
3736 the "`--exclude-from=-`" option).
3740 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating to be
3741 identical to the destination tree that was used to create the batch update
3742 fileset. When a difference between the destination trees is encountered the
3743 update might be discarded with a warning (if the file appears to be up-to-date
3744 already) or the file-update may be attempted and then, if the file fails to
3745 verify, the update discarded with an error. This means that it should be safe
3746 to re-run a read-batch operation if the command got interrupted. If you wish
3747 to force the batched-update to always be attempted regardless of the file's
3748 size and date, use the `-I` option (when reading the batch). If an error
3749 occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a partially updated state. In
3750 that case, rsync can be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to
3751 fix up the destination tree.
3753 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the one
3754 used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the protocol
3755 version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync to handle.
3756 See also the `--protocol` option for a way to have the creating rsync generate
3757 a batch file that an older rsync can understand. (Note that batch files
3758 changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions older than that with newer
3759 versions will not work.)
3761 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options to
3762 match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same as the
3763 batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed. For
3764 instance `--write-batch` changes to `--read-batch`, `--files-from` is dropped,
3765 and the `--filter` / `--include` / `--exclude` options are not needed unless
3766 one of the `--delete` options is specified.
3768 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3769 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the shell
3770 script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude list if a
3771 change in what gets deleted by `--delete` is desired. A normal user can ignore
3772 this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way to run the appropriate
3773 `--read-batch` command for the batched data.
3775 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3776 version uses a new implementation.
3780 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3781 link in the source directory.
3783 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message "skipping
3784 non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3786 If `--links` is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same target on
3787 the destination. Note that `--archive` implies `--links`.
3789 If `--copy-links` is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3790 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3792 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An example
3793 where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to ensure that the
3794 rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to `/etc/passwd` in
3795 the public section of the site. Using `--copy-unsafe-links` will cause any
3796 links to be copied as the file they point to on the destination. Using
3797 `--safe-links` will cause unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you
3798 must specify `--links` for `--safe-links` to have any effect.)
3800 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3801 (start with `/`), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3802 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3804 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is in
3805 order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned, use the
3806 first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3808 0. `--copy-links` Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no symlinks for
3809 any other options to affect).
3810 0. `--links --copy-unsafe-links` Turn all unsafe symlinks into files and
3811 duplicate all safe symlinks.
3812 0. `--copy-unsafe-links` Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily skip all
3814 0. `--links --safe-links` Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe ones.
3815 0. `--links` Duplicate all symlinks.
3819 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little cryptic. The
3820 one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol version mismatch -- is
3823 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell facility
3824 producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using for its transport.
3825 The way to diagnose this problem is to run your remote shell like this:
3827 > ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
3829 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat should
3830 be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from rsync then you
3831 will probably find that out.dat contains some text or data. Look at the
3832 contents and try to work out what is producing it. The most common cause is
3833 incorrectly configured shell startup scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that
3834 contain output statements for non-interactive logins.
3836 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then try specifying the
3837 `-vv` option. At this level of verbosity rsync will show why each individual
3838 file is included or excluded.
3843 0. **1** Syntax or usage error
3844 0. **2** Protocol incompatibility
3845 0. **3** Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3846 0. **4** Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to manipulate
3847 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support them; or an option was
3848 specified that is supported by the client and not by the server.
3849 0. **5** Error starting client-server protocol
3850 0. **6** Daemon unable to append to log-file
3851 0. **10** Error in socket I/O
3852 0. **11** Error in file I/O
3853 0. **12** Error in rsync protocol data stream
3854 0. **13** Errors with program diagnostics
3855 0. **14** Error in IPC code
3856 0. **20** Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3857 0. **21** Some error returned by **waitpid()**
3858 0. **22** Error allocating core memory buffers
3859 0. **23** Partial transfer due to error
3860 0. **24** Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3861 0. **25** The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3862 0. **30** Timeout in data send/receive
3863 0. **35** Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3865 # ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
3869 The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any ignore patterns in
3870 .cvsignore files. See the `--cvs-exclude` option for more details.
3874 Specify a default `--iconv` setting using this environment variable. (First
3875 supported in 3.0.0.)
3877 0. `RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS`
3879 Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the `--protect-args` option to
3880 be enabled by default, or a zero value to make sure that it is disabled by
3881 default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3885 The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to override the default shell
3886 used as the transport for rsync. Command line options are permitted after
3887 the command name, just as in the `-e` option.
3891 The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to redirect your rsync
3892 client to use a web proxy when connecting to a rsync daemon. You should
3893 set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3897 Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required password allows you to run
3898 authenticated rsync connections to an rsync daemon without user
3899 intervention. Note that this does not supply a password to a remote shell
3900 transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's
3903 0. `USER` or `LOGNAME`
3905 The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used to determine the default
3906 username sent to an rsync daemon. If neither is set, the username defaults
3911 The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's default .cvsignore
3916 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3920 **rsync-ssl**(1), **rsyncd.conf**(5)
3924 times are transferred as \*nix time_t values
3926 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3928 See the comments on the `--modify-window` option.
3930 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3933 see also the comments on the `--delete` option
3935 Please report bugs! See the web site at <https://rsync.samba.org/>.
3939 This man page is current for version @VERSION@ of rsync.
3943 The options `--server` and `--sender` are used internally by rsync, and should
3944 never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some awareness of these
3945 options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as when setting up a login
3946 that can only run an rsync command. For instance, the support directory of the
3947 rsync distribution has an example script named rrsync (for restricted rsync)
3948 that can be used with a restricted ssh login.
3952 rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file
3953 COPYING for details.
3955 A web site is available at <https://rsync.samba.org/>. The site includes an
3956 FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this manual page.
3958 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program. Please
3959 contact the mailing-list at <rsync@lists.samba.org>.
3961 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by Jean-loup
3962 Gailly and Mark Adler.
3966 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3967 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3968 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3970 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell and
3971 David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3975 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. Many
3976 people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained by Wayne
3979 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3980 <https://lists.samba.org/>.