1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(22 Jun 2014)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences in the data. Note that the expansion of wildcards on the
107 commandline (*.c) into a list of files is handled by the shell before
108 it runs rsync and not by rsync itself (exactly the same as all other
109 posix-style programs).
111 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
113 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
114 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
115 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
116 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
117 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
118 size of data portions of the transfer.
120 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
122 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
123 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
124 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
125 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
126 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
127 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
128 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
132 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
133 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
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
138 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
141 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
142 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
145 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
146 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
147 an improved copy command.
149 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
150 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
152 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
154 See the following section for more details.
156 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
158 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
159 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
160 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
162 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
163 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
164 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
166 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
169 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
170 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
172 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
173 not as easy to use as the first method.
175 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
176 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
177 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
180 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
182 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
184 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
185 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
186 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
187 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
188 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
190 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
194 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
195 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
196 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
197 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
199 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
200 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
201 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
202 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
203 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
206 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
208 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
210 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
211 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
212 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
213 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
214 may be useful when scripting rsync.
216 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
217 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
219 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
220 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
221 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
222 proxy connections to port 873.
224 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
225 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
226 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
227 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
228 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
231 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
232 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
233 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
235 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
236 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
239 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
241 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
242 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
243 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
244 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
245 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
246 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
247 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
248 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
249 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
250 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
251 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
252 connections from "localhost".)
254 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
255 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
256 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
257 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
258 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
259 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
261 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
263 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
264 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
265 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
266 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
267 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
269 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
271 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
272 used to log-in to the "module".
274 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
276 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
277 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
278 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
279 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
280 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
281 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
282 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
284 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
285 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
287 manpagesection(SORTED TRANSFER ORDER)
289 Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list.
290 This handles the merging together of the contents of identically named
291 directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse
292 someone when the files are transferred in a different order than what was
293 given on the command-line.
295 If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either
296 separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using
297 bf(--delay-updates) (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but
298 does make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
300 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
302 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
304 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
305 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
307 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
309 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
312 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
316 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
318 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
321 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
322 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
323 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
325 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
328 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
330 This is launched from cron every few hours.
332 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
334 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
335 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
336 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
337 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
338 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
339 --msgs2stderr special output handling for debugging
340 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
341 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
342 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
343 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
344 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
345 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
346 -R, --relative use relative path names
347 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
348 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
349 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
350 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
351 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
352 --inplace update destination files in-place
353 --append append data onto shorter files
354 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
355 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
356 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
357 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
358 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
359 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
360 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
361 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
362 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
363 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
364 -p, --perms preserve permissions
365 -E, --executability preserve executability
366 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
367 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
368 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
369 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
370 -g, --group preserve group
371 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
372 --specials preserve special files
373 -D same as --devices --specials
374 -t, --times preserve modification times
375 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
376 -J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
377 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
378 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
379 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
380 --preallocate allocate dest files before writing
381 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
382 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
383 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
384 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
385 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
386 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
387 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
388 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
389 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
390 --del an alias for --delete-during
391 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
392 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
393 --delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
394 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
395 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
396 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
397 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
398 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
399 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
400 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
401 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
402 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
403 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
404 --partial keep partially transferred files
405 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
406 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
407 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
408 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
409 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
410 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
411 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
412 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
413 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
414 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
415 --size-only skip files that match in size
416 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
417 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
418 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
419 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
420 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
421 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
422 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
423 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
424 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
425 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
426 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
427 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
428 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
429 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
430 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
431 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
432 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
433 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
434 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
435 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
436 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
437 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
438 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
439 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
440 --outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
441 --stats give some file-transfer stats
442 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
443 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
444 --progress show progress during transfer
445 -P same as --partial --progress
446 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
447 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
448 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
449 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
450 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
451 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
452 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
453 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
454 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
455 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
456 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
457 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
458 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
459 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
460 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
461 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
462 --version print version number
463 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
465 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
467 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
468 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
469 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
470 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
471 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
472 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
473 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
474 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
475 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
476 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
477 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
478 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
479 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
480 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
484 Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter)
485 options. The full list of the available options are described below. If an
486 option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated.
487 Some options only have a long variant, not a short. If the option takes a
488 parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it
489 must also be specified for the short. When specifying a parameter, you can
490 either use the form --option=param or replace the '=' with whitespace. The
491 parameter may need to be quoted in some manner for it to survive the shell's
492 command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (~) in a filename is
493 substituted by your shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into
494 your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
497 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
498 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
499 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
500 option without any other args.
502 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
504 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
505 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
506 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
507 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
508 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
509 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
510 you are debugging rsync.
512 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
513 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
514 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
515 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
516 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
517 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
519 However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "max verbosity" setting will limit how
520 high of a level the various individual flags can be set on the daemon side.
521 For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that is set to
522 a higher value than what would be set by bf(-vv) will be downgraded to the
523 bf(-vv) level in the daemon's logging.
525 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
526 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
528 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
529 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
530 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
531 that support higher levels). Use
533 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
534 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
536 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
537 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
539 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
540 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
541 information on what is output and when.
543 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
544 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
545 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
546 See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
548 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
549 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug
550 output 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
555 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
556 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
558 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
559 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
561 Note that some debug messages will only be output when bf(--msgs2stderr) is
562 specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
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.
569 dit(bf(--msgs2stderr)) This option changes rsync to send all its output
570 directly to stderr rather than to send messages to the client side via the
571 protocol (which normally outputs info messages via stdout). This is mainly
572 intended for debugging in order to avoid changing the data sent via the
573 protocol, since the extra protocol data can change what is being tested.
574 Keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
575 messages back to the client side, so if you are doing any daemon-transfer
576 debugging using this option, you should start up a daemon using bf(--no-detach)
577 so that you can see the stderr output on the daemon side.
579 This option has the side-effect of making stderr output get line-buffered so
580 that the merging of the output of 3 programs happens in a more readable manner.
582 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
583 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
584 from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
587 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
588 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
589 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
590 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
591 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
592 request the list of modules from the daemon.
594 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
595 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
596 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
599 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
600 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
601 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
602 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
603 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
604 not preserve timestamps exactly.
606 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
607 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
608 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
609 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
610 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
611 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
612 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
614 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
615 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
616 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
617 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
618 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
619 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
620 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
621 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
622 so this can slow things down significantly.
624 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
625 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
626 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
627 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
628 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
630 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
631 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
632 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
633 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
634 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
636 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
637 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
639 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
640 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
641 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
642 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
643 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
645 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
646 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
649 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
650 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
651 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
652 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
653 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
654 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
655 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
657 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
658 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
659 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
661 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
662 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
663 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
664 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
665 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
668 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
669 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
671 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
672 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
673 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
674 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
675 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
676 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
678 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
679 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
680 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
681 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
682 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
683 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
684 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
685 than using bf(--delete-after).
687 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
688 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
690 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
691 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
692 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
693 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
694 example, if you used this command:
696 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
698 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
699 machine. If instead you used
701 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
703 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
704 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
705 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
708 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
709 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
710 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
711 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
712 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
713 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
714 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
715 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
717 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
718 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
719 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
720 the source path, like this:
722 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
724 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
725 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
726 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
727 source path. For example, when pushing files:
729 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
731 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
732 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
733 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
734 for a non-daemon transfer):
737 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
738 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
741 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
742 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
743 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
744 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
745 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
746 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
747 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
750 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
751 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
752 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
753 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
754 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
755 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
756 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
757 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
758 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
759 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
761 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
762 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
763 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
765 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
766 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
767 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
768 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
770 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
771 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
772 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
773 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
774 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
775 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
776 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
777 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
778 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
779 rule would never be reached).
781 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
782 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
783 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
784 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
785 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
786 will keep their original filenames).
788 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
789 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
790 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
791 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
792 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
794 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
795 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
796 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
798 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
799 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
800 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
801 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
803 Note that this does not affect the copying of dirs, symlinks, or other special
804 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
805 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
806 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
807 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
810 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
811 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
812 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
814 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
815 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
816 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
817 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
819 This has several effects:
822 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
823 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
824 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
825 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
826 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
827 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
829 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
830 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
832 it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
833 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
834 the open of the file for writing to be successful.
835 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
836 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
837 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
838 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
842 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
843 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
845 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
846 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
847 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
848 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
850 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
851 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
852 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
855 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
856 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
857 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
858 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
859 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
860 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
861 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
862 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
863 Implies bf(--inplace),
864 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
867 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
868 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
869 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
870 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
871 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
873 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
874 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
875 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
876 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
878 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
879 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
880 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
881 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
882 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
883 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
884 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
886 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
887 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
888 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
889 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
890 if you want to turn this off.
892 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
893 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
894 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
896 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
897 symlink on the destination.
899 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
900 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
901 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
902 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
903 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
904 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
905 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
906 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
908 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
909 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
910 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
911 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
912 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
914 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
915 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
916 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
917 give unexpected results.
919 dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
920 the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
921 below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
922 a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
923 to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
925 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
926 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
927 that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
928 to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
930 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
931 affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
932 transfer, the client side is the sender.)
934 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
935 wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
936 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
938 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
939 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
940 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
941 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
943 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
944 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
945 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
946 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
948 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
951 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
952 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
953 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
954 to make the paths match up right. For example:
956 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
958 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
959 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
960 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
962 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
963 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
964 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
965 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
967 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
968 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
969 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
970 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
971 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
974 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
975 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
976 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
977 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
978 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
979 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
980 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
982 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
984 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
985 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
986 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
987 as though they were separate files.
989 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
990 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
991 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
994 it() If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than
995 what is present in the source file list), the copying algorithm will not
996 break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
997 differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
998 (unless you are using the bf(--inplace) option).
999 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
1000 the linking of the destination files against the bf(--link-dest) files can
1001 cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
1002 bf(--link-dest) associations.
1005 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
1006 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
1007 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
1008 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
1009 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
1010 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
1011 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
1013 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
1014 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
1015 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
1016 the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency
1017 (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could
1018 have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked
1019 set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable
1020 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
1022 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
1023 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
1024 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
1025 be the source permissions.)
1027 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
1030 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
1031 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
1032 the execute permission for the file.
1033 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
1034 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
1035 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
1036 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
1037 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
1038 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
1041 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
1042 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
1043 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
1045 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
1046 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
1047 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
1048 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
1049 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
1050 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
1051 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
1052 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
1054 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
1056 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1058 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
1060 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1061 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1063 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1064 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1065 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1066 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1067 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1068 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1069 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1070 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1073 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1074 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1075 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1076 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1077 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1078 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1081 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1083 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1084 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1087 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1089 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1090 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1091 The option also implies bf(--perms).
1093 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1094 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1095 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1097 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1098 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1100 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1101 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1102 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1103 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1105 Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
1106 used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
1107 "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1109 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1110 comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
1111 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1112 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1113 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1115 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1116 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1117 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1118 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1119 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1120 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1121 consistent executability across all bits:
1123 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1125 Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1127 quote(--chmod=D2775,F664)
1129 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1130 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1132 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1133 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1135 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1136 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1137 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1138 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1139 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1140 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1142 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1143 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1144 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1146 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1147 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1148 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1149 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1150 is a member of will be preserved.
1151 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1152 user on the receiving side.
1154 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1155 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1156 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1158 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1159 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1160 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1161 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1163 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1164 such as named sockets and fifos.
1166 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1168 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1169 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1170 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1171 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1172 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1173 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1174 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1176 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1177 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1178 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1179 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1181 This option also has the side-effect of avoiding early creation of directories
1182 in incremental recursion copies. The default bf(--inc-recursive) copying
1183 normally does an early-create pass of all the sub-directories in a parent
1184 directory in order for it to be able to then set the modify time of the parent
1185 directory right away (without having to delay that until a bunch of recursive
1186 copying has finished). This early-create idiom is not necessary if directory
1187 modify times are not being preserved, so it is skipped. Since early-create
1188 directories don't have accurate mode, mtime, or ownership, the use of this
1189 option can help when someone wants to avoid these partially-finished
1192 dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
1193 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
1195 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1196 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1197 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1198 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1199 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1200 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1201 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1202 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1203 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1205 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1206 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1207 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1208 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1209 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1210 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1211 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1212 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1213 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1214 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1215 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1217 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1218 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1220 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1221 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1222 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1224 quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1226 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1227 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1228 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1229 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1232 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1234 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1236 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1237 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1238 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1240 dit(bf(--preallocate)) This tells the receiver to allocate each destination
1241 file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use
1242 the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
1243 bf(fallocate)(2) system call or Cygwin's bf(posix_fallocate)(3), not the slow
1244 glibc implementation that writes a zero byte into each block.
1246 Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
1247 filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If the
1248 destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS,
1249 etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
1251 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1252 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1253 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1254 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1255 to do before one actually runs it.
1257 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1258 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1259 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1260 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1261 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1262 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1263 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1264 where no file transfers were needed.
1266 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1267 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1268 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1269 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1270 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1271 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1272 batch-writing option is in effect.
1274 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1275 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1276 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1277 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1278 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1279 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1282 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1283 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1284 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1285 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1287 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1288 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1289 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1292 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1293 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1294 yet on the destination. If this option is
1295 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1296 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1298 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1299 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1300 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1302 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1303 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1304 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1306 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1307 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1308 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1310 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1311 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1312 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1313 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1314 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1315 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1316 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1318 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1319 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1320 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1322 Note that you should only use this option on source files that are quiescent.
1323 If you are using this to move files that show up in a particular directory over
1324 to another host, make sure that the finished files get renamed into the source
1325 directory, not directly written into it, so that rsync can't possibly transfer
1326 a file that is not yet fully written. If you can't first write the files into
1327 a different directory, you should use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid
1328 transferring files that are not yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new" when
1329 it is written, rename it to "foo" when it is done, and then use the option
1330 bf(--exclude='*.new') for the rsync transfer).
1332 Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an
1333 error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unchanged.
1335 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1336 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1337 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1338 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1339 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1340 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1341 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1342 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1343 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1344 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1346 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1347 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1348 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1350 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1351 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1352 going to be deleted.
1354 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1355 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1356 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1357 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1358 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1360 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1361 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1362 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1363 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1364 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1365 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1367 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1368 side be done before the transfer starts.
1369 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1371 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1372 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1373 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1374 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1375 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1376 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1377 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1379 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1380 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1381 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1382 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1383 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1384 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1385 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1387 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1388 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1389 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1390 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1391 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1392 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1393 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1394 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1395 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1396 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1397 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1399 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1401 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1402 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1403 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1404 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1405 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1406 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1407 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1408 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1410 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1411 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1412 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1413 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1414 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1415 bf(--delete-excluded).
1416 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1418 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1419 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1420 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1421 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1422 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1423 present and later is no longer there.
1425 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1426 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1427 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1428 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1429 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1430 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1432 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1433 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1435 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1436 even when there are I/O errors.
1438 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1439 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1440 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1442 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1443 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1444 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1446 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1447 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, all further deletions are
1448 skipped through the end of the transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning
1449 (including a count of the skipped deletions) and exits with an error code
1450 of 25 (unless some more important error condition also occurred).
1452 Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1453 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1454 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1455 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1456 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1457 really old versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1459 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1460 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1461 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1462 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1464 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1465 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1466 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1468 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1469 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1470 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1471 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1472 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1473 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1474 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1476 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1479 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--max-size=0).
1481 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1482 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1483 transferring small, junk files.
1484 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1486 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--min-size=0).
1488 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1489 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1490 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1492 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1493 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1494 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1495 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1497 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1498 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1499 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1500 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1501 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1502 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1504 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1505 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1506 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1507 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1508 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1509 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1510 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1511 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1514 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1515 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1518 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1519 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1521 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1522 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1524 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1526 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1527 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1528 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1529 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1530 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1531 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1534 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1535 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1537 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1539 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1540 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1541 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1542 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1544 quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1546 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1547 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1550 quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1552 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1553 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1554 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1556 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1557 want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1558 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1559 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1561 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1562 "remote" side is the receiver.
1564 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1565 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1566 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1567 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1569 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1570 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1571 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1572 a file should be ignored.
1574 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1575 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1577 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1578 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1579 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/)))
1581 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1582 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1583 are delimited by whitespace).
1585 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1586 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1587 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1588 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1590 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1591 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1592 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1593 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1594 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1595 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1596 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1597 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1598 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1599 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1602 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1603 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1604 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1606 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1607 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1608 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1609 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1610 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1612 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1614 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1615 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1617 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1619 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1620 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1621 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1624 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1626 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1628 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1631 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1632 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1633 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1635 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1637 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1638 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1639 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1640 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1642 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1643 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1644 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1646 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1648 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1649 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1650 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1651 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1653 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1654 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1655 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1656 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1659 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1660 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1661 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1662 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1663 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1664 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1665 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1666 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1667 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1668 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1669 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1670 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1673 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1674 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1675 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1678 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1680 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1681 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1682 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1683 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1684 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1685 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1686 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1687 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1689 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1690 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1691 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1693 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1694 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1695 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1696 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1697 transfer". For example:
1699 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1701 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1702 was located on the remote "src" host.
1704 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1705 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1706 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1707 receiving host's charset.
1709 NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be
1710 more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared
1711 between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements
1712 (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
1713 eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
1715 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1716 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1717 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1718 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1719 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1720 file are split on whitespace).
1722 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1723 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1724 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1725 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1726 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1728 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1729 side will also be translated
1730 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1731 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1733 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1734 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1735 by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1736 overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1737 (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1738 Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1739 disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1742 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1743 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1744 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1745 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1747 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1748 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1749 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1750 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1751 Beginning with rsync 3.1.1, the temp-file names inside the specified DIR will
1752 not be prefixed with an extra dot (though they will still have a random suffix
1755 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1756 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1757 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1758 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1759 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1760 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1761 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1762 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1763 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1764 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1765 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1766 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1767 new version on the disk at the same time.
1769 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1770 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1771 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1772 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1773 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1774 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1775 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1776 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1777 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1778 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1779 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1780 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1782 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1783 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1784 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1785 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1786 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1788 If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching
1789 alternate destination directories that are specified via bf(--compare-dest),
1790 bf(--copy-dest), or bf(--link-dest).
1792 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1793 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1794 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1796 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1797 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1798 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1799 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1800 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1801 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1802 have changed from an earlier backup.
1803 This option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created)
1806 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1807 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1809 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1810 and the attributes updated.
1811 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1812 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1814 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1815 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1817 NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a non-empty
1818 destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of the compare-dest
1819 hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh copy).
1821 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1822 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1823 directory using a local copy.
1824 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1825 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1826 been successfully transferred.
1828 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1829 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1830 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1831 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1833 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1834 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1836 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1837 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1838 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1839 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1842 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1844 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1845 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1846 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1847 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1849 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1850 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1852 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1853 and the attributes updated.
1854 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1855 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1857 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1858 existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can affect alternate
1859 destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can get a bit
1860 muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0, an alternate-directory exact match
1861 would never be found (nor linked into the destination) when a destination file
1864 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1865 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1866 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1869 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1870 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1872 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1873 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1874 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1875 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1877 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1878 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1879 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1881 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1882 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1883 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1884 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection. This matching-data
1885 compression comes at a cost of CPU, though, and can be disabled by repeating
1886 the bf(-z) option, but only if both sides are at least version 3.1.1.
1888 Note that if your version of rsync was compiled with an external zlib (instead
1889 of the zlib that comes packaged with rsync) then it will not support the
1890 old-style compression, only the new-style (repeated-option) compression. In
1891 the future this new-style compression will likely become the default.
1893 The client rsync requests new-style compression on the server via the
1894 bf(--new-compress) option, so if you see that option rejected it means that
1895 the server is not new enough to support bf(-zz). Rsync also accepts the
1896 bf(--old-compress) option for a future time when new-style compression
1897 becomes the default.
1899 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1900 that will not be compressed.
1902 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1903 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1904 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1906 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1907 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1908 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1910 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1912 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1913 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1914 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1916 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1918 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1919 matches 2 suffixes):
1921 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1923 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1955 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1956 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1957 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1960 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1961 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1964 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1965 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1966 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1967 option is not specified.
1969 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1970 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1971 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1972 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1973 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1974 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1976 dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
1977 specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
1978 receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
1979 values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
1980 replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
1981 or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
1982 also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
1983 names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
1984 why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
1985 numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
1987 verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
1989 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
1990 all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
1991 your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
1993 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
1994 to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
1995 the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
1996 bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
1997 match those in use on the receiving side.
1999 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
2000 empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
2001 a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
2003 verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
2005 When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
2006 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
2007 you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
2008 nameless IDs to different values.
2010 For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
2011 option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
2012 as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
2013 option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
2014 (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
2017 dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
2018 with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
2019 bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
2020 so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
2021 the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
2022 be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
2024 If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
2025 "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
2027 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
2028 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
2029 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
2031 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
2032 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
2033 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
2035 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2036 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
2037 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
2038 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2040 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
2041 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
2042 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
2043 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
2044 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2046 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
2047 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
2048 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
2049 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
2050 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
2051 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
2052 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
2053 bf(--daemon) mode section.
2055 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
2056 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
2057 rsync defaults to using
2058 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
2059 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
2061 dit(bf(--outbuf=MODE)) This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be
2062 None (aka Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little
2063 as a single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
2065 The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering
2066 when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
2068 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
2069 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
2070 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
2071 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
2072 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
2073 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
2076 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
2077 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
2078 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
2079 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
2082 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
2085 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
2087 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
2089 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
2090 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
2091 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
2093 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
2094 have attributes that are being modified).
2095 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
2096 a message (e.g. "deleting").
2099 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
2100 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
2101 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
2103 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
2104 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
2105 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
2106 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
2107 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
2108 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
2110 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
2113 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
2114 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
2116 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
2117 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
2118 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
2119 by the file transfer.
2120 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
2121 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
2122 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
2123 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
2124 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
2125 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
2126 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
2127 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
2128 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
2129 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
2130 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
2131 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
2132 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
2133 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
2134 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
2135 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
2138 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
2139 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
2140 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2141 outputting them as a verbose message).
2143 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2144 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2145 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2146 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2147 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2148 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2149 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2150 rsyncd.conf manpage.
2152 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2153 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2154 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2155 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2156 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2157 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2158 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2159 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2161 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2162 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2163 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2164 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2165 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2166 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2168 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2169 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2170 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2171 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2172 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2173 option if you wish to override this.
2175 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2178 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2180 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2183 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2184 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2185 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2186 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2187 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2188 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2190 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2193 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2194 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2195 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2196 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2197 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2199 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2200 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2201 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2202 be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2203 For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2204 totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2205 files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2206 it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2207 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2208 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2209 it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2210 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2211 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2212 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2213 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2214 it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2215 that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2216 include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2217 "regular" into this heading.
2218 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2219 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2220 include the size of symlinks.
2221 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2222 for just the transferred files.
2223 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2224 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2225 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2226 recreating the updated files.
2227 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2228 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2229 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2231 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2232 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2233 sending side for this to be present.
2234 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2235 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2236 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2237 from the client side to the server side.
2238 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2239 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2240 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2241 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2244 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2245 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2246 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2247 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2250 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2251 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2252 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2253 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2255 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2256 There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2257 set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2258 is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2259 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2262 The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2263 by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2264 specifing the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2266 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2267 G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2268 in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2270 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2271 human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2272 two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2273 as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2274 options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2276 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2277 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2278 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2279 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2280 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2282 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2283 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2284 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2285 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2286 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2287 after it has served its purpose.
2289 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2290 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2292 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2294 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2295 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2296 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2297 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2298 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2300 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2301 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2302 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2303 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2304 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2305 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2308 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2309 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2310 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2311 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2312 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2313 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2314 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2315 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2316 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2318 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2319 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2321 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2322 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2323 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2324 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2325 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2326 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2327 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2328 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2329 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2330 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2332 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2333 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2334 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2335 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2336 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2338 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2339 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2340 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2341 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2342 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2343 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2344 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2345 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2346 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2347 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2348 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2350 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2351 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2352 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2353 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2355 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2356 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2358 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2359 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2361 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2362 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2363 parallel hierarchy of files).
2365 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2366 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2367 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2368 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2369 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2372 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2373 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2374 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2376 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2377 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2378 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2379 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2380 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2383 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2384 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2385 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2387 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2389 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2390 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2391 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2392 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2394 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2396 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2397 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2398 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2400 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2401 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2403 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2404 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2405 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2407 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2410 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2412 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2413 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2414 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2415 is maintained until the end.
2417 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2418 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2419 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2420 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2421 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2422 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2424 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2425 summary line that looks like this:
2427 verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2429 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2430 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2431 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2432 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2433 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2434 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2436 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2437 in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2438 transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2439 (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2440 knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2441 "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2442 in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2443 of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2446 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2447 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2448 transfer that may be interrupted.
2450 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2451 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2452 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2453 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2454 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2455 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2457 dit(bf(--password-file=FILE)) This option allows you to provide a password for
2458 accessing an rsync daemon via a file or via standard input if bf(FILE) is
2459 bf(-). The file should contain just the password on the first line (all other
2460 lines are ignored). Rsync will exit with an error if bf(FILE) is world
2461 readable or if a root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
2463 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2464 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2465 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2466 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2467 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2470 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2471 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2472 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2473 command that includes a
2474 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2475 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2476 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2477 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2478 without using this option. For example:
2480 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2482 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2483 by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2484 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2485 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2486 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2487 bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2490 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2491 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2492 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2493 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2494 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2495 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2496 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2498 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2499 rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2500 RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2501 be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2502 the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2503 been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2504 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2506 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2507 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2509 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2510 size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2511 rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2512 out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2514 Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2515 accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2516 files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2517 while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2518 occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2520 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2521 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2522 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2524 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2525 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2526 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2527 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2529 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2530 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2531 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2532 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2533 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2536 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2537 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2538 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2539 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2541 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2542 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2543 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2544 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2546 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2547 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2548 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2549 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2550 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2551 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2552 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2554 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2555 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2556 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2557 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2558 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2559 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2560 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2561 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2562 to turn off any conversion.
2563 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2564 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2566 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2569 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2570 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2571 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2573 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2574 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2575 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2576 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2577 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2579 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2580 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2581 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2582 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2584 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2585 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2586 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2587 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2589 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2590 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2593 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4
2594 byte checksum seed is included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation
2595 (the more modern MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum
2596 seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This
2597 option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2598 applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case where the
2599 user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use
2600 the default of code(time()) for checksum seed.
2604 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2606 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2609 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2610 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2611 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2613 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2614 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2615 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2616 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2617 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2620 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2621 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2622 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2623 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2624 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2626 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2627 rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2628 specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2629 See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2631 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2632 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2633 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2634 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2635 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2637 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2638 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2639 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2640 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2641 desire. For instance:
2643 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2645 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2646 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2647 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2648 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2649 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2650 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2651 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2654 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2655 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2656 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2658 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2659 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2662 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2663 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2664 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2665 case transfer logging is turned off.
2667 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2668 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2670 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2671 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2672 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2673 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2675 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2676 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2677 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2678 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2679 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2680 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2682 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2683 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2686 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2687 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2690 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2692 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2693 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2694 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2695 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2697 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2698 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2699 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2700 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2701 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2702 filename is not skipped.
2704 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2705 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2708 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2709 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2712 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2713 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2714 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2715 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2716 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2719 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2720 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2721 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2722 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2723 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2724 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2725 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2726 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2727 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2730 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2731 comment lines that start with a "#".
2733 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2734 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2735 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2736 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2738 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2739 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2740 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2741 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2744 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2745 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2746 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2747 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2749 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2751 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2752 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2753 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2754 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2755 can take several forms:
2758 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2759 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2760 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2761 regular expressions.
2762 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2763 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2764 per-directory rule).
2765 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2766 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2767 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2768 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2769 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2770 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2771 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2773 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2774 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2775 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2776 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2777 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2778 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2779 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2780 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2781 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2782 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2783 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2784 This means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a
2785 pattern contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has none.
2786 e.g. if you add a wildcard to "foo\bar" (which matches the backslash) you
2787 would need to use "foo\\bar*" to avoid the "\b" becoming just "b".
2788 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2789 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2790 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2791 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2792 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2793 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2795 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2796 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2797 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2801 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2802 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2803 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2804 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2805 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2806 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2807 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2808 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2809 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2810 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2811 For instance, this won't work:
2814 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2815 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2819 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2820 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2821 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2822 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2823 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2824 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2825 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2830 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2831 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2832 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2836 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2839 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2840 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2841 transfer-root directory
2842 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2843 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2844 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2845 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2846 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2847 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2848 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2849 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2850 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2851 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2852 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2855 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2858 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2859 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2860 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2861 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2862 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2863 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2864 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2865 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2867 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2868 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2870 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2871 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2872 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2873 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2874 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2875 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2876 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2877 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2878 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2879 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2880 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2881 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2882 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2883 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2884 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2885 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2888 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2890 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2891 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2894 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2895 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2896 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2897 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2898 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2899 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2900 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2901 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2902 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2903 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2909 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2910 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2911 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2912 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2913 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2916 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2919 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2920 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2921 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2922 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2923 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2924 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2925 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2926 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2927 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2928 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2929 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2930 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2931 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2932 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2933 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2935 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2936 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2937 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2938 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2939 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2940 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2941 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2942 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2943 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2944 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2947 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2948 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2949 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2950 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2951 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2952 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2953 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2954 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2955 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2957 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2958 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2959 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2960 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2963 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2966 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2968 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2973 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2974 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2975 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2976 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2979 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2980 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2981 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2982 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2984 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2986 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2987 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2988 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2989 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2990 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2992 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2995 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2996 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2997 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
3000 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
3001 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
3002 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
3003 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
3004 a part of the transfer.
3006 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
3007 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
3008 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
3009 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
3010 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
3011 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
3012 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
3013 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
3017 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
3022 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
3025 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
3026 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
3027 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
3028 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
3029 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
3030 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
3031 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
3032 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
3034 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
3036 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
3037 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
3038 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
3039 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
3040 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
3041 out the parent's rules).
3043 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
3045 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
3046 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
3047 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
3048 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
3049 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
3050 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
3052 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
3053 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
3054 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
3055 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
3056 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
3058 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
3059 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
3060 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
3063 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
3064 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
3065 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
3066 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3067 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3071 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
3072 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
3073 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
3074 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
3075 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
3079 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
3080 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
3081 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3082 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
3083 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
3087 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
3088 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
3089 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3090 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3091 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3094 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
3095 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
3096 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
3098 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
3100 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
3101 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
3102 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
3103 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
3106 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3107 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3110 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
3111 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
3112 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
3113 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
3114 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
3115 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
3117 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
3119 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
3120 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
3121 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
3122 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
3123 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
3125 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
3126 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3128 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
3129 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
3130 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
3131 per-directory merge rule.
3133 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
3134 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
3135 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
3136 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
3137 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
3138 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
3140 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3142 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3144 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
3146 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
3147 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
3148 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3149 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3150 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3151 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3152 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3153 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3154 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3156 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3157 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3158 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3159 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3160 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3162 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3163 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3164 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3165 using the information stored in the batch file.
3167 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3168 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3169 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3170 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3171 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3172 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3173 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3174 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3179 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3180 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3181 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3185 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3186 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3189 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3190 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3191 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3192 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3193 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3196 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3197 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3198 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3199 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3200 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3201 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3202 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3203 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3204 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3205 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3206 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3211 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3212 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3213 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3214 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3215 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3216 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3217 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3218 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3219 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3220 option (when reading the batch).
3221 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3222 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3223 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3226 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3227 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3228 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3229 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3230 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3231 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3232 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3234 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3235 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3236 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3237 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3238 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3239 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3240 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3242 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3243 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3244 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3245 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3246 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3247 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3249 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3250 version uses a new implementation.
3252 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3254 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3255 link in the source directory.
3257 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3258 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3260 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3261 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3264 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3265 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3267 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3268 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3269 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3270 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3271 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3272 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3273 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3274 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3276 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3277 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3278 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3280 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3281 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3282 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3284 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3285 symlinks for any other options to affect).
3287 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3288 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3290 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3291 skip all safe symlinks.
3293 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3296 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3298 manpagediagnostics()
3300 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3301 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3302 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3304 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3305 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3306 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3307 remote shell like this:
3309 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3311 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3312 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3313 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3314 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3315 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3316 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3317 for non-interactive logins.
3319 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3320 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3321 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3323 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3327 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3328 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3329 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3330 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3331 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3332 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3334 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3335 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3336 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3337 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3338 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3339 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3340 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3341 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3342 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3343 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3344 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3345 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3346 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3347 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3348 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3351 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3354 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3355 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3357 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3358 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3359 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3360 bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3361 sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3362 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3363 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3364 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3365 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3366 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3367 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3368 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3369 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3370 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3371 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3372 consult the remote shell's documentation.
3373 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3374 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3375 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3376 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3377 default .cvsignore file.
3382 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3390 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3392 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3394 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3396 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3399 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3401 Please report bugs! See the web site at
3402 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3404 manpagesection(VERSION)
3406 This man page is current for version 3.1.1 of rsync.
3408 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3410 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3411 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3412 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3413 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3414 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3415 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3418 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3420 rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file
3421 COPYING for details.
3423 A WEB site is available at
3424 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3425 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3428 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3429 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3431 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3432 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3434 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3435 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3437 manpagesection(THANKS)
3439 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3440 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3441 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3443 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3444 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3448 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3449 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3452 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3453 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)