rsync

rsync(1) rsync(1)

NAME

rsync -- faster, flexible replacement for rcp


SYNOPSIS
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST


rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST


rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST


rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST [DEST]


rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST

rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]


rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST

DESCRIPTION

rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does, but
has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
updated.


The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the dif-
ferences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
report that accompanies this package.


Some of the additional features of rsync are:




o support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permis-
sions


o exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar


o a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would
ignore


o can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh


o does not require root privileges


o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs


o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
mirroring)




GENERAL
There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:




o for copying local files. This is invoked when neither source nor
destination path contains a : separator


o for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a
remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh). This
is invoked when the destination path contains a single : separa-
tor.


o for copying from a remote machine to the local machine using a
remote shell program. This is invoked when the source contains a
: separator.


o for copying from a remote rsync server to the local machine.
This is invoked when the source path contains a separator or
an rsync:// URL.


o for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync server.
This is invoked when the destination path contains a separa-
tor or an rsync:// URL.


o for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell program
as the transport, using rsync server on the remote machine.
This is invoked when the source path contains a separator and
the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is also provided.


o for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a
remote shell program as the transport, using rsync server on the
remote machine. This is invoked when the destination path con-
tains a separator and the --rsh=COMMAND option is also pro-
vided.


o for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the same way
as rsync transfers except that you leave off the local destina-
tion.


Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
and destination paths must be local.




SETUP
See the file README for installation instructions.


Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access
via a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a dif-
ferent remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.


You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e
command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.


One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
security.


Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
machines.




USAGE
You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
and a destination, one of which may be remote.


Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:


rsync -t *.c foo:src/


This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the current
directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of the files
already exist on the remote system then the rsync remote-update proto-
col is used to update the file by sending only the differences. See the
tech report for details.


rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp


This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on
the machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine.
The files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that sym-
bolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are
preserved in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to
reduce the size of data portions of the transfer.


rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp


A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating
an additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a
trailing / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory"
as opposed to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the
attributes of the containing directory are transferred to the contain-
ing directory on the destination. In other words, each of the follow-
ing commands copies the files in the same way, including their setting
of the attributes of /dest/foo:


rsync -av /src/foo /dest
rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo


You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
destination don"t have a ":" in the name. In this case it behaves like
an improved copy command.


rsync somehost.mydomain.com

This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)




ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves
using quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:


rsync host modname/dir2/file2" /dest


This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first
one, and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are
assumed to be a part of the filenames.


rsync -av host:"dir1/file1 dir2/file2" /dest


This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn"t work it
means that the remote shell isn"t configured to split its args based on
whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to
transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you"ll need to either
escape the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand,
or use wildcards in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:


rsync -av host:"file name with spaces" /dest
rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest


This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.




CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the trans-
port. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server running on
TCP port 873.


You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
your web proxy. Note that your web proxy"s configuration must support
proxy connections to port 873.


Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell
except that:




o you either use a double colon instead of a single colon to
separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.


o the remote server may print a message of the day when you con-
nect.


o if you specify no path name on the remote server then the list
of accessible paths on the server will be shown.


o if you specify no local destination then a listing of the speci-
fied files on the remote server is provided.


Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This
may be useful when scripting rsync.


WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.




CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM
It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or rsh
for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect to a
remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a firewall),
but you still want to have access to the rsync server features (see
RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM, below).


From the user"s perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must explicitly
set the remote shell program on the command line with --rsh=COMMAND.
(Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on this functional-
ity.)


In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
server user, you can use "-l user" on your remote-shell command:






rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user"
rsync-user@host local-path






The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.




RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER
An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see
the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the con-
figuration file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running
over a remote shell program and is not running as root; in that case,
the default name is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote
computer (typically $HOME).




RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM
See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
server configuration file.


Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port if
you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.


To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section in
the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.




EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of how I use rsync.


To backup my wife"s home directory, which consists of large MS Word
files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs


rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup


each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
"arvidsjaur".


To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile tar-
gets:






get:
rsync -avuzb --exclude "*~" samba:samba/ .
put:
rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
sync: get put






this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves
a lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn"t very efficient.


I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the com-
mand:


rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nim-
bus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"


This is launched from cron every few hours.




OPTIONS SUMMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
to the detailed description below for a complete description.








-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
-a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-relative turn off --relative
--no-implied-dirs don"t send implied dirs with -R
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
-g, --group preserve group
-D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
-t, --times preserve times
-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
-W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
--no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
-x, --one-file-system don"t cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
--existing only update files that already exist
--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
--remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete files that don"t exist on sender
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don"t delete more than NUM files
--min-size=SIZE don"t transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--max-size=SIZE don"t transfer any file larger than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
--numeric-ids don"t map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don"t skip files that match size and time
--size-only skip files that match in size
--modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
-T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-F same as --filter="dir-merge /.rsync-filter"
repeated: --filter="- .rsync-filter"
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATTERN don"t exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
--files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
-0, --from0 all *from file lists are delimited by nulls
--version print version number
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--no-blocking-io turn off blocking I/O when it is default
--stats give some file-transfer stats
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
--log-format=FORMAT log file-transfers using specified format
--password-file=FILE read password from FILE
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
-h, --help show this help screen






Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options
are accepted:




--daemon run as an rsync daemon
--address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
--no-detach do not detach from the parent
--port=PORT listen on alternate port number
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
-h, --help show this help screen








OPTIONS
rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant. The
"=" for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace can be
used instead.




-h, --help
Print a short help page describing the options available in
rsync.




--version
print the rsync version number and exit.




-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information you are given
during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A single
-v will give you information about what files are being trans-
ferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give
you information on what files are being skipped and slightly
more information at the end. More than two -v flags should only
be used if you are debugging rsync.


Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are
done using a default --log-format of "%n%L", which tells you
just the name of the file and, if the item is a symlink, where
it points. At the single -v level of verbosity, this does not
mention when a file gets its attributes changed. If you ask for
an itemized list of changed attributes (either --itemize-changes
or adding "%i" to the --log-format setting), the output (on the
client) increases to mention all items that are changed in any
way. See the --log-format option for more details.




-q, --quiet
This option decreases the amount of information you are given
during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync
from cron.




-I, --ignore-times
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the same
size and have the same modification time-stamp. This option
turns off this "quick check" behavior.




--size-only
Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are already the
same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
--size-only option, files will not be transferred if they have
the same size, regardless of timestamp. This is useful when
starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which
may not preserve timestamps exactly.




--modify-window
When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the timestamps as
being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may
find it useful to set this to a larger value in some situations.
In particular, when transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT
filesystem (which represents times with a 2-second resolution),
--modify-window=1 is useful (allowing times to differ by up to 1
second).




-c, --checksum
This forces the sender to checksum all files using a 128-bit MD4
checksum before transfer. The checksum is then explicitly
checked on the receiver and any files of the same name which
already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.




-a, --archive
This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way of saying you
want recursion and want to preserve almost everything. The only
exception to this is if --files-from was specified, in which
case -r is not implied.


Note that -a does not preserve hardlinks, because finding multi-
ply-linked files is expensive. You must separately specify -H.




-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also
--dirs (-d).




-R, --relative
Use relative paths. This means that the full path names speci-
fied on the command line are sent to the server rather than just
the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful
when you want to send several different directories at the same
time. For example, if you used the command


rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/


then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the
remote machine. If instead you used


rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/


then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the
remote machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the
amount of path information that is sent, do something like this:


cd /foo
rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/


That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.




--no-relative
Turn off the --relative option. This is only needed if you want
to use --files-from without its implied --relative file process-
ing.




--no-implied-dirs
When combined with the --relative option, the implied directo-
ries in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part of the
transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part
of the path. For instance, if you transfer the file
"/path/foo/file" with -R, the default is for rsync to ensure
that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the destination exactly match
the directories/symlinks of the source. Using the
--no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs,
which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine
and a symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to
change this.




-b, --backup
With this option, preexisting destination files are renamed as
each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using
the --backup-dir and --suffix options. Note that if you don"t
specify --backup-dir, the --omit-dir-times option will be
enabled.




--backup-dir=DIR
In combination with the --backup option, this tells rsync to
store all backups in the specified directory. This is very use-
ful for incremental backups. You can additionally specify a
backup suffix using the --suffix option (otherwise the files
backed up in the specified directory will keep their original
filenames).




--suffix=SUFFIX
This option allows you to override the default backup suffix
used with the --backup (-b) option. The default suffix is a ~ if
no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.




-u, --update
This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the destina-
tion and have a modified time that is newer than the source
file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal
to the source file"s, it will be updated if the sizes are dif-
ferent.)


In the current implementation of --update, a difference of file
format between the sender and receiver is always considered to
be important enough for an update, no matter what date is on the
objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would
occur regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the
future (feel free to comment on this on the mailing list if you
have an opinion).




--inplace
This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file and then
move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can"t accomplish the full
amount of network reduction it might be able to otherwise (since
it does not yet try to sort data matches). One exception to
this is if you combine the option with --backup, since rsync is
smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
transfer.


This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-
based changes or appended data, and also on systems that are
disk bound, not network bound.


The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does
not delete the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir and
--delay-updates. Prior to rsync 2.6.4 --inplace was also incom-
patible with --compare-dest and --link-dest.


WARNING: The file"s data will be in an inconsistent state during
the transfer (and possibly afterward if the transfer gets inter-
rupted), so you should not use this option to update files that
are in use. Also note that rsync will be unable to update a
file in-place that is not writable by the receiving user.




-d, --dirs
Tell the sending side to include any directories that are
encountered. Unlike --recursive, a directory"s contents are not
copied unless the directory was specified on the command-line as
either "." or a name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). With-
out this option or the --recursive option, rsync will skip all
directories it encounters (and output a message to that effect
for each one).




-l, --links
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the des-
tination.




-L, --copy-links
When symlinks are encountered, the file that they point to (the
referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older versions
of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directo-
ries. In a modern rsync such as this one, you"ll need to spec-
ify --keep-dirlinks (-K) to get this extra behavior. The only
exception is when sending files to an rsync that is too old to
understand -K -- in that case, the -L option will still have the
side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.




--copy-unsafe-links
This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic links that
point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks are also
treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
source path itself when --relative is used.




--safe-links
This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point out-
side the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are also ignored.
Using this option in conjunction with --relative may give unex-
pected results.




-H, --hard-links
This tells rsync to recreate hard links on the remote system
to be the same as the local system. Without this option hard
links are treated like regular files.


Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the
link are in the list of files being sent.


This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.




-K, --keep-dirlinks
On the receiving side, if a symlink is pointing to a directory,
it will be treated as matching a directory from the sender.




-W, --whole-file
With this option the incremental rsync algorithm is not used and
the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the
source and destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to
disk (especially when the "disk" is actually a networked
filesystem). This is the default when both the source and des-
tination are specified as local paths.




--no-whole-file
Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the default.




-p, --perms
This option causes rsync to set the destination permissions to
be the same as the source permissions.


Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set
based on the source file"s permissions and the umask at the
receiving end, while all other files (including updated files)
retain their existing permissions (which is the same behavior as
other file-copy utilities, such as cp).




-o, --owner
This option causes rsync to set the owner of the destination
file to be the same as the source file. On most systems, only
the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preser-
vation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number
in some circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for a full
discussion.




-g, --group
This option causes rsync to set the group of the destination
file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving pro-
gram is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the
preservation is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID
number in some circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for
a full discussion.




-D, --devices
This option causes rsync to transfer character and block device
information to the remote system to recreate these devices. This
option is only available to the super-user.




-t, --times
This tells rsync to transfer modification times along with the
files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that
have not been modified cannot be effective; in other words, a
missing -t or -a will cause the next transfer to behave as if it
used -I, causing all files to be updated (though the rsync algo-
rithm will make the update fairly efficient if the files haven"t
actually changed, you"re much better off using -t).




-O, --omit-dir-times
This tells rsync to omit directories when it is preserving modi-
fication times (see --times). If NFS is sharing the directories
on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use -O. This option
is inferred if you use --backup without --backup-dir.


-n, --dry-run
This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, instead it will
just report the actions it would have taken.




-S, --sparse
Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up less
space on the destination.


NOTE: Don"t use this option when the destination is a Solaris
"tmpfs" filesystem. It doesn"t seem to handle seeks over null
regions correctly and ends up corrupting the files.




-x, --one-file-system
This tells rsync not to cross filesystem boundaries when
recursing. This is useful for transferring the contents of
only one filesystem.




--existing
This tells rsync not to create any new files -- only update
files that already exist on the destination.




--ignore-existing
This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on the
destination.




--remove-sent-files
This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files
and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not
removed, nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely
changed.




--delete
This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the receiving
side (ones that aren"t on the sending side), but only for the
directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked
rsync to send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without
using a wildcard for the directory"s contents (e.g. "dir/*")
since the wildcard is expanded by the shell and rsync thus gets
a request to transfer individual files, not the files" parent
directory. Files that are excluded from transfer are also
excluded from being deleted unless you use the --delete-excluded
option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side
(see the include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).


This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.


This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very
good idea to run first using the --dry-run option (-n) to see
what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren"t
listed.


If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of
any files at the destination will be automatically disabled.
This is to prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS
errors) on the sending side causing a massive deletion of files
on the destination. You can override this with the
--ignore-errors option.


The --delete option may be combined with one of the
--delete-WHEN options without conflict, as well as
--delete-excluded. However, if none of the --delete-WHEN
options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
--delete-before algorithm. A future version may change this to
choose the --delete-during algorithm. See also --delete-after.




--delete-before
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done
before the transfer starts. This is the default if --delete or
--delete-excluded is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN
options. See --delete (which is implied) for more details on
file-deletion.


Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is
tight for space and removing extraneous files would help to make
the transfer possible. However, it does introduce a delay
before the start of the transfer, and this delay might cause the
transfer to timeout (if --timeout was specified).




--delete-during, --del
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done
incrementally as the transfer happens. This is a faster method
than choosing the before- or after-transfer algorithm, but it is
only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4. See --delete
(which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.




--delete-after
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done
after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you are
sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer
and you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete
phase of the current transfer. See --delete (which is implied)
for more details on file-deletion.




--delete-excluded
In addition to deleting the files on the receiving side that are
not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also delete any
files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclu-
sions behave this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect
files from --delete-excluded. See --delete (which is implied)
for more details on file-deletion.




--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even when there are
I/O errors.




--force
This options tells rsync to delete directories even if they are
not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now done
depth-first. Requires the --recursive option (which is implied
by -a) to have any effect.




--max-delete=NUM
This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directo-
ries (NUM must be non-zero). This is useful when mirroring very
large trees to prevent disasters.




--min-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is smaller
than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be suffixed with a
letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and may be a
fractional value (e.g. "--min-size=1.5k").




--max-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is larger
than the specified SIZE. See --min-size above for the descrip-
tion of SIZE.




-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE
This forces the block size used in the rsync algorithm to a
fixed value. It is normally selected based on the size of each
file being updated. See the technical report for details.




-e, --rsh=COMMAND
This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell
program to use for communication between the local and remote
copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.


If this option is used with [user@]host then the
remote shell COMMAND will be used to run an rsync server on the
remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that
remote shell connection, rather than through a direct socket
connection to a running rsync server on the remote host. See
the section "CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL
PROGRAM" above.


Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that
COMMAND is presented to rsync as a single argument. For exam-
ple:


-e "ssh -p 2234"


(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific
connect options in their .ssh/config file.)


You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as
-e.


See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this
option.




--rsync-path=PROGRAM
Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote
machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in the
default remote-shell"s path (e.g.
--rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM is run
with the help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or
command sequence you"d care to run, so long as it does not cor-
rupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to com-
municate.


One tricky example is to set a different default directory on
the remote machine for use with the --relative option. For
instance:


rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/




-C, --cvs-exclude
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files
that you often don"t want to transfer between systems. It uses
the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if a file should
be ignored.


The exclude list is initialized to:


RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS
.make.state .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak
*.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe
*.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/


then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list
and any files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all
cvsignore names are delimited by whitespace).


Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein.
Unlike rsync"s filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on
whitespace. See the cvs(1) manual for more information.


If you"re combining -C with your own --filter rules, you should
note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own
rules, regardless of where the -C was placed on the command-
line. This makes them a lower priority than any rules you spec-
ified explicitly. If you want to control where these CVS
excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you should omit
the -C as a command-line option and use a combination of --fil-
ter=:C and --filter=-C (either on your command-line or by
putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your
other rules). The first option turns on the per-directory scan-
ning for the .cvsignore file. The second option does a one-time
import of the CVS excludes mentioned above.




-f, --filter=RULE
This option allows you to add rules to selectively exclude cer-
tain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.


You may use as many --filter options on the command line as you
like to build up the list of files to exclude.


See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this
option.




-F The -F option is a shorthand for adding two --filter rules to
your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this
rule:


--filter=": /.rsync-filter"


This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files
that have been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their
rules to filter the files in the transfer. If -F is repeated,
it is a shorthand for this rule:


--filter="- .rsync-filter"


This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the
transfer.


See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how
these options work.




--exclude=PATTERN
This option is a simplified form of the --filter option that
defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow the full rule-
parsing syntax of normal filter rules.


See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this
option.




--exclude-from=FILE
This option is similar to the --exclude option, but instead it
adds all exclude patterns listed in the file FILE to the exclude
list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with ";" or "#"
are ignored. If FILE is - the list will be read from standard
input.




--include=PATTERN
This option is a simplified form of the --filter option that
defaults to an include rule and does not allow the full rule-
parsing syntax of normal filter rules.


See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this
option.




--include-from=FILE
This specifies a list of include patterns from a file. If FILE
is "-" the list will be read from standard input.




--files-from=FILE
Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files
to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-" for standard
input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
transferring just the specified files and directories easier:




o The --relative (-R) option is implied, which preserves
the path information that is specified for each item in
the file (use --no-relative if you want to turn that
off).


o The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will create
directories specified in the list on the destination
rather than noisily skipping them.


o The --archive (-a) option"s behavior does not imply
--recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly, if you want
it.


The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to
the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".."
references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For
example, take this command:


rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup


If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the
/usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote
host (but the contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent
unless you specified -r or the names were explicitly listed in
/tmp/foo). Also keep in mind that the effect of the (enabled by
default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path info
that is read from the file -- it does not force the duplication
of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).


In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote
host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front
of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a
short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the
remote end of the transfer". For example:


rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy


This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list
file that was located on the remote "src" host.




-0, --from0
This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a file are
terminated by a null ("�") character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, --files-from, and
any merged files specified in a --filter rule. It does not
affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore
file are split on whitespace).




-T, --temp-dir=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a scratch directory
when creating temporary copies of the files transferred on the
receiving side. The default behavior is to create the temporary
files in the receiving directory.




-y, --fuzzy
This option tells rsync that it should look for a basis file for
any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a
file that has an identical size and modified-time, or a simi-
larly-named file. If found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to
try to speed up the transfer.


Note that the use of the --delete option might get rid of any
potential fuzzy-match files, so either use --delete-after or
specify some filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.




--compare-dest=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the destination
machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination files
against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the desti-
nation directory). If a file is found in DIR that is identical
to the sender"s file, the file will NOT be transferred to the
destination directory. This is useful for creating a sparse
backup of just files that have changed from an earlier backup.


Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --compare-dest directories
may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in
the order specified for an exact match. If a match is found
that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the
attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from
one of the DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the trans-
fer.


If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.




--copy-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --compare-dest, but rsync will also
copy unchanged files found in DIR to the destination directory
using a local copy. This is useful for doing transfers to a new
destination while leaving existing files intact, and then doing
a flash-cutover when all files have been successfully trans-
ferred.


Multiple --copy-dest directories may be provided, which will
cause rsync to search the list in the order specified for an
unchanged file. If a match is not found, a basis file from one
of the DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the transfer.


If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --compare-dest and --link-dest.




--link-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --copy-dest, but unchanged files are
hard linked from DIR to the destination directory. The files
must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked
together. An example:


rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/


Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --link-dest directories may
be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the
order specified for an exact match. If a match is found that
differs only in attributes, a local copy is made and the
attributes updated. If a match is not found, a basis file from
one of the DIRs will be selected to try to speed up the trans-
fer.


If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination
directory. See also --compare-dest and --copy-dest.


Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could
prevent --link-dest from working properly for a non-root user
when -o was specified (or implied by -a). You can work-around
this bug by avoiding the -o option when sending to an old rsync.




-z, --compress
With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent
to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow con-
nection.


Note this this option typically achieves better compression
ratios that can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell
or a compressing transport because it takes advantage of the
implicit information in the matching data blocks that are not
explicitly sent over the connection.




--numeric-ids
With this option rsync will transfer numeric group and user IDs
rather than using user and group names and mapping them at both
ends.


By default rsync will use the username and groupname to deter-
mine what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the
special group 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if
the --numeric-ids option is not specified.


If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no
match on the destination system, then the numeric ID from the
source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information
on how the chroot setting affects rsync"s ability to look up the
names of the users and groups and what you can do about it.




--timeout=TIMEOUT
This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in seconds.
If no data is transferred for the specified time then rsync will
exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.




--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use rather than
the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
double-colon ( syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since
the URL syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the
URL). See also this option in the --daemon mode section.




--blocking-io
This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching a remote
shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
rsync defaults to using blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to
using non-blocking I/O. (Note that ssh prefers non-blocking
I/O.)




--no-blocking-io
Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the default.




-i, --itemize-changes
Requests a simple itemized list of the changes that are being
made to each file, including attribute changes. This is exactly
the same as specifying --log-format="%i %n%L".


The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long.
The general format is like the string UXcstpoga), where U is
replaced by the kind of update being done, X is replaced by the
file-type, and the other letters represent attributes that may
be output if they are being modified.


The update types that replace the U are as follows:




o A < means that a file is being transferred to the remote
host (sent).


o A > means that a file is being transferred to the local
host (received).


o A c means that a local change/creation is occurring for
the item (such as the creation of a directory or the
changing of a symlink, etc.).


o A h means that the item is a hard-link to another item
(requires --hard-links).


o A . means that the item is not being updated (though it
might have attributes that are being modified).


The file-types that replace the X are: f for a file, a d for a
directory, an L for a symlink, and a D for a device.


The other letters in the string above are the actual letters
that will be output if the associated attribute for the item is
being updated or a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this
are: (1) a newly created item replaces each letter with a "+",
(2) an identical item replaces the dots with spaces, and (3) an
unknown attribute replaces each letter with a "?" (this happens
when talking to an older rsync).


The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:




o A c means the checksum of the file is different and will
be updated by the file transfer (requires --checksum).


o A s means the size of the file is different and will be
updated by the file transfer.


o A t means the modification time is different and is being
updated to the server"s value (requires --times). An
alternate value of T means that the time will be set to
the transfer time, which happens anytime a symlink is
transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
without --times.


o A p means the permissions are different and are being