rsync(1) User Commands rsync(1)
NAME
rsync – a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool
SYNOPSIS
- Local
- rsync [OPTION…] SRC… [DEST]
Access via remote shell:
Pull:
rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
Push:
rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
Access via rsync daemon:
Pull:
rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
Push:
rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files instead of copying.
DESCRIPTION
Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm, which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only
the differences between the source files and the existing files in the destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an imâАР
proved copy command for everyday use.
Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check" algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or in
last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
o support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
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 super-user privileges
o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for mirroring)
GENERAL
Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contactâАР
ing an rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever the source or destination path contains a single colon (:)
separator after a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the source or destination path contains a double colon
(::) separator after a host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL
CONNECTION" section for an exception to this latter rule).
As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote host, the copy occurs locally (see also the --list-only option).
Rsync refers to the local side as the client and the remote side as the server. Don't confuse server with an rsync daemon. A daemon is always a
server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
SETUP
See the file README.md 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 daeâАР
mon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a different reâАР
mote 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.
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 protocol is used to update the file by sending only the differences in the data.
Note that the expansion of wildcards on the command-line (.c) into a list of files is handled by the shell before it runs rsync and not by rsync
itself (exactly the same as all other Posix-style programs).
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 symbolic 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 atâАР
tributes of the containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the destination. In other words, each of the following comâАР
mands 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
Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of
these copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
rsync -av host: /dest
rsync -av host::module /dest
You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like an
improved copy command.
Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
rsync somehost.mydomain.com::
See the following section for more details.
ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first, or
with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/
rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/
rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}
Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these examples:
rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest
rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest
This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is not as easy to use as the first method.
If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either specify the --protect-args (-s) option, or you'll need to escape the
whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For instance:
rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest
CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport. In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typiâАР
cally using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACâАР
CEPT CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
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 first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
o the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you connect.
o if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
o if you specify no local destination then a listing of the specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
o you must not specify the --rsh (-e) option (since that overrides the daemon connection to use ssh -- see USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A
REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION below).
An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
rsync -av host::src /dest
Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so, you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This may
be useful when scripting rsync.
WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all users. On those systems using --password-file is recommended.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the 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.
You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the
rsync command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For example:
export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
rsync -av rsync://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/
The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost, which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
(%H).
Note also that if the RSYNC_SHELL environment variable is set, that program will be used to run the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG command instead of using
the default shell of the system() call.
USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION
It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections
into a system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access). Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and
then spawning a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you
want to encrypt a daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by the remote user, you may not be able to use features
such as chroot or change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to
a remote machine and configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow connections from "localhost".)
From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal rsync-daemon
transfer, with the only exception being that you must explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the --rsh=COMMAND option.
(Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest
If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value
(for a module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-
shell, as in this example that uses the short version of the --rsh option:
rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest
The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be used to log-in to the "module".
STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS
In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like
inetd to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port). For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling
incoming socket connections, see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page -- that is the config file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how
to run the daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
SORTED TRANSFER ORDER
Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list. This handles the merging together of the contents of identically
named directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse someone when the files are transferred in a different order than
what was given on the command-line.
If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using --deâАР
lay-updates (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but does make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
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 targets:
- 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 command:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge"
This is launched from cron every few hours.
OPTION SUMMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer to the detailed description below for a complete description.
--verbose, -v increase verbosity
--info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
--debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
--stderr=e|a|c change stderr output mode (default: errors)
--quiet, -q suppress non-error messages
--no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD
--checksum, -c skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
--archive, -a archive mode is -rlptgoD (no -A,-X,-U,-N,-H)
--no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
--recursive, -r recurse into directories
--relative, -R use relative path names
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
--backup, -b 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)
--update, -u skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place
--append append data onto shorter files
--append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
--dirs, -d transfer directories without recursing
--mkpath create the destination's path component
--links, -l copy symlinks as symlinks
--copy-links, -L transform symlink into referent file/dir
--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
--munge-links munge symlinks to make them safe & unusable
--copy-dirlinks, -k transform symlink to dir into referent dir
--keep-dirlinks, -K treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
--hard-links, -H preserve hard links
--perms, -p preserve permissions
--executability, -E preserve executability
--chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
--acls, -A preserve ACLs (implies --perms)
--xattrs, -X preserve extended attributes
--owner, -o preserve owner (super-user only)
--group, -g preserve group
--devices preserve device files (super-user only)
--copy-devices copy device contents as regular file
--specials preserve special files
-D same as --devices --specials
--times, -t preserve modification times
--atimes, -U preserve access (use) times
--open-noatime avoid changing the atime on opened files
--crtimes, -N preserve create times (newness)
--omit-dir-times, -O omit directories from --times
--omit-link-times, -J omit symlinks from --times
--super receiver attempts super-user activities
--fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
--sparse, -S turn sequences of nulls into sparse blocks
--preallocate allocate dest files before writing them
--write-devices write to devices as files (implies --inplace)
--dry-run, -n perform a trial run with no changes made
--whole-file, -W copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
--checksum-choice=STR choose the checksum algorithm (aka --cc)
--one-file-system, -x don't cross filesystem boundaries
--block-size=SIZE, -B force a fixed checksum block-size
--rsh=COMMAND, -e specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
--existing skip creating new files on receiver
--ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
--delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
--delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
--ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
--delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
--min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--max-alloc=SIZE change a limit relating to memory alloc
--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
--prune-empty-dirs, -m prune empty directory chains from file-list
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--usermap=STRING custom username mapping
--groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
--chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
--timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
--contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
--ignore-times, -I don't skip files that match size and time
--size-only skip files that match in size
--modify-window=NUM, -@ set the accuracy for mod-time comparisons
--temp-dir=DIR, -T create temporary files in directory DIR
--fuzzy, -y find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
--compress, -z compress file data during the transfer
--compress-choice=STR choose the compression algorithm (aka --zc)
--compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level (aka --zl)
--skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
--cvs-exclude, -C auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
--filter=RULE, -f 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
--from0, -0 all -from/filter files are delimited by 0s
--protect-args, -s no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
--copy-as=USER[:GROUP] specify user & optional group for the copy
--address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
--stats give some file-transfer stats
--8-bit-output, -8 leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
--human-readable, -h output numbers in a human-readable format
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
--itemize-changes, -i output a change-summary for all updates
--remote-option=OPT, -M send OPTION to the remote side only
--out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
--log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
--log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
--password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
--early-input=FILE use FILE for daemon's early exec input
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
--stop-after=MINS Stop rsync after MINS minutes have elapsed
--stop-at=y-m-dTh:m Stop rsync at the specified point in time
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
--only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
--ipv4, -4 prefer IPv4
--ipv6, -6 prefer IPv6
--version, -V print the version + other info and exit
--help, -h () show this help (* -h is help only on its own)
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=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
--dparam=OVERRIDE, -M override global daemon config parameter
--no-detach do not detach from the parent
--port=PORT listen on alternate port number
--log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
--log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--verbose, -v increase verbosity
--ipv4, -4 prefer IPv4
--ipv6, -6 prefer IPv6
--help, -h show this help (when used with --daemon)
OPTIONS
Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter) options. The full list of the available options are described beâАР
low. If an option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated. Some options only have a long variant, not a short.
If the option takes a parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it must also be specified for the short. When
specifying a parameter, you can either use the form --option=param or replace the '=' with whitespace. The parameter may need to be quoted in
some manner for it to survive the shell's command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (~) in a filename is substituted by your
shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
--help, -h ()
Print a short help page describing the options available in rsync and exit. () The -h short option will only invoke --help when used
without other options since it normally means --human-readable.
--version, -V
Print the rsync version plus other info and exit.
The output includes the default list of checksum algorithms, the default list of compression algorithms, a list of compiled-in capabiliâАР
ties, a link to the rsync web site, and some license/copyright info.
--verbose, -v
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 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v options will give you information on
what files are being skipped and slightly more information at the end. More than two -v options should only be used if you are debugging
rsync.
In a modern rsync, the -v option is equivalent to the setting of groups of --info and --debug options. You can choose to use these newer
options in addition to, or in place of using --verbose, as any fine-grained settings override the implied settings of -v. Both --info and
--debug have a way to ask for help that tells you exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "max verbosity" setting will limit how high of a level the various individual flags can be set on
the daemon side. For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that is set to a higher value than what would be set by
-vv will be downgraded to the -vv level in the daemon's logging.
--info=FLAGS
This option lets you have fine-grained control over the information output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a
level number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that
flag (for those that support higher levels). Use --info=help to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/
Note that --info=name's output is affected by the --out-format and --itemize-changes (-i) options. See those options for more information
on what is output and when.
This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more
flags needed to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them). See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when
dealing with a daemon.
--debug=FLAGS
This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag
(for those that support higher levels). Use --debug=help to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names are
added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/
Note that some debug messages will only be output when --stderr=all is specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
Beginning in 3.2.0, this option is no longer auto-forwarded to the server side in order to allow you to specify different debug values for
each side of the transfer, as well as to specify a new debug option that is only present in one of the rsync versions. If you want to duâАР
plicate the same option on both sides, using brace expansion is an easy way to save you some typing. This works in zsh and bash:
rsync -aiv {-M,}--debug=del2 src/ dest/
--stderr=errors|all|client
This option controls which processes output to stderr and if info messages are also changed to stderr. The mode strings can be abbreviâАР
ated, so feel free to use a single letter value. The 3 possible choices are:
o errors - (the default) causes all the rsync processes to send an error directly to stderr, even if the process is on the remote
side of the transfer. Info messages are sent to the client side via the protocol stream. If stderr is not available (i.e. when
directly connecting with a daemon via a socket) errors fall back to being sent via the protocol stream.
o all - causes all rsync messages (info and error) to get written directly to stderr from all (possible) processes. This causes
stderr to become line-buffered (instead of raw) and eliminates the ability to divide up the info and error messages by file handle.
For those doing debugging or using several levels of verbosity, this option can help to avoid clogging up the transfer stream
(which should prevent any chance of a deadlock bug hanging things up). It also allows --debug to enable some extra I/O related
messages.
o client - causes all rsync messages to be sent to the client side via the protocol stream. One client process outputs all messages,
with errors on stderr and info messages on stdout. This was the default in older rsync versions, but can cause error delays when a
lot of transfer data is ahead of the messages. If you're pushing files to an older rsync, you may want to use --stderr=all since
that idiom has been around for several releases.
This option was added in rsync 3.2.3. This version also began the forwarding of a non-default setting to the remote side, though rsync
uses the backward-compatible options --msgs2stderr and --no-msgs2stderr to represent the all and client settings, respectively. A newer
rsync will continue to accept these older option names to maintain compatibility.
--quiet, -q
This option decreases the amount of information you are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages from the reâАР
mote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from cron.
--no-motd
This option affects the information that is output by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the message-of-the-
day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to a limitaâАР
tion in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to request the list of modules from the daemon.
--ignore-times, -I
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the same size and have the same modification timestamp. This option turns off this
"quick check" behavior, causing all files to be updated.
--size-only
This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of transferring
files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful when
starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps exactly.
--modify-window=NUM, -@
When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window value. The deâАР
fault is 0, which matches just integer seconds. If you specify a negative value (and the receiver is at least version 3.1.3) then
nanoseconds will also be taken into account. Specifying 1 is useful for copies to/from MS Windows FAT filesystems, because FAT represents
times with a 2-second resolution (allowing times to differ from the original by up to 1 second).
If you want all your transfers to default to comparing nanoseconds, you can create a ~/.popt file and put these lines in it:
rsync alias -a -a@-1
rsync alias -t -t@-1
With that as the default, you'd need to specify --modify-window=0 (aka -@0) to override it and ignore nanoseconds, e.g. if you're copying
between ext3 and ext4, or if the receiving rsync is older than 3.1.3.
--checksum, -c
This changes the way rsync checks if the files have been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync uses a "quick
check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will
expend a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer, so this can slow things down significantly (and this is prior
to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files)
The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver
generates its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any file that has the same size as the corresponding
sender's file: files with either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
Note that rsync always verifies that each transferred file was correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this opâАР
tion's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
The checksum used is auto-negotiated between the client and the server, but can be overridden using either the --checksum-choice (--cc)
option or an environment variable that is discussed in that option's section.
--archive, -a
This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost everything. Be aware that it
does not include preserving ACLs (-A), xattrs (-X), atimes (-U), crtimes (-N), nor the finding and preserving of hardlinks (-H).
The only exception to the above equivalence is when --files-from is specified, in which case -r is not implied.
--no-OPTION
You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-": only
options that are implied by other options (e.g. --no-D, --no-perms) or have different defaults in various circumstances (e.g. --no-whole-
file, --no-blocking-io, --no-dirs). You may specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix (e.g. --no-R is the
same as --no-relative).
For example: if you want to use -a (--archive) but don't want -o (--owner), instead of converting -a into -rlptgD, you could specify
-a --no-o (or -a --no-owner).
The order of the options is important: if you specify --no-r -a, the -r option would end up being turned on, the opposite of -a --no-r.
Note also that the side-effects of the --files-from option are NOT positional, as it affects the default state of several options and
slightly changes the meaning of -a (see the --files-from option for more details).
--recursive, -r
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also --dirs (-d).
Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm,
and does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: --delete-
before, --delete-after, --prune-empty-dirs, and --delay-updates. Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify --delete is
now --delete-during when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0 (use --del or --delete-during to request this improved deletion
mode explicitly). See also the --delete-delay option that is a better choice than using --delete-after.
Incremental recursion can be disabled using the --no-inc-recursive option or its shorter --no-i-r alias.
--relative, -R
Use relative paths. This means that the full path names specified 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 this command:
rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote machine. If instead you used
rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are
called "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the above example).
Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as real directories in the file list, even if a path element is
really a symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't
realize had a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink, include both the symlink via its path, and referent
directory via its real path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may need to use the --no-implied-dirs option.
It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern
rsync on the sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into the source path, like this:
rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/
That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviâАР
ated.) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the source path. For example, when pushing files:
(cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
(Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.) If
you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only for a non-daemon transfer):
rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \
remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/
--no-implied-dirs
This option affects the default behavior of the --relative option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied directories from
the source names are not included in the transfer. This means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are left unâАР
changed if they exist, and any missing implied directories are created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path eleâАР
ments to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on the receiving side.
For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and
"path/foo" are implied when --relative is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would
ordinarily delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into the new directory. With --no-implied-dirs, the reâАР
ceiving rsync updates "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file ends up being created in "path/bar".
Another way to accomplish this link preservation is to use the --keep-dirlinks option (which will also affect symlinks to directories in
the rest of the transfer).
When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you reâАР
quest and you wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
--backup, -b
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, (1) the --omit-dir-times option will be forced on, and (2) if --delete is also in effect
(without --delete-excluded), rsync will add a "protect" filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes (e.g.
-f "P *~"). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you
may need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be efâАР
fective (e.g., if your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of *, the auto-added rule would never be reached).
--backup-dir=DIR
This implies the --backup option, and tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving side. This can be used
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).
Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to
specify either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside
the module's path hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
--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.
--update, -u
This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source file. (If an exâАР
isting destination file has a modification time equal to the source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
Note that this does not affect the copying of dirs, symlinks, or other special files. Also, 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 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of the timestamps.
This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect
deletions. It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
--inplace
This option changes how rsync transfers a file when its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating a new copy of
the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
This has several effects:
o Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover,
attempts to copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will result in a "tug of war" with the destination
data changing back and forth.
o In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data
will misbehave or crash).
o The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if
an update fails.
o A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted
write permission for the open of the file for writing to be successful.
o The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can
be copied to a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use --backup, since rsync is smart enough to use the backup
file as the basis file for the transfer.
WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a
copy.
This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not
network bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor
changes.
The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete the file), but conflicts with --partial-dir and --delay-upâАР
dates. Prior to rsync 2.6.4 --inplace was also incompatible with --compare-dest and --link-dest.
--append
This special copy mode only works to efficiently update files that are known to be growing larger where any existing content on the reâАР
ceiving side is also known to be the same as the content on the sender. The use of --append can be dangerous if you aren't 100% sure that
all the files in the transfer are shared, growing files. You should thus use filter rules to ensure that you weed out any files that do
not fit this criteria.
Rsync updates these growing file in-place without verifying any of the existing content in the file (it only verifies the content that it
is appending). Rsync skips any files that exist on the receiving side that are not shorter than the associated file on the sending side
(which means that new files are transferred).
This does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not
need to be transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any directories or non-regular files.
--append-verify
This special copy mode works like --append except that all the data in the file is included in the checksum verification (making it much
less efficient but also potentially safer). This option can be dangerous if you aren't 100% sure that all the files in the transfer are
shared, growing files. See the --append option for more details.
Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the --append option worked like --append-verify, so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the transâАР
fer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option will initiate an --append-verify transfer.
--dirs, -d
Tell the sending side to include any directories that are encountered. Unlike --recursive, a directory's contents are not copied unless
the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the --recurâАР
sive option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both --dirs
and --recursive, --recursive takes precedence.
The --dirs option is implied by the --files-from option or the --list-only option (including an implied --list-only usage) if --recursive
wasn't specified (so that directories are seen in the listing). Specify --no-dirs (or --no-d) if you want to turn this off.
There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, --old-dirs (or --old-d) that tells rsync to use a hack of -r --exclude='/*/*' to get
an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
--mkpath
Create a missing path component of the destination arg. This allows rsync to create multiple levels of missing destination dirs and to
create a path in which to put a single renamed file. Keep in mind that you'll need to supply a trailing slash if you want the entire desâАР
tination path to be treated as a directory when copying a single arg (making rsync behave the same way that it would if the path component
of the destination had already existed).
For example, the following creates a copy of file foo as bar in the sub/dir directory, creating dirs "sub" and "sub/dir" if either do not
yet exist:
rsync -ai --mkpath foo sub/dir/bar
If you instead ran the following, it would have created file foo in the sub/dir/bar directory:
rsync -ai --mkpath foo sub/dir/bar/
--links, -l
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the destination.
--copy-links, -L
When symlinks are encountered, the item 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 directories. In a modern rsync
such as this one, you'll need to specify --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 ordiâАР
nary files, and so are any symlinks in the source path itself when --relative is used. This option has no additional effect if --copy-
links was also specified.
Note that the cut-off point is the top of the transfer, which is the part of the path that rsync isn't mentioning in the verbose output.
If you copy "/src/subdir" to "/dest/" then the "subdir" directory is a name inside the transfer tree, not the top of the transfer (which
is /src) so it is legal for created relative symlinks to refer to other names inside the /src and /dest directories. If you instead copy
"/src/subdir/" (with a trailing slash) to "/dest/subdir" that would not allow symlinks to any files outside of "subdir".
--safe-links
This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are also ignored. Using this opâАР
tion in conjunction with --relative may give unexpected results.
--munge-links
This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see below), or
(2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of
the data to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being
used as long as that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse to run if that path is a directory or a
symlink to a directory.
The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to affect the server, specify it via --remote-option. (Note
that in a local transfer, the client side is the sender.)
This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter.
See also the "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
--copy-dirlinks, -k
This option causes the sending side to treat a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is useful if you don't
want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as they would be using --copy-links.
Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything
that is in the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as --force or --delete is in effect).
See also --keep-dirlinks for an analogous option for the receiving side.
--copy-dirlinks applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you
can use is to pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using --relative to make the paths match up right. For example:
rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/
This works because rsync calls lstat(2) on the source arg as given, and the trailing slash makes lstat(2) follow the symlink, giving rise
to a directory in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
--keep-dirlinks, -K
This option causes the receiving side to treat a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it matches a real
directory from the sender. Without this option, the receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the reâАР
ceiver. Without --keep-dirlinks, the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a directory, and receives the file into the new diâАР
rectory. With --keep-dirlinks, the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in "bar".
One note of caution: if you use --keep-dirlinks, you must trust all the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect
the content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies, you are better off using something like a bind mount instead
of a symlink to modify your receiving hierarchy.
See also --copy-dirlinks for an analogous option for the sending side.
--hard-links, -H
This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination. Without this
option, hard-linked files in the source are treated as though they were separate files.
This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in
which the destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
o If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than what is present in the source file list), the copying algoâАР
rithm will not break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content differences, the normal file-update
process will break those extra links (unless you are using the --inplace option).
o If you specify a --link-dest directory that contains hard links, the linking of the destination files against the --link-dest files
can cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the --link-dest associations.
Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-
link connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If you are tempted to use the --inplace option to avoid this
breakage, be very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are certain that no unintended changes happen due to
lingering hard links (and see the --inplace option for more caveats).
If incremental recursion is active (see --recursive), rsync may transfer a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for
that contents exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked toâАР
gether), just its efficiency (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could have been found later in the
transfer in another member of the hard-linked set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable incremental recursion using
the --no-inc-recursive option.
--perms, -p
This option causes the receiving rsync to set the destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See also the --chmod
option for a way to modify what rsync considers to be the source permissions.)
When this option is off, permissions are set as follows:
o Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions, though the --executability option might change just the
execute permission for the file.
o New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
Thus, when --perms and --executability are both disabled, rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities, such as cp(1)
and tar(1).
In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source permissions, use --perms. To give new files the destination-default
permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the --perms option is off and use --chmod=ugo=rwX (which ensures that
all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such
as putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the -Z option, and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destiâАР
nation dir):
rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX
You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
rsync -avZ src/ dest/
(Caveat: make sure that -a does not follow -Z, or it will re-enable the two --no-* options mentioned above.)
The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created directories when --perms is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for newly-created files when --perms was off, while overriding the destiâАР
nation's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present. (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that
affects these behaviors.)
--executability, -E
This option causes rsync to preserve the executability (or non-executability) of regular files when --perms is not enabled. A regular
file is considered to be executable if at least one 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's executabilâАР
ity differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
o To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x' permissions.
o To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
If --perms is enabled, this option is ignored.
--acls, -A
This option causes rsync to update the destination ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs. The option also implies --perms.
The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this option to work properly. See the --fake-super option for a
way to backup and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
--xattrs, -X
This option causes rsync to update the destination extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a super-user copies all namespaces except system.. A normal
user only copies the user. namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as a normal user, see the --fake-super opâАР
tion.
The above name filtering can be overridden by using one or more filter options with the x modifier. When you specify an xattr-affecting
filter rule, rsync requires that you do your own system/user filtering, as well as any additional filtering for what xattr names are
copied and what names are allowed to be deleted. For example, to skip the system namespace, you could specify:
--filter='-x system.*'
To skip all namespaces except the user namespace, you could specify a negated-user match:
--filter='-x! user.*'
To prevent any attributes from being deleted, you could specify a receiver-only rule that excludes all names:
--filter='-xr *'
Note that the -X option does not copy rsync's special xattr values (e.g. those used by --fake-super) unless you repeat the option (e.g.
-XX). This "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with --fake-super.
--chmod=CHMOD
This option tells rsync to apply one or more comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the transfer. The resulting
value is treated as though it were the permissions that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option can seem to
have no effect on existing files if --perms is not enabled.
In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the chmod(1) manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory
by prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following
will ensure that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable, that both are user-writable and group-writable, and
that both have consistent executability across all bits:
--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X
Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
--chmod=D2775,F664
It is also legal to specify multiple --chmod options, as each additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
See the --perms and --executability options for how the resulting permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
--owner, -o
This option causes rsync to set the owner of the destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the receiving rsync is
being run as the super-user (see also the --super and --fake-super options). Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred
files are set to the invoking user on the receiving side.
The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
(see also the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion).
--group, -g
This option causes rsync to set the group of the destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving program is not runâАР
ning as the super-user (or if --no-super was specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side is a member of will be
preserved. Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking user on the receiving side.
The preservation of group information will associate matching names by default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumâАР
stances (see also the --numeric-ids option for a full discussion).
--devices
This option causes rsync to transfer character and block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices. This option has no
effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the super-user (see also the --super and --fake-super options).
--specials
This option causes rsync to transfer special files such as named sockets and fifos.
-D The -D option is equivalent to --devices --specials.
--write-devices
This tells rsync to treat a device on the receiving side as a regular file, allowing the writing of file data into a device.
This option implies the --inplace option.
Be careful using this, as you should know what devices are present on the receiving side of the transfer, especially if running rsync as
root.
This option is refused by an rsync daemon.
--times, -t
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 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the
update fairly efficient if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using -t).
--atimes, -U
This tells rsync to set the access (use) times of the destination files to the same value as the source files.
If repeated, it also sets the --open-noatime option, which can help you to make the sending and receiving systems have the same access
times on the transferred files without needing to run rsync an extra time after a file is transferred.
Note that some older rsync versions (prior to 3.2.0) may have been built with a pre-release --atimes patch that does not imply --open-noaâАР
time when this option is repeated.
--open-noatime
This tells rsync to open files with the O_NOATIME flag (on systems that support it) to avoid changing the access time of the files that
are being transferred. If your OS does not support the O_NOATIME flag then rsync will silently ignore this option. Note also that some
filesystems are mounted to avoid updating the atime on read access even without the O_NOATIME flag being set.
--crtimes, -N,
This tells rsync to set the create times (newness) of the destination files to the same value as the source files.
--omit-dir-times, -O
This tells rsync to omit directories when it is preserving modification times (see --times). If NFS is sharing the directories on the reâАР
ceiving side, it is a good idea to use -O. This option is inferred if you use --backup without --backup-dir.
This option also has the side-effect of avoiding early creation of directories in incremental recursion copies. The default --inc-recurâАР
sive copying normally does an early-create pass of all the sub-directories in a parent directory in order for it to be able to then set
the modify time of the parent directory right away (without having to delay that until a bunch of recursive copying has finished). This
early-create idiom is not necessary if directory modify times are not being preserved, so it is skipped. Since early-create directories
don't have accurate mode, mtime, or ownership, the use of this option can help when someone wants to avoid these partially-finished direcâАР
tories.
--omit-link-times, -J
This tells rsync to omit symlinks when it is preserving modification times (see --times).
--super
This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These activities
include: preserving users via the --owner option, preserving all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the --group option, and
copying devices via the --devices option. This is useful for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and also
for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the suâАР
per-user can use --no-super.
--fake-super
When this option is enabled, rsync simulates super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via special extended atâАР
tributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's deâАР
vice info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file
(e.g. the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's access (since the real super-user can always acâАР
cess/change a file, the files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user). This option also handles ACLs (if --acls
was specified) and non-user extended attributes (if --xattrs was specified).
This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store ACLs from incompatible systems.
The --fake-super option only affects the side where the option is used. To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
--remote-option (-M) option:
rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/
For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination. If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the
destination files, specify -M--fake-super. If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the source files, combine --fake-super
with -M--super.
This option is overridden by both --super and --no-super.
See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
--sparse, -S
Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up less space on the destination. If combined with --inplace the file created might
not end up with sparse blocks with some combinations of kernel version and/or filesystem type. If --whole-file is in effect (e.g. for a
local copy) then it will always work because rsync truncates the file prior to writing out the updated version.
Note that versions of rsync older than 3.1.3 will reject the combination of --sparse and --inplace.
--preallocate
This tells the receiver to allocate each destination file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use the
real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's fallocate(2) system call or Cygwin's posix_fallocate(3), not the slow
glibc implementation that writes a null byte into each block.
Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more
slowly. If the destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS, etc.), this option may have no positive efâАР
fect at all.
If combined with --sparse, the file will only have sparse blocks (as opposed to allocated sequences of null bytes) if the kernel version
and filesystem type support creating holes in the allocated data.
--dry-run, -n
This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It is most comâАР
monly used in combination with the --verbose, -v and/or --itemize-changes, -i options to see what an rsync command is going to do before
one actually runs it.
The output of --itemize-changes is supposed to be exactly the same on a dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery
and system call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a
dry run does not send the actual data for file transfers, so --progress has no effect, the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data",
and "matched data" statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run where no file transfers were needed.
--whole-file, -W
This option disables rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which causes all transferred files to be sent whole. 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 destination are specified as local paths,
but only if no batch-writing option is in effect.
--checksum-choice=STR, --cc=STR
This option overrides the checksum algorithms. If one algorithm name is specified, it is used for both the transfer checksums and (assumâАР
ing --checksum is specified) the pre-transfer checksums. If two comma-separated names are supplied, the first name affects the transfer
checksums, and the second name affects the pre-transfer checksums (-c).
The checksum options that you may be able to use are:
o auto (the default automatic choice)
o xxh128
o xxh3
o xxh64 (aka xxhash)
o md5
o md4
o none
Run rsync --version to see the default checksum list compiled into your version (which may differ from the list above).
If "none" is specified for the first (or only) name, the --whole-file option is forced on and no checksum verification is performed on the
transferred data. If "none" is specified for the second (or only) name, the --checksum option cannot be used.
The "auto" option is the default, where rsync bases its algorithm choice on a negotiation between the client and the server as follows:
When both sides of the transfer are at least 3.2.0, rsync chooses the first algorithm in the client's list of choices that is also in the
server's list of choices. If no common checksum choice is found, rsync exits with an error. If the remote rsync is too old to support
checksum negotiation, a value is chosen based on the protocol version (which chooses between MD5 and various flavors of MD4 based on proâАР
tocol age).
The default order can be customized by setting the environment variable RSYNC_CHECKSUM_LIST to a space-separated list of acceptable checkâАР
sum names. If the string contains a "&" character, it is separated into the "client string & server string", otherwise the same string
applies to both. If the string (or string portion) contains no non-whitespace characters, the default checksum list is used. This method
does not allow you to specify the transfer checksum separately from the pre-transfer checksum, and it discards "auto" and all unknown
checksum names. A list with only invalid names results in a failed negotiation.
The use of the --checksum-choice option overrides this environment list.
--one-file-system, -x
This tells rsync to avoid crossing a filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability to specify items to copy
from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also the analogous
recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
same filesystem.
If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each
mount-point it encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of the underlying mount-point directory are inacâАР
cessible).
If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via --copy-links or --copy-unsafe-links), a symlink to a directory on another device is
treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected by this option.
--existing, --ignore-non-existing
This tells rsync to skip creating files (including directories) that do not exist yet on the destination. If this option is combined with
the --ignore-existing option, no files will be updated (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect
deletions. It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
--ignore-existing
This tells rsync to skip updating files that already exist on the destination (this does not ignore existing directories, or nothing would
get done). See also --existing.
This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect
deletions. It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
This option can be useful for those doing backups using the --link-dest option when they need to continue a backup run that got interâАР
rupted. Since a --link-dest run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is used properly), using --ignore-existing will ensure
that the already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that
this option is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
--remove-source-files
This tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer and have been sucâАР
cessfully duplicated on the receiving side.
Note that you should only use this option on source files that are quiescent. If you are using this to move files that show up in a parâАР
ticular directory over to another host, make sure that the finished files get renamed into the source directory, not directly written into
it, so that rsync can't possibly transfer a file that is not yet fully written. If you can't first write the files into a different diâАР
rectory, you should use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid transferring files that are not yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new"
when it is written, rename it to "foo" when it is done, and then use the option --exclude='*.new' for the rsync transfer).
Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unâАР
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 the 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).
Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless --recursive was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur
when --dirs (-d) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to first try a run using the --dry-run option (-n) to see what
files are going to be deleted.
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 from causing a massive deletion of files on the destinaâАР
tion. 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 choose the --delete-during algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
the --delete-before algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also --delete-delay and --delete-after.
--delete-before
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done before the transfer starts. See --delete (which is implied) for more deâАР
tails 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). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the
files in the transfer into memory at once (see --recursive).
--delete-during, --del
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The per-directory delete scan is
done right before each directory is checked for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient --delete-before, including doing the deleâАР
tions prior to any per-directory filter files being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4. See --delete (which is
implied) for more details on file-deletion.
--delete-delay
Request that the file-deletions on the receiving side be computed during the transfer (like --delete-during), and then removed after the
transfer completes. This is useful when combined with --delay-updates and/or --fuzzy, and is more efficient than using --delete-after
(but can behave differently, since --delete-after computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done). If the number of
removed files overflows an internal buffer, a temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it is removed while
open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to using
--delete-after (which it cannot do if --recursive is doing an incremental scan). 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. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
transfer into memory at once (see --recursive). 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 exclusions 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-missing-args
When rsync is first processing the explicitly requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or --files-from entries), it is norâАР
mally an error if the file cannot be found. This option suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not afâАР
fect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be present and later is no longer there.
--delete-missing-args
This option takes the behavior of (the implied) --ignore-missing-args option a step farther: each missing arg will become a deletion reâАР
quest of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it
will only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than that, this option is independent of any other type of
delete processing.
The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which display as a "*missing" entry in the --list-only output.
--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even when there are I/O errors.
--force
This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if deletions
are not active (see --delete for details).
Note for older rsync versions: --force used to still be required when using --delete-after, and it used to be non-functional unless the
--recursive option was also enabled.
--max-delete=NUM
This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, all further deletions are skipped through
the end of the transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning (including a count of the skipped deletions) and exits with an error code of
25 (unless some more important error condition also occurred).
Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify --max-delete=0 to be warned about any extraneous files in the destination without removing
any of them. Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what version the client is, you can use the less obvious
--max-delete=-1 as a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though really old versions didn't warn when the
limit was exceeded).
--max-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is larger than the specified SIZE. A numeric value can be suffixed with a string to
indicate the numeric units or left unqualified to specify bytes. Feel free to use a fractional value along with the units, such as --max-
size=1.5m.
This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect
deletions. It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
The first letter of a units string can be B (bytes), K (kilo), M (mega), G (giga), T (tera), or P (peta). If the string is a single char
or has "ib" added to it (e.g. "G" or "GiB") then the units are multiples of 1024. If you use a two-letter suffix that ends with a "B"
(e.g. "kb") then you get units that are multiples of 1000. The string's letters can be any mix of upper and lower-case that you want to
use.
Finally, if the string ends with either "+1" or "-1", it is offset by one byte in the indicated direction. The largest possible value is
usually 8192P-1.
Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is 2147483649 bytes.
Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow --max-size=0.
--min-size=SIZE
This tells rsync to avoid transferring any file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not transferring small, junk
files. See the --max-size option for a description of SIZE and other information.
Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow --min-size=0.
--max-alloc=SIZE
By default rsync limits an individual malloc/realloc to about 1GB in size. For most people this limit works just fine and prevents a proâАР
tocol error causing rsync to request massive amounts of memory. However, if you have many millions of files in a transfer, a large amount
of server memory, and you don't want to split up your transfer into multiple parts, you can increase the per-allocation limit to something
larger and rsync will consume more memory.
Keep in mind that this is not a limit on the total size of allocated memory. It is a sanity-check value for each individual allocation.
See the --max-size option for a description of how SIZE can be specified. The default suffix if none is given is bytes.
Beginning in 3.2.3, a value of 0 specifies no limit.
You can set a default value using the environment variable RSYNC_MAX_ALLOC using the same SIZE values as supported by this option. If the
remote rsync doesn't understand the --max-alloc option, you can override an environmental value by specifying --max-alloc=1g, which will
make rsync avoid sending the option to the remote side (because "1G" is the default).
--block-size=SIZE, -B
This forces the block size used in rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on the size of each
file being updated. See the technical report for details.
Beginning in 3.2.3 the SIZE can be specified with a suffix as detailed in the --max-size option. Older versions only accepted a byte
count.
--rsh=COMMAND, -e
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::module/path, then the remote shell COMMAND will be used to run an rsync daemon 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 daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
Beginning with rsync 3.2.0, the RSYNC_PORT environment variable will be set when a daemon connection is being made via a remote-shell conâАР
nection. It is set to 0 if the default daemon port is being assumed, or it is set to the value of the rsync port that was specified via
either the --port option or a non-empty port value in an rsync:// URL. This allows the script to discern if a non-default port is being
requested, allowing for things such as an SSL or stunnel helper script to connect to a default or alternate port.
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces
(not tabs or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other, and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve
spaces in an argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote;
likewise for double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing).
Some examples:
-e 'ssh -p 2234'
-e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"'
(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 reâАР
mote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync). Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any program,
script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to commuâАР
nicate.
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" host:c/d /e/
--remote-option=OPTION, -M
This option is used for more advanced situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the transfer only. For inâАР
stance, if you want to pass --log-file=FILE and --fake-super to the remote system, specify it like this:
rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/
If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the reâАР
mote side. Like this:
rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/
Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect
next over the socket, and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
Note that it is best to use a separate --remote-option for each option you want to pass. This makes your usage compatible with the --proâАР
tect-args option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split by the remote shell unless you take steps to
protect them.
When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the "remote" side is the receiver.
Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it
next to a short option letter (e.g. -M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your version of popt, you can use the version of popt
that is included with rsync.
--cvs-exclude, -C
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between systems. It uses a similar
algorithm to CVS to determine if a file should be ignored.
The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES secâАР
tion):
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/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/
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 specified 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 --filter=: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 scanning for the .cvsignore file. The second option does a one-time imâАР
port of the CVS excludes mentioned above.
--filter=RULE, -f
This option allows you to add rules to selectively exclude certain 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. If the filter contains
whitespace, be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single argument. The text below also mentions that you can
use an underscore to replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
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='dir-merge /.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 filâАР
ter the files in the transfer. If -F is repeated, it is a shorthand for this rule:
--filter='exclude .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 related to the --exclude option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the
file are ignored, as are whole-line comments that start with ';' or '#' (filename rules that contain those characters are unaffected).
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 option is related to the --include option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line). Blank lines in the
file are ignored, as are whole-line comments that start with ';' or '#' (filename rules that contain those characters are unaffected).
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 or --no-R 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 skipâАР
ping them (use --no-dirs or --no-d if you want to turn that off).
o The --archive (-a) option's behavior does not imply --recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
o These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of the --files-from option on the command-line has no bearing
on how other options are parsed (e.g. -a works the same before or after --files-from, as does --no-R and all other options).
The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command:
rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the -r option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
also be transferred (keep in mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly with --files-from, since it is not implied by -a). Also note
that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the
file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of
the transfer". For example:
rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy
This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the remote "src" host.
If the --iconv and --protect-args options are specified and the --files-from filenames are being sent from one host to another, the fileâАР
names will be translated from the sending host's charset to the receiving host's charset.
NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements
that are shared between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements (implied directories) may end up being scanned
multiple times, and rsync will eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
--from0, -0
This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a file are terminated by a null ('\0') 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).
--protect-args, -s
This option sends all filenames and most options to the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This means that
spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are exâАР
panded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
If you use this option with --iconv, the args related to the remote side will also be translated from the local to the remote character-
set. The translation happens before wild-cards are expanded. See also the --files-from option.
You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will
be enabled by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is overridden by a manually specified positive or negative
version of this option (note that --no-s and --no-protect-args are the negative versions). Since this option was first introduced in
3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than that.
Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by default (with is overridden by both the environment and the
command-line). Run rsync --version to check if this is the case, as it will display "default protect-args" or "optional protect-args" deâАР
pending on how it was compiled.
This option will eventually become a new default setting at some as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
--copy-as=USER[:GROUP]
This option instructs rsync to use the USER and (if specified after a colon) the GROUP for the copy operations. This only works if the
user that is running rsync has the ability to change users. If the group is not specified then the user's default groups are used.
This option can help to reduce the risk of an rsync being run as root into or out of a directory that might have live changes happening to
it and you want to make sure that root-level read or write actions of system files are not possible. While you could alternatively run
all of rsync as the specified user, sometimes you need the root-level host-access credentials to be used, so this allows rsync to drop
root for the copying part of the operation after the remote-shell or daemon connection is established.
The option only affects one side of the transfer unless the transfer is local, in which case it affects both sides. Use the --remote-opâАР
tion to affect the remote side, such as -M--copy-as=joe. For a local transfer, the lsh (or lsh.sh) support file provides a local-shell
helper script that can be used to allow a "localhost:" or "lh:" host-spec to be specified without needing to setup any remote shells, alâАР
lowing you to specify remote options that affect the side of the transfer that is using the host-spec (and using hostname "lh" avoids the
overriding of the remote directory to the user's home dir).
For example, the following rsync writes the local files as user "joe":
sudo rsync -aiv --copy-as=joe host1:backups/joe/ /home/joe/
This makes all files owned by user "joe", limits the groups to those that are available to that user, and makes it impossible for the joe
user to do a timed exploit of the path to induce a change to a file that the joe user has no permissions to change.
The following command does a local copy into the "dest/" dir as user "joe" (assuming you've installed support/lsh into a dir on your
$PATH):
sudo rsync -aive lsh -M--copy-as=joe src/ lh:dest/
--temp-dir=DIR, -T
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 each temporary file in the same directory as the associated destination file. Beginning with
rsync 3.1.1, the temp-file names inside the specified DIR will not be prefixed with an extra dot (though they will still have a random
suffix added).
This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the
transfer. In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received
temporary file over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it into place. Rsync does this by copying the file
over the top of the destination file, which means that the destination file will contain truncated data during this copy. If this were
not done this way (even if the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a temporary file in the destination direcâАР
tory, and then renamed into place) it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if someone had it open), and
thus there might not be enough room to fit the new version on the disk at the same time.
If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk space, you may wish to combine it with the --delay-updates option,
which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If
you don't have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't
overly concerned about disk space is to use the --partial-dir option with a relative path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash
off a copy of a single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the
copied file, and then rename it into place from there. (Specifying a --partial-dir with an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
--fuzzy, -y
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 similarly-named file. If
found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching alternate destination directories that are specified via
--compare-dest, --copy-dest, or --link-dest.
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 destination 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. This option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created) directory.
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 transfer.
If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory. See also --copy-dest and --link-dest.
NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a non-empty destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of
the compare-dest hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh copy).
--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 transferred.
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 idenâАР
tical 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/
If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control,
such a mount option that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownerâАР
ship on this volume" option).
Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple --link-dest directories may be provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specâАР
ified for an exact match (there is a limit of 20 such directories). 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
transfer.
This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can
affect alternate destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can get a bit muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0,
an alternate-directory exact match would never be found (nor linked into the destination) when a destination file already exists.
Note that if you combine this option with --ignore-times, rsync will not link any files together because it only links identical files toâАР
gether as a substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the file is updated.
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-super-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.
--compress, -z
With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data being transâАР
mitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
Rsync supports multiple compression methods and will choose one for you unless you force the choice using the --compress-choice (--zc) opâАР
tion.
Run rsync --version to see the default compress list compiled into your version.
When both sides of the transfer are at least 3.2.0, rsync chooses the first algorithm in the client's list of choices that is also in the
server's list of choices. If no common compress choice is found, rsync exits with an error. If the remote rsync is too old to support
checksum negotiation, its list is assumed to be "zlib".
The default order can be customized by setting the environment variable RSYNC_COMPRESS_LIST to a space-separated list of acceptable comâАР
pression names. If the string contains a "&" character, it is separated into the "client string & server string", otherwise the same
string applies to both. If the string (or string portion) contains no non-whitespace characters, the default compress list is used. Any
unknown compression names are discarded from the list, but a list with only invalid names results in a failed negotiation.
There are some older rsync versions that were configured to reject a -z option and require the use of -zz because their compression liâАР
brary was not compatible with the default zlib compression method. You can usually ignore this weirdness unless the rsync server comâАР
plains and tells you to specify -zz.
See also the --skip-compress option for the default list of file suffixes that will be transferred with no (or minimal) compression.
--compress-choice=STR, --zc=STR
This option can be used to override the automatic negotiation of the compression algorithm that occurs when --compress is used. The opâАР
tion implies --compress unless "none" was specified, which instead implies --no-compress.
The compression options that you may be able to use are:
o zstd
o lz4
o zlibx
o zlib
o none
Run rsync --version to see the default compress list compiled into your version (which may differ from the list above).
Note that if you see an error about an option named --old-compress or --new-compress, this is rsync trying to send the --compress-
choice=zlib or --compress-choice=zlibx option in a backward-compatible manner that more rsync versions understand. This error indicates
that the older rsync version on the server will not allow you to force the compression type.
Note that the "zlibx" compression algorithm is just the "zlib" algorithm with matched data excluded from the compression stream (to try to
make it more compatible with an external zlib implementation).
--compress-level=NUM, --zl=NUM
Explicitly set the compression level to use (see --compress, -z) instead of letting it default. The --compress option is implied as long
as the level chosen is not a "don't compress" level for the compression algorithm that is in effect (e.g. zlib compression treats level 0
as "off").
The level values vary depending on the checksum in effect. Because rsync will negotiate a checksum choice by default (when the remote
rsync is new enough), it can be good to combine this option with a --compress-choice (--zc) option unless you're sure of the choice in efâАР
fect. For example:
rsync -aiv --zc=zstd --zl=22 host:src/ dest/
For zlib & zlibx compression the valid values are from 1 to 9 with 6 being the default. Specifying 0 turns compression off, and specifyâАР
ing -1 chooses the default of 6.
For zstd compression the valid values are from -131072 to 22 with 3 being the default. Specifying 0 chooses the default of 3.
For lz4 compression there are no levels, so the value is always 0.
If you specify a too-large or too-small value, the number is silently limited to a valid value. This allows you to specify something like
--zl=999999999 and be assured that you'll end up with the maximum compression level no matter what algorithm was chosen.
If you want to know the compression level that is in effect, specify --debug=nstr to see the "negotiated string" results. This will reâАР
port something like "Client compress: zstd (level 3)" (along with the checksum choice in effect).
--skip-compress=LIST
Override the list of file suffixes that will be compressed as little as possible. Rsync sets the compression level on a per-file basis
based on the file's suffix. If the compression algorithm has an "off" level (such as zlib/zlibx) then no compression occurs for those
files. Other algorithms that support changing the streaming level on-the-fly will have the level minimized to reduces the CPU usage as
much as possible for a matching file. At this time, only zlib & zlibx compression support this changing of levels on a per-file basis.
The LIST should be one or more file suffixes (without the dot) separated by slashes (/). You may specify an empty string to indicate that
no files should be skipped.
Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes,
such as "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules matches 2 suffixes):
--skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2
The default file suffixes in the skip-compress list in this version of rsync are:
3g2 3gp 7z aac ace apk avi bz2 deb dmg ear f4v flac flv gpg gz iso jar jpeg jpg lrz lz lz4 lzma lzo m1a m1v m2a m2ts m2v m4a m4b m4p
m4r m4v mka mkv mov mp1 mp2 mp3 mp4 mpa mpeg mpg mpv mts odb odf odg odi odm odp ods odt oga ogg ogm ogv ogx opus otg oth otp ots ott
oxt png qt rar rpm rz rzip spx squashfs sxc sxd sxg sxm sxw sz tbz tbz2 tgz tlz ts txz tzo vob war webm webp xz z zip zst
This list will be replaced by your --skip-compress list in all but one situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped sufâАР
fixes to its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a different default).
--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 determine 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 sysâАР
tem is used instead. See also the comments on the "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how the chroot setâАР
ting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the users and groups and what you can do about it.
--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING
These options allow you to specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the receiving side. The STRING is one or
more FROM:TO pairs of values separated by commas. Any matching FROM value from the sender is replaced with a TO value from the receiver.
You may specify usernames or user IDs for the FROM and TO values, and the FROM value may also be a wild-card string, which will be matched
against the sender's names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for why a '*' matches everything). You may inâАР
stead specify a range of ID numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
--usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr
The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify all your user mappings using a single --usermap option, and/or
all your group mappings using a single --groupmap option.
Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a
0, or use the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other FROM names match those in use on the sending side. All
TO names match those in use on the receiving side.
Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to
be matched via a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
--usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody
When the --numeric-ids option is used, the sender does not send any names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means
that you will need to specify numeric FROM values if you want to map these nameless IDs to different values.
For the --usermap option to have any effect, the -o (--owner) option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
as a super-user (see also the --fake-super option). For the --groupmap option to have any effect, the -g (--group) option must be used
(or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that group.
If your shell complains about the wildcards, use --protect-args (-s).
--chown=USER:GROUP
This option forces all files to be owned by USER with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using --usermap and --groupmap diâАР
rectly, but it is implemented using those options internally, so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping
for the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must
be supplied.
If you specify "--chown=foo:bar", this is exactly the same as specifying "--usermap=:foo --groupmap=:bar", only easier. If your shell
complains about the wildcards, use --protect-args (-s).
--timeout=SECONDS
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.
--contimeout=SECONDS
This option allows you to set the amount of time that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed. If the timeout is
reached, rsync exits with an error.
--address=ADDRESS
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when connecting to an rsync daemon. The --address option allows you to specify a speâАР
cific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this option in the --daemon mode section.
--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 opâАР
tion in the --daemon mode section.
--sockopts=OPTIONS
This option can provide endless fun for people who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all sorts of socket opâАР
tions which may make transfers faster (or slower!). Read the man page for the setsockopt() system call for details on some of the options
you may be able to set. By default no special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket connections to a remote rsync daeâАР
mon.
This option also exists 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.)
--outbuf=MODE
This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be None (aka Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little as a
single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
--itemize-changes, -i
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 --out-format='%i %n%L'. If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only if the receiving rsync is at
least version 2.6.7 (you can use -vv with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other verbose messages).
The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general format is like the string YXcstpoguax, where Y is replaced by
the type 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 Y 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).
o A * means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains a message (e.g. "deleting").
The file-types that replace the X are: f for a file, a d for a directory, an L for a symlink, a D for a device, and a S for a special file
(e.g. named sockets and fifos).
The other letters in the string indicate if some attributes of the file have changed, as follows:
o "." - the attribute is unchanged.
o "+" - the file is newly created.
o " " - all the attributes are unchanged (all dots turn to spaces).
o "?" - the change is unknown (when the remote rsync is old).
o A letter indicates an attribute is being updated.
The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
o A c means either that a regular file has a different checksum (requires --checksum) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
a changed value. Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this change flag will be present only for checkâАР
sum-differing regular files.
o A s means the size of a regular 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 sender's value (requires --times). An alternate value of
T means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens when a file/symlink/device is updated without
--times and when a symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time. (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see
the s flag combined with t instead of the proper T flag for this time-setting failure.)
o A p means the permissions are different and are being updated to the sender's value (requires --perms).
o An o means the owner is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires --owner and super-user privileges).
o A g means the group is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires --group and the authority to set the group).
o A u|n|b indicates the following information: u means the access (use) time is different and is being updated to the sender's value
(requires --atimes); n means the create time (newness) is different and is being updated to the sender's value (requires --crâАР
times); b means that both the access and create times are being updated.
o The a means that the ACL information is being changed.
o The x means that the extended attribute information is being changed.
One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assumâАР
ing that you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of outputting them as a verbose message).
--out-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text string containâАР
ing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if either
--info=name or -v is specified (this tells you just the name of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list of
the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
Specifying the --out-format option implies the --info=name option, which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a signifiâАР
cant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is inâАР
cluded in the string (e.g. if the --itemize-changes option was used), the logging of names increases to mention any item that is changed
in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the --itemize-changes option for a description of the output of "%i".
Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which
case the logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging is in effect and --progress is also specified, rsync
will also output the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
--log-file=FILE
This option causes rsync to log what it is doing to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be requested for
the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be enabled with a
default format of "%i %n%L". See the --log-file-format option if you wish to override this.
Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is happening:
rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/
This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing unexpectedly.
--log-file-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what per-update logging is put into the file specified by the --log-file option (which must also be
specified for this option to have any effect). If you specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file. For
a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
The default FORMAT used if --log-file is specified and this option is not is '%i %n%L'.
--stats
This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer alâАР
gorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to --info=stats2 if combined with 0 or 1 -v options, or --info=stats3 if combined
with 2 or more -v options.
The current statistics are as follows:
o Number of files is the count of all "files" (in the generic sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count
will be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero). For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, speâАР
cial: 1)" lists the totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special files. If any of value is 0, it is comâАР
pletely omitted from the list.
o Number of created files is the count of how many "files" (generic sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count
will be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
o Number of deleted files is the count of how many "files" (generic sense) were deleted. The total count will be followed by a list
of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero). Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only if proâАР
tocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
o Number of regular files transferred is the count of normal files that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does
not include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word "regular" into this heading.
o Total file size is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer. This does not count any size for directories or special files,
but does include the size of symlinks.
o Total transferred file size is the total sum of all files sizes for just the transferred files.
o Literal data is how much unmatched file-update data we had to send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
o Matched data is how much data the receiver got locally when recreating the updated files.
o File list size is how big the file-list data was when the sender sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size
for the file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the list.
o File list generation time is the number of seconds that the sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on
the sending side for this to be present.
o File list transfer time is the number of seconds that the sender spent sending the file list to the receiver.
o Total bytes sent is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent from the client side to the server side.
o Total bytes received is the count of all non-message bytes that rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-mesâАР
sage" bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the server sent to us, which makes the stats more conâАР
sistent.
--8-bit-output, -8
This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're valid in the
current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
setting.
The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\) and a hash (), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For examâАР
ple, a newline would output as "\012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3
digits (0-9).
--human-readable, -h
Output numbers in a more human-readable format. There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each set of 3
digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units
of 1000 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in units of 1024.
The default is human-readable level 1. Each -h option increases the level by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as
pure digits) by specifying the --no-human-readable (--no-h) option.
The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega), G (giga), T (tera), or P (peta). For example, a
1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus,
specifying one or two -h options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions as long as you didn't specify a --no-h option
prior to one or more -h options. See the --list-only option for one difference.
--partial
By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances it is more desirable
to keep partially transferred files. Using the --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent
transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
--partial-dir=DIR
A better way to keep partial files than the --partial option is to specify a DIR that will be used to hold the partial data (instead of
writing it out to the destination file). On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this dir as data to speed up the resumption
of the transfer and then delete it after it has served its purpose.
Note that if --whole-file is specified (or implied), any partial-dir file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be
removed (since rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
Rsync will create the DIR if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
"--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync create the partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then reâАР
move it again when the partial file is deleted. Note that the directory is only removed if it is a relative pathname, as it is expected
that an absolute path is to a directory that is reserved for partial-dir work.
If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will preâАР
vent the sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir
items on the receiving side. An example: the above --partial-dir option would add the equivalent of "-f '-p .rsync-partial/'" at the end
of any other filter rules.
If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the
auto-added rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance,
if you want to make rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you should specify --delete-after and add a "risk"
filter rule, e.g. -f 'R .rsync-partial/'. (Avoid using --delete-before or --delete-during unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users or it is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment variable. Setting this in the environment does not force --parâАР
tial to be enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when --partial is specified. For instance, instead of using --partial-
dir=.rsync-tmp along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your environment and then just use the -P option to
turn on the use of the .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the --partial option does not look for this environment
value are (1) when --inplace was specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir), and (2) when --delay-updates was specified (see
below).
When a modern rsync resumes the transfer of a file in the partial-dir, that partial file is now updated in-place instead of creating yet
another tmp-file copy (so it maxes out at dest + tmp instead of dest + partial + tmp). This requires both ends of the transfer to be at
least version 3.2.0.
For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting, --partial-dir does not imply --partial. This is so that a refusal of
the --partial option can be used to disallow the overwriting of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the safer
idiom provided by --partial-dir.
--delay-updates
This option puts the temporary file from each updated file into a holding directory until the end of the transfer, at which time all the
files are renamed into place in rapid succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more atomic. By default the
files are placed into a directory named .~tmp~ in each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the --partial-dir option,
that directory will be used instead. See the comments in the --partial-dir section for a discussion of how this .~tmp~ dir will be exâАР
cluded from the transfer, and what you can do if you want rsync to cleanup old .~tmp~ dirs that might be lying around. Conflicts with
--inplace and --append.
This option implies --no-inc-recursive since it needs the full file list in memory in order to be able to iterate over it at the end.
This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receivâАР
ing side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that you should not use an absolute path to --partial-dir unless
(1) there is no chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all the updated files will be put into a single diâАР
rectory if the path is absolute) and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the delayed updates will fail if they can't be
renamed into place).
See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses --link-dest and
a parallel hierarchy of files).
--prune-empty-dirs, -m
This option tells the receiving rsync to get rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories that have no non-
directory children. This is useful for avoiding the creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is recursively
scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter rules.
Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the --min-size option, does not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave
directories empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However,
keep in mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files
and protecting destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid this.
You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option
would ensure that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
--filter 'protect emptydir/'
Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files,
and ensures that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed (note the hide filter of non-directories being used
instead of an exclude):
rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest
If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more time-honored options of --include='/' --exclude='' would work fine
in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
--progress
This option tells rsync to print information showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user something to watch. With a
modern rsync this is the same as specifying --info=flist2,name,progress, but any user-supplied settings for those info flags takes preceâАР
dence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that looks like this:
782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64
kilobytes per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate is maintained until the end.
These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis
file followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the
transfer will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it was finishing the matched part of the file.
When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a summary line that looks like this:
1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396)
In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per secâАР
ond over the 8 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file during the current rsync session, and there are
169 more files for the receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of the 396 total files in the file-list.
In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but
since it starts to transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk" (for incremental recursion check) instead
of "to-chk" until the point that it knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-
chk" lets you know that the total count of files in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count of files
left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the list).
-P The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long transâАР
fer that may be interrupted.
There is also a --info=progress2 option that outputs statistics based on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag
without outputting a filename (e.g. avoid -v or specify --info=name0) if you want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the
screen with a lot of names. (You don't need to specify the --progress option in order to use --info=progress2.)
Finally, you can get an instant progress report by sending rsync a signal of either SIGINFO or SIGVTALRM. On BSD systems, a SIGINFO is
generated by typing a Ctrl+T (Linux doesn't currently support a SIGINFO signal). When the client-side process receives one of those sigâАР
nals, it sets a flag to output a single progress report which is output when the current file transfer finishes (so it may take a little
time if a big file is being handled when the signal arrives). A filename is output (if needed) followed by the --info=progress2 format of
progress info. If you don't know which of the 3 rsync processes is the client process, it's OK to signal all of them (since the non-
client processes ignore the signal).
CAUTION: sending SIGVTALRM to an older rsync (pre-3.2.0) will kill it.
--password-file=FILE
This option allows you to provide a password for accessing an rsync daemon via a file or via standard input if FILE is -. The file should
contain just the password on the first line (all other lines are ignored). Rsync will exit with an error if FILE is world readable or if
a root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's docuâАР
mentation. When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this option only comes into effect after the remote
shell finishes its authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's config file).
--early-input=FILE
This option allows rsync to send up to 5K of data to the "early exec" script on its stdin. One possible use of this data is to give the
script a secret that can be used to mount an encrypted filesystem (which you should unmount in the the "post-xfer exec" script).
The daemon must be at least version 3.2.1.
--list-only
This option will cause the source files to be listed instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source arg and
no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy command that includes a destination arg into a file-listing command, or
(2) to be able to specify more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination). Caution: keep in mind that a source arg
with a wild-card is expanded by the shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg without using this option.
For example:
rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/
Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by --list-only are affected by the --human-readable option. By default they will contain
digit separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size
output has increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use --no-h if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old
column width of 11 characters.
Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if
you ask for a non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the --dirs option w/o --recursive, and older rsyncs don't
have that option. To avoid this problem, either specify the --no-dirs option (if you don't need to expand a directory's content), or turn
on recursion and exclude the content of subdirectories: -r --exclude='/*/*'.
--bwlimit=RATE
This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The RATE
value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may be a fractional value (e.g. "--bwlimit=1.5m"). If no suffix is
specified, the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had been appended). See the --max-size option for a
description of all the available suffixes. A value of 0 specifies no limit.
For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second
is possible.
Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the
average transfer rate at the requested limit. Some burstiness may be seen where rsync writes out a block of data and then sleeps to bring
the average rate into compliance.
Due to the internal buffering of data, the --progress option may not be an accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This
is because some files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered, while other can show up as very slow when the
flushing of the output buffer occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
`--stop-after=MINS
This option tells rsync to stop copying when the specified number of minutes has elapsed.
Rsync also accepts an earlier version of this option: --time-limit=MINS.
For maximal flexibility, rsync does not communicate this option to the remote rsync since it is usually enough that one side of the conâАР
nection quits as specified. This allows the option's use even when only one side of the connection supports it. You can tell the remote
side about the time limit using --remote-option (-M), should the need arise.
`--stop-at=y-m-dTh:m
This option tells rsync to stop copying when the specified point in time has been reached. The date & time can be fully specified in a nuâАР
meric format of year-month-dayThour:minute (e.g. 2000-12-31T23:59) in the local timezone. You may choose to separate the date numbers usâАР
ing slashes instead of dashes.
The value can also be abbreviated in a variety of ways, such as specifying a 2-digit year and/or leaving off various values. In all
cases, the value will be taken to be the next possible point in time where the supplied information matches. If the value specifies the
current time or a past time, rsync exits with an error.
For example, "1-30" specifies the next January 30th (at midnight local time), "14:00" specifies the next 2 P.M., "1" specifies the next
1st of the month at midnight, "31" specifies the next month where we can stop on its 31st day, and ":59" specifies the next 59th minute
after the hour.
For maximal flexibility, rsync does not communicate this option to the remote rsync since it is usually enough that one side of the conâАР
nection quits as specified. This allows the option's use even when only one side of the connection supports it. You can tell the remote
side about the time limit using --remote-option (-M), should the need arise. Do keep in mind that the remote host may have a different
default timezone than your local host.
--write-batch=FILE
Record a file that can later be applied to another identical destination with --read-batch. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details, and
also the --only-write-batch option.
This option overrides the negotiated checksum & compress lists and always negotiates a choice based on old-school md5/md4/zlib choices.
If you want a more modern choice, use the --checksum-choice (--cc) and/or --compress-choice (--zc) options.
--only-write-batch=FILE
Works like --write-batch, except that no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch. This lets you transport the
changes to the destination system via some other means and then apply the changes via --read-batch.
Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the
transfer, you can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long
as you don't mind a partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is happening).
Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from
the sender into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't
write the batch).
--read-batch=FILE
Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previously generated by --write-batch. If FILE is -, the batch data will be read from
standard input. See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
--protocol=NUM
Force an older protocol version to be used. This is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older version of rsync.
For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the --write-batch option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the --read-batch opâАР
tion, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch file (assumâАР
ing you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC
Rsync can convert filenames between character sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up the default
character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
separated by a comma in the order --iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE, e.g. --iconv=utf8,iso88591. This order ensures that the option will stay the same
whether you're pushing or pulling files. Finally, you can specify either --no-iconv or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-" to turn off any conversion.
The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can run "iconv --list".
If you specify the --protect-args option (-s), rsync will translate the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to
the remote host. See also the --files-from option.
Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that
you're specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer. For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules
if there are filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
When you pass an --iconv option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration
parameter regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to specify just the local charset for a daemon
transfer (e.g. --iconv=utf8).
--ipv4, -4 or --ipv6, -6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating sockets or running ssh. This affects sockets that rsync has direct control over, such as
the outgoing socket when directly contacting an rsync daemon, as well as the forwarding of the -4 or -6 option to ssh when rsync can deâАР
duce that ssh is being used as the remote shell. For other remote shells you'll need to specify the "--rsh SHELL -4" option directly (or
whatever ipv4/ipv6 hint options it uses).
These options also exist in the --daemon mode section.
If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the --ipv6 option will have no effect. The rsync --version output will contain "no IPv6"
if is the case.
--checksum-seed=NUM
Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation (the more
modern MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current time().
This option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case
where the user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time() for checksum seed.
DAEMON OPTIONS
The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
--daemon
This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using the host::module
or rsync://host/module/ syntax.
If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal
and become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to reâАР
quests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more details.
--address=ADDRESS
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when run as a daemon with the --daemon option. The --address option allows you to
specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the --config option. See
also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
--bwlimit=RATE
This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still specify a
smaller --bwlimit value, but no larger value will be allowed. See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
--config=FILE
This specifies an alternate config file than the default. This is only relevant when --daemon is specified. The default is
/etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case the deâАР
fault is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
--dparam=OVERRIDE, -M
This option can be used to set a daemon-config parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding the parameter
at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
desire. For instance:
rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid
--no-detach
When running as a daemon, this option instructs rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This option is required when
running as a service on Cygwin, and may also be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as daemontools or AIX's System ReâАР
source Controller. --no-detach is also recommended when rsync is run under a debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from
inetd or sshd.
--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port" global option
in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
--log-file=FILE
This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config file.
--log-file-format=FORMAT
This option tells the rsync daemon to use the given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config file. It also
enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which case transfer logging is turned off.
--sockopts
This overrides the socket options setting in the rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
--verbose, -v
This option increases the amount of information the daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the daemon's verâАР
bosity level will be controlled by the options that the client used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
--ipv4, -4 or --ipv6, -6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to listen for connections. One of these
options may be required in older versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see an "address already in use" error
when nothing else is using the port, try specifying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
These options also exist in the regular rsync options section.
If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the --ipv6 option will have no effect. The rsync --version output will contain "no IPv6"
if is the case.
--help, -h
When specified after --daemon, print a short help page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
FILTER RULES
The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the filename is not skipped.
Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME]
You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE
from the MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present) must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
Here are the available rule prefixes:
exclude, '-'
specifies an exclude pattern.
include, '+'
specifies an include pattern.
merge, '.'
specifies a merge-file to read for more rules.
dir-merge, ':'
specifies a per-directory merge-file.
hide, 'H'
specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer.
show, 'S'
files that match the pattern are not hidden.
protect, 'P'
specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion.
risk, 'R'
files that match the pattern are not protected.
clear, '!'
clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg)
When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are whole-line comments that start with a '#' (filename rules that contain a
hash are unaffected).
Note that the --include & --exclude command-line options do not allow the full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
specification of include / exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
If a pattern does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option)
or "- " (for an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A --filter option, on the other hand, must always contain either a short or long
rule name at the start of the rule.
Note also that the --filter, --include, and --exclude options take one rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the --filter option, or the --include-from / --exclude-from options.
INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES
You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+", "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
can take several forms:
o if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched against the end
of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in regular expressions. Thus /foo would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a per-directory rule). An unqualified foo would match a name of "foo"
anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at
being the end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a
directory named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that
matches at the root of the transfer.
o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
o rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
o a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
o use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
o a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
o a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
o in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
This means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a pattern contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has
none. e.g. if you add a wildcard to "foo\bar" (which matches the backslash) you would need to use "foo\\bar*" to avoid the "\b" becoming
just "b".
o if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**", then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading diâАР
rectories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is matched only against the final component of the filename. (Remember
that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on down.)
o a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory (as if
"dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in version 2.6.7.
Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a), every subdir component of every path is visited left to right, with
each directory having a chance for exclusion before its content. In this way include/exclude patterns are applied recursively to the pathname of
each node in the filesystem's tree (those inside the transfer). The exclude patterns short-circuit the directory traversal stage as rsync finds
the files to send.
For instance, to include "/foo/bar/baz", the directories "/foo" and "/foo/bar" must not be excluded. Excluding one of those parent directories
prevents the examination of its content, cutting off rsync's recursion into those paths and rendering the include for "/foo/bar/baz" ineffectual
(since rsync can't match something it never sees in the cut-off section of the directory hierarchy).
The concept path exclusion is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
+ /file-is-included
- *
This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before
the "- *" rule), and perhaps use the --prune-empty-dirs option. Another solution is to add specific include rules for all the parent dirs that
need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules works fine:
+ /some/
+ /some/path/
+ /some/path/this-file-is-found
+ /file-also-included
- *
Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
o "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
o "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the transfer-root directory
o "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
o "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
o "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
o The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the --prune-
empty-dirs option)
o The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- " would include only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be exâАР
plicitly included or it would be excluded by the "")
The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
o A / specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
"-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
o A ! specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all non-diâАР
rectories.
o A C is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should follow.
o An s is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from being
transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides unless --delete-excluded was specified, in which case default rules become
sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules, which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
o An r is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from beâАР
ing deleted. See the s modifier for more info. See also the protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to specify reâАР
ceiver-side includes/excludes.
o A p indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the -C option's
default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed on the
source from being deleted on the destination.
o An x indicates that a rule affects xattr names in xattr copy/delete operations (and is thus ignored when matching file/dir names). If no
xattr-matching rules are specified, a default xattr filtering rule is used (see the --xattrs option).
MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES
You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER
RULES section above).
There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and its
rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "." rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that it
traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files
may also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
below).
Some examples:
merge /etc/rsync/default.rules
. /etc/rsync/default.rules
dir-merge .per-dir-filter
dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes
The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
o A - specifies that the file should consist of only exclude patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
o A + specifies that the file should consist of only include patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
o A C is a way to specify that the file should be read in a CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also allows the
list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
o A e will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g. "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
o An n specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
o A w specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing
wasn't also disabled).
o You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file deâАР
fault to having that modifier set (except for the ! modifier, which would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would treat the
contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes, while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their per-directory rules apply only
on the sending side. If the merge rule specifies sides to affect (via the s or r modifier or both), then the rules in the file must not
specify sides (via a modifier or a rule prefix such as hide).
Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to
override dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a
per-directory file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-
directory merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo" would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the
dir-merge filter file was found.
Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via --filter=". file":
merge /home/user/.global-filter
- *.gz
dir-merge .rules
+ *.[ch]
- .o
- foo
This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-diâАР
rectory filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches
at the root of the transfer).
If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see -F):
--filter=': /.rsync-filter'
That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all directories from the root down through the parent directory of the transfer prior
to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an rsync daemon, the
root is always the same as the module's "path".)
Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir
rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir
The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is a
part of the transfer.
If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns, you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can use this to affect where the --cvs-exclude (-C) option's inclusion of the per-directory
.cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would add the dir-
merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For example:
cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b
+ foo.o
:C
- .old
EOT
rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='.old' a/ b
Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions, the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you
should omit the -C command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE
You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear out the parent's rules).
ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS
As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a /
match.
Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the --relative option
affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination host). The
following examples demonstrate this.
Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
+/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
+/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
+/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
+/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
Target file: /dest/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/bar/baz
Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
+/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
+/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
+/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
+/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name (use the
--dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest
rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest
However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that
the receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use --delete-afâАР
ter, because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest
However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the comâАР
mand line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that
the remote .rules files exclude themselves):
rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
--delete host:src/dir /dest
In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the per-directory merge rule.
In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files to
control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
host:src/dir /dest
rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest
BATCH MODE
Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a number of
hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other hosts. In order to do
this using batch mode, rsync is run with the write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one of the destination trees.
The write-batch option causes the rsync client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat this operation against other,
identical destination trees.
Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when updating multiple
destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts at once, instead of
sending the same data to every host individually.
To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch file, and
the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree using the information stored in the batch file.
For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed
using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
Examples:
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ scp foo* remote:
$ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/ and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
"foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
o The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
o The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
o The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you
wished to make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use standard input, such as the "--exclude-from=-" option).
Caveats:
The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the batch
update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file appears
to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an error. This
means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to always
be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I option (when reading the batch). If an error occurs, the destination tree will
probably be in a partially updated state. In that case, rsync can be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the destination
tree.
The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if
the protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync to handle. See also the --protocol option for a way to have the
creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand. (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing verâАР
sions older than that with newer versions will not work.)
When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed. For instance --write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is
dropped, and the --filter / --include / --exclude options are not needed unless one of the --delete options is specified.
The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to
the shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A norâАР
mal user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way to run the appropriate --read-batch command for the batched data.
The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest version uses a new implementation.
SYMBOLIC LINKS
Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic link in the source directory.
By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message “skipping non-regular” file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
If –links is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same target on the destination. Note that –archive implies –links.
If –copy-links is specified, then symlinks are “collapsed” by copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to ensure
that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to /etc/passwd in the public section of the site. Using --copy-unsafe-links
will cause any links to be copied as the file they point to on the destination. Using --safe-links will cause unsafe links to be omitted altoâАР
gether. (Note that you must specify --links for --safe-links to have any effect.)
Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks (start with /), empty, or if they contain enough ".." components to ascend
from the directory being copied.
Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't menâАР
tioned, use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
--copy-links
Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no symlinks for any other options to affect).
--links --copy-unsafe-links
Turn all unsafe symlinks into files and duplicate all safe symlinks.
--copy-unsafe-links
Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily skip all safe symlinks.
--links --safe-links
Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe ones.
--links
Duplicate all symlinks.
DIAGNOSTICS
rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol version
mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using for
its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your remote shell like this:
ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing it. The
most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements for non-interactive
logins.
If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then try specifying the -vv option. At this level of verbosity rsync will show why each inâАР
dividual file is included or excluded.
EXIT VALUES
0 Success
1 Syntax or usage error
2 Protocol incompatibility
3 Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
4 Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support them; or an option was
specified that is supported by the client and not by the server.
5 Error starting client-server protocol
6 Daemon unable to append to log-file
10 Error in socket I/O
11 Error in file I/O
12 Error in rsync protocol data stream
13 Errors with program diagnostics
14 Error in IPC code
20 Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
21 Some error returned by waitpid()
22 Error allocating core memory buffers
23 Partial transfer due to error
24 Partial transfer due to vanished source files
25 The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
30 Timeout in data send/receive
35 Timeout waiting for daemon connection
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CVSIGNORE
The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the --cvs-exclude option for more details.
RSYNC_ICONV
Specify a default --iconv setting using this environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS
Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the --protect-args option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make sure that it is
disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
RSYNC_RSH
The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line options are
permitted after the command name, just as in the -e option.
RSYNC_PROXY
The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a rsync daemon. You
should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
RSYNC_PASSWORD
Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync daemon without user interâАР
vention. Note that this does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote
shell's documentation.
USER or LOGNAME
The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon. If neither is set, the
username defaults to "nobody".
HOME The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's default .cvsignore file.
FILES
/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
SEE ALSO
rsync-ssl(1), rsyncd.conf(5)
BUGS
times are transferred as *nix time_t values
When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync unmodified files. See the comments on the –modify-window option.
file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical values
see also the comments on the –delete option
Please report bugs! See the web site at https://rsync.samba.org/.
VERSION
This man page is current for version 3.2.3 of rsync.
INTERNAL OPTIONS
The options --server and --sender are used internally by rsync, and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some awareness
of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance, the supâАР
port directory of the rsync distribution has an example script named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted ssh login.
CREDITS
rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file COPYING for details.
A web site is available at https://rsync.samba.org/. The site includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this manual page.
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program. Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
THANKS
Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra, David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I
have.
AUTHOR
rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained by
Wayne Davison.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at https://lists.samba.org/.
rsync 3.2.3 06 Aug 2020 rsync(1)