1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Jan 2018)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences in the data. Note that the expansion of wildcards on the
107 commandline (*.c) into a list of files is handled by the shell before
108 it runs rsync and not by rsync itself (exactly the same as all other
109 posix-style programs).
111 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
113 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
114 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
115 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
116 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
117 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
118 size of data portions of the transfer.
120 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
122 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
123 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
124 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
125 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
126 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
127 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
128 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
132 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
133 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
136 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
137 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
138 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
141 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
142 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
145 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
146 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
147 an improved copy command.
149 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
150 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
152 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
154 See the following section for more details.
156 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
158 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
159 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
160 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
162 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
163 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
164 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
166 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
169 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
170 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
172 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
173 not as easy to use as the first method.
175 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
176 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
177 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
180 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
182 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
184 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
185 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
186 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
187 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
188 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
190 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
194 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
195 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
196 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
197 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
199 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
200 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
201 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
202 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
203 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option (since
204 that overrides the daemon connection to use ssh -- see USING
205 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION below).
208 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
210 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
212 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
213 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
214 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
215 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
216 may be useful when scripting rsync.
218 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
219 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
221 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
222 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
223 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
224 proxy connections to port 873.
226 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
227 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
228 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
229 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
230 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
233 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
234 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
235 rsync -av rsync://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
237 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
238 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
241 Note also that if the RSYNC_SHELL environment variable is set, that
242 program will be used to run the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG command instead of
243 using the default shell of the code(system()) call.
245 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
247 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
248 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
249 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
250 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
251 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
252 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
253 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
254 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
255 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
256 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
257 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
258 connections from "localhost".)
260 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
261 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
262 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
263 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
264 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
265 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
267 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
269 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
270 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
271 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
272 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
273 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
275 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
277 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
278 used to log-in to the "module".
280 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
282 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
283 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
284 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
285 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
286 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
287 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
288 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
290 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
291 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
293 manpagesection(SORTED TRANSFER ORDER)
295 Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list.
296 This handles the merging together of the contents of identically named
297 directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse
298 someone when the files are transferred in a different order than what was
299 given on the command-line.
301 If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either
302 separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using
303 bf(--delay-updates) (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but
304 does make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
306 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
308 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
310 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
311 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
313 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
315 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
318 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
322 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
324 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
327 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
328 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
329 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
331 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
334 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
336 This is launched from cron every few hours.
338 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
340 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
341 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
342 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
343 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
344 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
345 --msgs2stderr special output handling for debugging
346 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
347 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
348 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
349 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
350 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
351 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
352 -R, --relative use relative path names
353 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
354 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
355 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
356 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
357 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
358 --inplace update destination files in-place
359 --append append data onto shorter files
360 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
361 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
362 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
363 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
364 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
365 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
366 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
367 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
368 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
369 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
370 -p, --perms preserve permissions
371 -E, --executability preserve executability
372 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
373 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
374 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
375 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
376 -g, --group preserve group
377 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
378 --specials preserve special files
379 -D same as --devices --specials
380 -t, --times preserve modification times
381 -U, --atimes preserve access (use) times
382 --set-noatime avoid changing the atime on accessed files
383 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
384 -J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
385 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
386 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
387 -S, --sparse turn sequences of nulls into sparse blocks
388 --preallocate allocate dest files before writing
389 --write-devices write to devices as files (implies --inplace)
390 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
391 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
392 --checksum-choice=STR choose the checksum algorithms
393 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
394 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
395 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
396 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
397 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
398 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
399 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
400 --del an alias for --delete-during
401 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
402 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
403 --delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
404 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
405 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
406 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
407 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
408 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
409 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
410 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
411 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
412 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
413 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
414 --partial keep partially transferred files
415 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
416 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
417 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
418 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
419 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
420 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
421 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
422 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
423 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
424 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
425 --size-only skip files that match in size
426 -@, --modify-window=NUM set the accuracy for mod-time comparisons
427 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
428 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
429 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
430 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
431 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
432 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
433 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
434 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
435 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
436 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
437 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
438 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
439 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
440 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
441 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
442 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
443 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
444 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
445 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
446 --copy-as=USER[:GROUP] specify user & optional group for the copy
447 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
448 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
449 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
450 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
451 --outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
452 --stats give some file-transfer stats
453 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
454 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
455 --progress show progress during transfer
456 -P same as --partial --progress
457 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
458 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
459 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
460 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
461 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
462 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
463 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
464 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
465 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
466 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
467 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
468 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
469 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
470 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
471 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
472 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
473 --version print version number
474 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
476 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
478 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
479 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
480 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
481 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
482 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
483 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
484 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
485 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
486 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
487 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
488 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
489 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
490 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
491 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
495 Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter)
496 options. The full list of the available options are described below. If an
497 option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated.
498 Some options only have a long variant, not a short. If the option takes a
499 parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it
500 must also be specified for the short. When specifying a parameter, you can
501 either use the form --option=param or replace the '=' with whitespace. The
502 parameter may need to be quoted in some manner for it to survive the shell's
503 command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (~) in a filename is
504 substituted by your shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into
505 your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
509 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
510 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
511 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
512 option without any other args.
514 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
516 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
517 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
518 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
519 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
520 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
521 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
522 you are debugging rsync.
524 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
525 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
526 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
527 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
528 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
529 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
531 However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "max verbosity" setting will limit how
532 high of a level the various individual flags can be set on the daemon side.
533 For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that is set to
534 a higher value than what would be set by bf(-vv) will be downgraded to the
535 bf(-vv) level in the daemon's logging.
537 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
538 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
540 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
541 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
542 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
543 that support higher levels). Use
545 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
546 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
548 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
549 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
551 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
552 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
553 information on what is output and when.
555 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
556 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
557 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
558 See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
560 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
561 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug
562 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
563 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
564 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
565 that support higher levels). Use
567 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
568 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
570 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
571 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
573 Note that some debug messages will only be output when bf(--msgs2stderr) is
574 specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
576 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
577 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
578 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
579 See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
581 dit(bf(--msgs2stderr)) This option changes rsync to send all its output
582 directly to stderr rather than to send messages to the client side via the
583 protocol (which normally outputs info messages via stdout). This is mainly
584 intended for debugging in order to avoid changing the data sent via the
585 protocol, since the extra protocol data can change what is being tested.
586 The option does not affect the remote side of a transfer without using
587 bf(--remote-option) -- e.g. bf(-M--msgs2stderr).
588 Also keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
589 messages back to the client side, so if you are doing any daemon-transfer
590 debugging using this option, you should start up a daemon using bf(--no-detach)
591 so that you can see the stderr output on the daemon side.
593 This option has the side-effect of making stderr output get line-buffered so
594 that the merging of the output of 3 programs happens in a more readable manner.
596 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
597 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
598 from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
601 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
602 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
603 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
604 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
605 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
606 request the list of modules from the daemon.
608 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
609 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
610 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
613 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
614 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
615 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
616 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
617 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
618 not preserve timestamps exactly.
620 dit(bf(-@, --modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
621 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
622 value. The default is 0, which matches just integer seconds. If you specify a
623 negative value (and the receiver is at least version 3.1.3) then nanoseconds
624 will also be taken into account. Specifying 1 is useful for copies to/from MS
625 Windows FAT filesystems, because FAT represents times with a 2-second
626 resolution (allowing times to differ from the original by up to 1 second).
628 If you want all your transfers to default to comparing nanoseconds, you can
629 create a ~/.popt file and put these lines in it:
631 verb( rsync alias -a -a@-1)
632 verb( rsync alias -t -t@-1)
634 With that as the default, you'd need to specify bf(--modify-window=0) (aka
635 bf(-@0)) to override it and ignore nanoseconds, e.g. if you're copying between
636 ext3 and ext4, or if the receiving rsync is older than 3.1.3.
638 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
639 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
640 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
641 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
642 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
643 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
644 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
645 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
646 so this can slow things down significantly.
648 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
649 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
650 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
651 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
652 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
654 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
655 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
656 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
657 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
658 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
660 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
661 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
663 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
664 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
665 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
666 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
667 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
669 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
670 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
673 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
674 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
675 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
676 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
677 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
678 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
679 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
681 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
682 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
683 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
685 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
686 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
687 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
688 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
689 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
692 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
693 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
695 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
696 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
697 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
698 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
699 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
700 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
702 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
703 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
704 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
705 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
706 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
707 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
708 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
709 than using bf(--delete-after).
711 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
712 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
714 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
715 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
716 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
717 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
718 example, if you used this command:
720 verb( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
722 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
723 machine. If instead you used
725 verb( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
727 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
728 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
729 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
732 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
733 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
734 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
735 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
736 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
737 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
738 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
739 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
741 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
742 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
743 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
744 the source path, like this:
746 verb( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/)
748 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
749 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
750 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
751 source path. For example, when pushing files:
753 verb( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) )
755 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
756 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
757 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
758 for a non-daemon transfer):
760 verb( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )
761 verb( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
763 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
764 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
765 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
766 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
767 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
768 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
769 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
772 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
773 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
774 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
775 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
776 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
777 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
778 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
779 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
780 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
781 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
783 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
784 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
785 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
787 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
788 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
789 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
790 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
792 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
793 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be forced on, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
794 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
795 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
796 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
797 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
798 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
799 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
800 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
801 rule would never be reached).
803 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
804 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
805 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
806 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
807 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
808 will keep their original filenames).
810 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
811 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
812 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
813 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
814 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
816 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
817 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
818 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
820 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
821 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
822 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
823 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
825 Note that this does not affect the copying of dirs, symlinks, or other special
826 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
827 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
828 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
829 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
832 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
833 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
834 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
836 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
837 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
838 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
839 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
841 This has several effects:
844 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
845 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
846 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
847 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
848 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
849 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
851 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
852 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
854 it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
855 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
856 the open of the file for writing to be successful.
857 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
858 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
859 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
860 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
864 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
865 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
867 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
868 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
869 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
870 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
872 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
873 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
874 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
877 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
878 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
879 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
880 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
881 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
882 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
883 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
884 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
885 Implies bf(--inplace).
887 The use of bf(--append) can be dangerous if you aren't 100% sure that the files
888 that are longer have only grown by the appending of data onto the end. You
889 should thus use include/exclude/filter rules to ensure that such a transfer is
890 only affecting files that you know to be growing via appended data.
892 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
893 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
894 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
895 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
896 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend). It otherwise has the exact same
897 caveats for files that have not grown larger, so don't use this for a
900 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
901 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
902 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
903 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
905 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
906 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
907 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
908 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
909 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
910 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
911 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
913 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
914 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
915 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
916 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
917 if you want to turn this off.
919 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
920 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
921 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
926 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
927 symlink on the destination.
929 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
930 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
931 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
932 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
933 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
934 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
935 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
936 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
938 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
939 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
940 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
941 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
942 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
944 Note that the cut-off point is the top of the transfer, which is the part of
945 the path that rsync isn't mentioning in the verbose output. If you copy
946 "/src/subdir" to "/dest/" then the "subdir" directory is a name inside the
947 transfer tree, not the top of the transfer (which is /src) so it is legal for
948 created relative symlinks to refer to other names inside the /src and /dest
949 directories. If you instead copy "/src/subdir/" (with a trailing slash) to
950 "/dest/subdir" that would not allow symlinks to any files outside of "subdir".
952 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
953 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
954 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
955 give unexpected results.
957 dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
958 the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
959 below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
960 a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
961 to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
963 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
964 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
965 that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
966 to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
968 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
969 affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
970 transfer, the client side is the sender.)
972 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
973 wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
974 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
976 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
977 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
978 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
979 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
981 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
982 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
983 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
984 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
986 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
989 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
990 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
991 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
992 to make the paths match up right. For example:
994 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
996 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
997 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
998 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
1003 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
1004 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
1005 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
1006 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
1008 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
1009 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
1010 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
1011 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
1012 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
1015 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
1016 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
1017 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
1018 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
1019 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
1020 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
1021 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
1023 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
1025 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
1026 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
1027 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
1028 as though they were separate files.
1030 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
1031 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
1032 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
1035 it() If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than
1036 what is present in the source file list), the copying algorithm will not
1037 break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
1038 differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
1039 (unless you are using the bf(--inplace) option).
1040 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
1041 the linking of the destination files against the bf(--link-dest) files can
1042 cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
1043 bf(--link-dest) associations.
1046 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
1047 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
1048 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
1049 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
1050 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
1051 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
1052 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
1054 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
1055 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
1056 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
1057 the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency
1058 (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could
1059 have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked
1060 set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable
1061 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
1063 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
1064 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
1065 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
1066 be the source permissions.)
1068 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
1071 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
1072 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
1073 the execute permission for the file.
1074 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
1075 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
1076 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
1077 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
1078 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
1079 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
1082 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
1083 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
1084 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
1086 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
1087 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
1088 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
1089 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
1090 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
1091 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
1092 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
1093 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
1095 verb( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX)
1097 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1099 verb( rsync -avZ src/ dest/)
1101 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1102 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1104 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1105 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1106 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1107 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1108 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1109 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1110 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1111 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1114 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1115 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1116 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1117 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1118 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1119 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1122 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1124 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1125 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1128 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1130 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1131 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1132 The option also implies bf(--perms).
1134 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1135 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1136 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1138 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1139 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1141 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1142 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1143 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1144 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1146 The above name filtering can be overridden by using one or more filter options
1147 with the bf(x) modifier. When you specify an xattr-affecting filter rule, rsync
1148 requires that you do your own system/user filtering, as well as any additional
1149 filtering for what xattr names are copied and what names are allowed to be
1150 deleted. For example, to skip the system namespace, you could specify:
1152 quote(--filter='-x system.*')
1154 To skip all namespaces except the user namespace, you could specify a
1157 quote(--filter='-x! user.*')
1159 To prevent any attributes from being deleted, you could specify a receiver-only
1160 rule that excludes all names:
1162 quote(--filter='-xr *')
1164 Note that the bf(-X) option does not copy rsync's special xattr values (e.g.
1165 those used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX).
1166 This "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1168 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1169 comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
1170 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1171 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1172 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1174 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1175 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1176 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1177 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1178 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1179 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1180 consistent executability across all bits:
1182 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1184 Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1186 quote(--chmod=D2775,F664)
1188 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1189 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1191 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1192 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1194 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1195 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1196 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1197 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1198 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1199 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1201 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1202 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1203 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1205 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1206 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1207 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1208 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1209 is a member of will be preserved.
1210 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1211 user on the receiving side.
1213 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1214 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1215 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1217 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1218 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1219 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1220 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1222 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1223 such as named sockets and fifos.
1225 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1227 dit(bf(--write-devices)) This tells rsync to treat a device on the receiving
1228 side as a regular file, allowing the writing of file data into a device.
1230 This option implies the bf(--inplace) option.
1232 Be careful using this, as you should know what devices are present on the
1233 receiving side of the transfer, especially if running rsync as root.
1235 This option is refused by an rsync daemon.
1237 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1238 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1239 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1240 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1241 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1242 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1243 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1245 dit(bf(-U, --atimes)) This tells rsync to set the access (use) times of the
1246 destination files to the same value as the source files.
1248 If repeated, it also sets the bf(--set-noatime) option, which can help you
1249 to make the sending and receiving systems have the same access times on the
1250 transferred files without needing to run rsync an extra time after a file is
1253 Note that some older rsync versions (prior to 3.1.4) may have been built with
1254 a pre-release bf(--atimes) patch that does not imply bf(--set-noatime) when
1255 this option is repeated.
1257 dit(bf(--set-noatime)) This tells rsync to open files with the O_NOATIME
1258 flag (on systems that support it) to avoid changing the access time of the
1259 files that are being transferred. If your OS does not support the O_NOATIME
1260 flag then rsync will silently ignore this option. Note also that some
1261 filesystems are mounted to avoid updating the atime on read access even
1262 without the O_NOATIME flag being set.
1264 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1265 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1266 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1267 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1269 This option also has the side-effect of avoiding early creation of directories
1270 in incremental recursion copies. The default bf(--inc-recursive) copying
1271 normally does an early-create pass of all the sub-directories in a parent
1272 directory in order for it to be able to then set the modify time of the parent
1273 directory right away (without having to delay that until a bunch of recursive
1274 copying has finished). This early-create idiom is not necessary if directory
1275 modify times are not being preserved, so it is skipped. Since early-create
1276 directories don't have accurate mode, mtime, or ownership, the use of this
1277 option can help when someone wants to avoid these partially-finished
1280 dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
1281 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
1283 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1284 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1285 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1286 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1287 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1288 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1289 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1290 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1291 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1293 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1294 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1295 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1296 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1297 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1298 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1299 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1300 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1301 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1302 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1303 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1305 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1306 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1308 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1309 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1310 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1312 verb( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/)
1314 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1315 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1316 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1317 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1320 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1322 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1324 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1325 up less space on the destination. If combined with bf(--inplace) the
1326 file created might not end up with sparse blocks with some combinations
1327 of kernel version and/or filesystem type. If bf(--whole-file) is in
1328 effect (e.g. for a local copy) then it will always work because rsync
1329 truncates the file prior to writing out the updated version.
1331 Note that versions of rsync older than 3.1.3 will reject the combination of
1332 bf(--sparse) and bf(--inplace).
1334 dit(bf(--preallocate)) This tells the receiver to allocate each destination
1335 file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only
1336 use the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
1337 bf(fallocate)(2) system call or Cygwin's bf(posix_fallocate)(3), not the slow
1338 glibc implementation that writes a null byte into each block.
1340 Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
1341 filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If the
1342 destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS,
1343 etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
1345 If combined with bf(--sparse), the file will only have sparse blocks (as
1346 opposed to allocated sequences of null bytes) if the kernel version and
1347 filesystem type support creating holes in the allocated data.
1349 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1350 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1351 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1352 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1353 to do before one actually runs it.
1355 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1356 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1357 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1358 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1359 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1360 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1361 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1362 where no file transfers were needed.
1364 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) This option disables rsync's delta-transfer algorithm,
1365 which causes all transferred files to be sent whole. The transfer may be
1366 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1367 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1368 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1369 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1370 batch-writing option is in effect.
1372 dit(bf(--checksum-choice=STR)) This option overrides the checksum algorithms.
1373 If one algorithm name is specified, it is used for both the transfer checksums
1374 and (assuming bf(--checksum) is specified) the pre-transfer checksumming. If two
1375 comma-separated names are supplied, the first name affects the transfer
1376 checksums, and the second name affects the pre-transfer checksumming.
1378 The algorithm choices are "auto", "md4", "md5", and "none". If "none" is
1379 specified for the first name, the bf(--whole-file) option is forced on and no
1380 checksum verification is performed on the transferred data. If "none" is
1381 specified for the second name, the bf(--checksum) option cannot be used. The
1382 "auto" option is the default, where rsync bases its algorithm choice on the
1383 protocol version (for backward compatibility with older rsync versions).
1385 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1386 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1387 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1388 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1389 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1390 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1393 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1394 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1395 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1396 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1398 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1399 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1400 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1406 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1407 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1408 yet on the destination. If this option is
1409 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1410 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1412 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1413 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1414 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1416 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1417 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1418 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1420 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1421 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1422 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1424 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1425 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1426 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1427 used properly), using bf(--ignore-existing) will ensure that the
1428 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1429 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1430 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1432 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1433 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1434 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1436 Note that you should only use this option on source files that are quiescent.
1437 If you are using this to move files that show up in a particular directory over
1438 to another host, make sure that the finished files get renamed into the source
1439 directory, not directly written into it, so that rsync can't possibly transfer
1440 a file that is not yet fully written. If you can't first write the files into
1441 a different directory, you should use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid
1442 transferring files that are not yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new" when
1443 it is written, rename it to "foo" when it is done, and then use the option
1444 bf(--exclude='*.new') for the rsync transfer).
1446 Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an
1447 error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unchanged.
1449 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1450 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1451 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1452 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1453 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1454 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1455 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1456 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1457 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1458 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1460 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1461 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1462 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1464 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1465 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1466 going to be deleted.
1468 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1469 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1470 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1471 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1472 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1474 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1475 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1476 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1477 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1478 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1479 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1481 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1482 side be done before the transfer starts.
1483 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1485 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1486 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1487 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1488 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1489 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1490 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1491 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1493 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1494 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1495 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1496 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1497 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1498 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1499 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1501 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1502 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1503 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1504 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1505 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1506 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1507 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1508 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1509 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1510 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1511 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1513 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1515 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1516 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1517 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1518 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1519 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1520 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1521 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1522 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1524 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1525 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1526 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1527 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1528 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1529 bf(--delete-excluded).
1530 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1532 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1533 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1534 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1535 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1536 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1537 present and later is no longer there.
1539 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1540 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1541 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1542 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1543 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1544 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1546 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1547 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1549 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1550 even when there are I/O errors.
1552 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1553 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1554 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1556 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1557 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1558 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1560 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1561 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, all further deletions are
1562 skipped through the end of the transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning
1563 (including a count of the skipped deletions) and exits with an error code
1564 of 25 (unless some more important error condition also occurred).
1566 Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1567 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1568 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1569 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1570 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1571 really old versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1573 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1574 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1575 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1576 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1578 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1579 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1580 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1582 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1583 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1584 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1585 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1586 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1587 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1588 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1590 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1593 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--max-size=0).
1595 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1596 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1597 transferring small, junk files.
1598 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1600 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--min-size=0).
1602 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1603 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1604 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1606 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1607 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1608 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1609 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1611 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1612 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1613 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1614 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1615 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1616 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1618 Beginning with rsync 3.1.4, the RSYNC_PORT environment variable will be
1619 set when a daemon connection is being made via a remote-shell
1620 connection. It is set to 0 if the default daemon port is being assumed,
1621 or it is set to the value of the rsync port that was specified via
1622 either the bf(--port) option or a non-empty port value in an rsync://
1623 URL. This allows the script to discern if a non-default port is being
1624 requested, allowing for things such as an SSL or stunnel helper script
1625 to connect to a default or alternate port.
1627 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1628 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1629 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1630 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1631 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1632 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1633 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1634 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1636 verb( -e 'ssh -p 2234')
1637 verb( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')
1639 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1640 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1642 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1643 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1645 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1647 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1648 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1649 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1650 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1651 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1652 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1655 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1656 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1658 verb( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/)
1660 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1661 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1662 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1663 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1665 verb( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/)
1667 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1668 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1671 verb( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/)
1673 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1674 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1675 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1677 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1678 want to pass. This makes your usage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1679 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1680 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1682 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1683 "remote" side is the receiver.
1685 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1686 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1687 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo)). If this bug affects your
1688 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1690 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1691 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1692 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1693 a file should be ignored.
1695 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1696 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1698 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1699 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1700 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/)))
1702 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1703 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1704 are delimited by whitespace).
1706 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1707 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1708 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1709 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1711 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1712 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1713 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1714 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1715 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1716 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1717 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1718 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1719 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1720 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1723 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1724 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1725 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1727 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1728 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1729 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1730 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1731 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1733 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1735 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1736 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1738 verb( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter')
1740 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1741 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1742 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1745 verb( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter')
1747 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1749 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1752 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1753 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1754 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1756 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1758 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1759 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1760 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1761 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1763 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1764 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1765 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1767 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1769 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1770 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1771 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1772 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1774 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1775 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1776 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1777 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1780 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1781 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1782 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1783 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1784 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1785 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1786 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1787 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1788 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1789 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1790 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1791 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1794 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1795 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1796 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1799 verb( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup)
1801 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1802 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1803 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1804 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1805 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1806 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1807 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1808 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1810 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1811 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1812 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1814 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1815 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1816 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1817 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1818 transfer". For example:
1820 verb( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy)
1822 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1823 was located on the remote "src" host.
1825 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1826 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1827 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1828 receiving host's charset.
1830 NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be
1831 more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared
1832 between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements
1833 (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
1834 eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
1839 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1840 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1841 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1842 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1843 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1844 file are split on whitespace).
1846 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1847 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1848 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1849 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1850 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1852 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1853 side will also be translated
1854 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1855 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1857 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1858 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1859 by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1860 overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1861 (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1862 Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1863 disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1866 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1867 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1868 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1869 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1871 dit(bf(--copy-as=USER[:GROUP])) This option instructs rsync to use the USER and
1872 (if specified after a colon) the GROUP for the copy operations. This only works
1873 if the user that is running rsync has the ability to change users. If the group
1874 is not specified then the user's default groups are used.
1876 The option only affects one side of the transfer unless the transfer is local,
1877 in which case it affects both sides. Use the bf(--remote-option) to affect the
1878 remote side, such as bf(-M--copy-as=joe). For a local transfer, see the "lsh"
1879 support file provides a local-shell helper script that can be used to allow a
1880 "localhost:" host-spec to be specified without needing to setup any remote
1881 shells (allowing you to specify remote options that affect the side of the
1882 transfer that is using the host-spec, and local options for the other side).
1884 This option can help to reduce the risk of an rsync being run as root into or
1885 out of a directory that might have live changes happening to it and you want to
1886 make sure that root-level read or write actions of system files are not
1887 possible. While you could alternatively run all of rsync as the specified user,
1888 sometimes you need the root-level host-access credentials to be used, so this
1889 allows rsync to drop root for the copying part of the operation after the
1890 remote-shell or daemon connection is established.
1892 For example, the following rsync writes the local files as user "joe":
1894 verb( sudo rsync -aiv --copy-as=joe host1:backups/joe/ /home/joe/)
1896 This makes all files owned by user "joe", limits the groups to those that are
1897 available to that user, and makes it impossible for the joe user to do a timed
1898 exploit of the path to induce a change to a file that the joe use has no
1899 permissions to change.
1901 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1902 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1903 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1904 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1905 Beginning with rsync 3.1.1, the temp-file names inside the specified DIR will
1906 not be prefixed with an extra dot (though they will still have a random suffix
1909 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1910 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1911 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1912 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1913 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1914 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1915 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1916 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1917 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1918 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1919 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1920 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1921 new version on the disk at the same time.
1923 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1924 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1925 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1926 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1927 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1928 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1929 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1930 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1931 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1932 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1933 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1934 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1936 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1937 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1938 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1939 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1940 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1942 If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching
1943 alternate destination directories that are specified via bf(--compare-dest),
1944 bf(--copy-dest), or bf(--link-dest).
1946 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1947 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1948 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1950 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1951 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1952 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1953 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1954 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1955 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1956 have changed from an earlier backup.
1957 This option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created)
1960 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1961 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1963 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1964 and the attributes updated.
1965 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1966 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1968 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1969 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1971 NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a non-empty
1972 destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of the compare-dest
1973 hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh copy).
1975 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1976 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1977 directory using a local copy.
1978 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1979 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1980 been successfully transferred.
1982 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1983 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1984 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1985 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1987 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1988 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1990 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1991 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1992 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1993 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1996 verb( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/)
1998 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1999 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
2000 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
2001 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
2003 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
2004 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
2005 for an exact match (there is a limit of 20 such directories).
2006 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
2007 and the attributes updated.
2008 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
2009 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
2011 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
2012 existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can affect alternate
2013 destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can get a bit
2014 muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0, an alternate-directory exact match
2015 would never be found (nor linked into the destination) when a destination file
2018 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
2019 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
2020 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
2023 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
2024 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
2026 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
2027 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
2028 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
2029 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
2031 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
2032 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
2033 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
2035 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
2036 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
2037 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
2038 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection. This matching-data
2039 compression comes at a cost of CPU, though, and can be disabled by repeating
2040 the bf(-z) option, but only if both sides are at least version 3.1.1.
2042 Note that if your version of rsync was compiled with an external zlib (instead
2043 of the zlib that comes packaged with rsync) then it will not support the
2044 old-style compression, only the new-style (repeated-option) compression. In
2045 the future this new-style compression will likely become the default.
2047 The client rsync requests new-style compression on the server via the
2048 bf(--new-compress) option, so if you see that option rejected it means that
2049 the server is not new enough to support bf(-zz). Rsync also accepts the
2050 bf(--old-compress) option for a future time when new-style compression
2051 becomes the default.
2053 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
2054 that will not be compressed.
2056 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
2057 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
2058 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
2060 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
2061 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
2062 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
2064 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
2066 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
2067 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
2068 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
2070 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
2072 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
2073 matches 2 suffixes):
2075 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
2077 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
2109 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
2110 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
2111 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
2114 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
2115 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
2118 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
2119 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
2120 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
2121 option is not specified.
2123 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
2124 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
2125 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
2126 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
2127 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
2128 users and groups and what you can do about it.
2130 dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
2131 specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
2132 receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
2133 values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
2134 replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
2135 or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
2136 also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
2137 names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
2138 why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
2139 numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
2141 verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
2143 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
2144 all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
2145 your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
2147 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
2148 to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
2149 the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
2150 bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
2151 match those in use on the receiving side.
2153 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
2154 empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
2155 a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
2157 verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
2159 When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
2160 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
2161 you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
2162 nameless IDs to different values.
2164 For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
2165 option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
2166 as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
2167 option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
2168 (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
2171 dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
2172 with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
2173 bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
2174 so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
2175 the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
2176 be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
2178 If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
2179 "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
2181 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
2182 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
2183 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
2185 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
2186 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
2187 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
2189 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2190 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
2191 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
2192 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2194 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
2195 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
2196 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
2197 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
2198 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2200 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
2201 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
2202 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
2203 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
2204 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
2205 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
2206 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
2207 bf(--daemon) mode section.
2209 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
2210 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
2211 rsync defaults to using
2212 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
2213 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
2215 dit(bf(--outbuf=MODE)) This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be
2216 None (aka Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little
2217 as a single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
2219 The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering
2220 when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
2222 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
2223 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
2224 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
2225 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
2226 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
2227 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
2230 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
2231 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
2232 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
2233 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
2236 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
2239 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
2241 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
2243 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
2244 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
2245 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
2247 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
2248 have attributes that are being modified).
2249 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
2250 a message (e.g. "deleting").
2253 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
2254 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
2255 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
2257 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
2258 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
2259 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
2260 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
2261 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
2262 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
2264 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
2267 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
2268 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
2270 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
2271 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
2272 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
2273 by the file transfer.
2274 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
2275 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
2276 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
2277 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
2278 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
2279 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
2280 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
2281 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
2282 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
2283 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
2284 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
2285 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
2286 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
2287 it() A bf(u) means the access (use) time is different and is being updated to
2288 the sender's value (requires bf(--atimes)). An alternate value of bf(U)
2289 means that the access time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
2290 when a symlink or directory is updated.
2291 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
2292 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
2295 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
2296 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
2297 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2298 outputting them as a verbose message).
2300 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2301 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2302 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2303 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2304 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2305 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2306 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2307 rsyncd.conf manpage.
2309 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2310 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2311 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2312 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2313 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2314 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2315 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2316 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2318 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2319 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2320 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2321 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2322 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2323 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2325 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2326 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2327 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2328 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2329 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2330 option if you wish to override this.
2332 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2335 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2337 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2340 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2341 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2342 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2343 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2344 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2345 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2347 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2350 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2351 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2352 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2353 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2354 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2356 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2357 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2358 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2359 be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2360 For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2361 totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2362 files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2363 it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2364 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2365 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2366 it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2367 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2368 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2369 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2370 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2371 it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2372 that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2373 include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2374 "regular" into this heading.
2375 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2376 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2377 include the size of symlinks.
2378 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2379 for just the transferred files.
2380 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2381 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2382 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2383 recreating the updated files.
2384 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2385 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2386 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2388 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2389 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2390 sending side for this to be present.
2391 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2392 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2393 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2394 from the client side to the server side.
2395 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2396 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2397 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2398 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2401 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2402 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2403 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2404 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2407 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2408 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2409 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2410 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2415 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2416 There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2417 set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2418 is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2419 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2422 The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2423 by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2424 specifying the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2426 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2427 G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2428 in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2430 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2431 human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2432 two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2433 as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2434 options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2436 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2437 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2438 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2439 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2440 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2442 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2443 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2444 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2445 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2446 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2447 after it has served its purpose.
2449 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2450 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2452 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2454 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2455 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2456 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2457 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2458 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2460 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2461 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2462 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2463 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2464 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2465 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2468 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2469 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2470 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2471 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2472 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2473 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2474 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2475 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2476 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2478 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2479 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2481 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2482 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2483 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2484 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2485 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2486 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2487 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2488 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2489 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2490 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2492 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2493 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2494 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2495 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2496 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2498 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2499 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2500 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2501 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2502 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2503 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2504 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2505 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2506 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2507 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2508 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2510 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2511 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2512 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2513 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2515 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2516 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2518 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2519 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2521 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2522 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2523 parallel hierarchy of files).
2525 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2526 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2527 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2528 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2529 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2532 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2533 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2534 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2536 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2537 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2538 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2539 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2540 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2543 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2544 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2545 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2547 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2549 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2550 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2551 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2552 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2554 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2556 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2557 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2558 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2560 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2561 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2563 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2564 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2565 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2567 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2570 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2572 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2573 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2574 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2575 is maintained until the end.
2577 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2578 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2579 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2580 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2581 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2582 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2584 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2585 summary line that looks like this:
2587 verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2589 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2590 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2591 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2592 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2593 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2594 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2596 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2597 in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2598 transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2599 (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2600 knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2601 "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2602 in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2603 of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2606 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2607 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2608 transfer that may be interrupted.
2610 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2611 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2612 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0)) if you
2613 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2614 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2615 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2617 Finally, you can get an instant progress report by sending rsync a signal of
2618 either SIGINFO or SIGVTALRM On BSD systems a SIGINFO is often generated just by
2619 typing a Ctrl+T (Linux doesn't currently support a SIGINFO signal). When the
2620 client-side process receives one of those signals, it will output a single
2621 progress report when the current file being transferred finishes (so it may
2622 take a little time if a big file is being handled when the signal arrives).
2623 A filename is output (if needed) followed by the --info=progress2 format of
2624 progress info. You can send the SIGVTALRM signal to all of the rsync processes
2625 but just the client-side process will respond. Be careful not to send that
2626 signal to an older rsync, though, or it will die.
2628 dit(bf(--password-file=FILE)) This option allows you to provide a password for
2629 accessing an rsync daemon via a file or via standard input if bf(FILE) is
2630 bf(-). The file should contain just the password on the first line (all other
2631 lines are ignored). Rsync will exit with an error if bf(FILE) is world
2632 readable or if a root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
2634 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2635 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2636 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2637 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2638 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2641 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2642 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2643 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2644 command that includes a
2645 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2646 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2647 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2648 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2649 without using this option. For example:
2651 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2653 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2654 by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2655 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2656 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2657 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2658 bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2661 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2662 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2663 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2664 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2665 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2666 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2667 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2669 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2670 rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2671 RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2672 be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2673 the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2674 been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2675 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2677 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2678 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2680 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2681 size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2682 rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2683 out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2685 Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2686 accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2687 files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2688 while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2689 occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2691 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2692 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2693 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2695 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2696 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2697 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2698 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2700 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2701 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2702 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2703 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2704 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2707 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2708 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2709 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2710 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2712 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2713 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2714 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2715 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2720 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2721 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2722 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2723 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2724 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2725 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2726 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2728 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2729 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2730 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2731 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2732 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2733 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2734 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2735 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2736 to turn off any conversion.
2737 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2738 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2740 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2743 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2744 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2745 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2747 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2748 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2749 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2750 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2751 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2753 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2754 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2755 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2756 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2758 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2759 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2760 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2761 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2763 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2764 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2767 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4
2768 byte checksum seed is included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation
2769 (the more modern MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum
2770 seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This
2771 option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2772 applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case where the
2773 user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use
2774 the default of code(time()) for checksum seed.
2778 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2780 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2784 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2785 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2786 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2788 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2789 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2790 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2791 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2792 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2795 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2796 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2797 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2798 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2799 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2801 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2802 rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2803 specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2804 See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2806 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2807 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2808 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2809 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2810 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2812 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2813 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2814 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2815 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2816 desire. For instance:
2818 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2820 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2821 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2822 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2823 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2824 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2825 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2826 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2829 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2830 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2831 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2833 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2834 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2837 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2838 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2839 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2840 case transfer logging is turned off.
2842 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2843 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2845 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2846 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2847 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2848 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2850 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2851 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2852 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2853 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2854 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2855 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2857 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2858 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2861 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2862 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2866 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2868 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2869 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2870 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2871 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2873 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2874 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2875 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2876 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2877 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2878 filename is not skipped.
2880 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2881 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2884 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2885 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2888 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2889 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2890 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2891 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2892 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2895 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2896 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2897 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2898 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2899 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2900 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2901 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2902 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2903 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2906 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2907 comment lines that start with a "#".
2909 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2910 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2911 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2912 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2914 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2915 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2916 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2917 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2920 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2921 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2922 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2923 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2925 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2927 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2928 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2929 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2930 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2931 can take several forms:
2934 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2935 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2936 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2937 regular expressions.
2938 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2939 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2940 per-directory rule).
2941 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2942 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2943 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2944 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2945 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2946 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2947 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2949 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2950 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2951 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2952 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2953 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2954 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2955 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2956 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2957 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2958 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2959 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2960 This means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a
2961 pattern contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has none.
2962 e.g. if you add a wildcard to "foo\bar" (which matches the backslash) you
2963 would need to use "foo\\bar*" to avoid the "\b" becoming just "b".
2964 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2965 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2966 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2967 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2968 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2969 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2971 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2972 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2973 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2977 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2978 bf(-a)), every subdir component of every path is visited left to right, with
2979 each directory having a chance for exclusion before its content. In this way
2980 include/exclude patterns are applied recursively to the pathname of each node
2981 in the filesystem's tree (those inside the transfer). The exclude patterns
2982 short-circuit the directory traversal stage as rsync finds the files to send.
2984 For instance, to include "/foo/bar/baz", the directories "/foo" and "/foo/bar"
2985 must not be excluded. Excluding one of those parent directories prevents the
2986 examination of its content, cutting off rsync's recursion into those paths and
2987 rendering the include for "/foo/bar/baz" ineffectual (since rsync can't match
2988 something it never sees in the cut-off section of the directory hierarchy).
2990 The concept path exclusion is particularly important when using a trailing '*'
2991 rule. For instance, this won't work:
2994 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2995 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2999 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
3000 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
3001 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
3002 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
3003 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
3004 solution is to add specific include rules for all
3005 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
3010 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
3011 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
3012 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
3016 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
3019 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
3020 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
3021 transfer-root directory
3022 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
3023 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
3024 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
3025 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
3026 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
3027 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
3028 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
3029 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
3030 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
3031 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
3032 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
3035 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
3038 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
3039 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
3040 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
3041 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
3042 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
3043 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
3044 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
3045 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
3047 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
3048 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
3050 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
3051 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
3052 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
3053 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
3054 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
3055 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
3056 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
3057 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
3058 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
3059 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
3060 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
3061 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
3062 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
3063 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
3064 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
3065 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
3066 it() An bf(x) indicates that a rule affects xattr names in xattr copy/delete
3067 operations (and is thus ignored when matching file/dir names). If no
3068 xattr-matching rules are specified, a default xattr filtering rule is
3069 used (see the bf(--xattrs) option).
3072 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
3074 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
3075 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
3078 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
3079 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
3080 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
3081 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
3082 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
3083 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
3084 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
3085 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
3086 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
3087 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
3093 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
3094 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
3095 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
3096 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
3097 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
3100 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
3103 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
3104 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
3105 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
3106 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
3107 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
3108 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
3109 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
3110 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
3111 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
3112 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
3113 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
3114 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
3115 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
3116 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
3117 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
3119 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
3120 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
3121 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
3122 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
3123 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
3124 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
3125 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
3126 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
3127 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
3128 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
3131 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
3132 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
3133 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
3134 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
3135 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
3136 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
3137 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
3138 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
3139 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
3141 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
3142 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
3143 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
3144 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
3147 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
3150 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
3152 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
3157 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
3158 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
3159 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
3160 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
3163 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
3164 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
3165 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
3166 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
3168 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
3170 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
3171 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
3172 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
3173 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
3174 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
3176 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
3179 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
3180 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
3181 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
3184 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
3185 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
3186 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
3187 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
3188 a part of the transfer.
3190 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
3191 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
3192 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
3193 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
3194 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
3195 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
3196 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
3197 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
3201 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
3206 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
3209 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
3210 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
3211 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
3212 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
3213 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
3214 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
3215 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
3216 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
3218 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
3220 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
3221 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
3222 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
3223 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
3224 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
3225 out the parent's rules).
3227 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
3229 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
3230 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
3231 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
3232 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
3233 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
3234 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
3236 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
3237 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
3238 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
3239 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
3240 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
3242 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
3243 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
3244 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
3247 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
3248 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
3249 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
3250 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3251 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3255 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
3256 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
3257 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
3258 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
3259 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
3263 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
3264 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
3265 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3266 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
3267 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
3271 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
3272 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
3273 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3274 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3275 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3278 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
3279 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
3280 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
3282 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
3284 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
3285 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
3286 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
3287 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
3290 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3291 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3294 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
3295 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
3296 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
3297 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
3298 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
3299 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
3301 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
3303 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
3304 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
3305 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
3306 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
3307 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
3309 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
3310 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3312 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
3313 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
3314 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
3315 per-directory merge rule.
3317 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
3318 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
3319 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
3320 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
3321 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
3322 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
3324 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3326 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3328 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
3330 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
3331 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
3332 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3333 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3334 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3335 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3336 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3337 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3338 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3340 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3341 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3342 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3343 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3344 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3346 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3347 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3348 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3349 using the information stored in the batch file.
3351 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3352 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3353 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3354 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3355 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3356 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3357 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3358 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3363 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3364 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3365 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3369 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3370 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3373 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3374 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3375 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3376 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3377 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3380 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3381 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3382 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3383 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3384 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3385 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3386 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3387 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3388 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3389 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3390 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3395 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3396 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3397 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3398 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3399 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3400 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3401 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3402 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3403 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3404 option (when reading the batch).
3405 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3406 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3407 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3410 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3411 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3412 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3413 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3414 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3415 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3416 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3418 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3419 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3420 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3421 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3422 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3423 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3424 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3426 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3427 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3428 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3429 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3430 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3431 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3433 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3434 version uses a new implementation.
3436 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3438 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3439 link in the source directory.
3441 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3442 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3444 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3445 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3448 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3449 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3451 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3452 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3453 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3454 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3455 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3456 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3457 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3458 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3460 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3461 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3462 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3464 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3465 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3466 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3468 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3469 symlinks for any other options to affect).
3471 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3472 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3474 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3475 skip all safe symlinks.
3477 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3480 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3482 manpagediagnostics()
3484 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3485 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3486 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3488 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3489 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3490 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3491 remote shell like this:
3493 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3495 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3496 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3497 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3498 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3499 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3500 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3501 for non-interactive logins.
3503 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3504 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3505 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3507 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3511 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3512 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3513 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3514 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3515 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3516 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3518 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3519 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3520 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3521 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3522 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3523 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3524 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3525 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3526 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3527 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3528 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3529 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3530 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3531 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3532 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3535 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3538 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3539 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3541 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3542 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3543 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3544 bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3545 sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3546 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3547 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3548 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3549 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3550 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3551 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3552 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3553 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3554 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3555 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3556 consult the remote shell's documentation.
3557 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3558 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3559 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3560 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3561 default .cvsignore file.
3566 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3574 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3576 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3578 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3580 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3583 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3585 Please report bugs! See the web site at
3586 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3588 manpagesection(VERSION)
3590 This man page is current for version 3.1.3 of rsync.
3592 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3594 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3595 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3596 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3597 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3598 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3599 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3602 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3604 rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file
3605 COPYING for details.
3607 A WEB site is available at
3608 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3609 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3612 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3613 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3615 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3616 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3618 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3619 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3621 manpagesection(THANKS)
3623 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3624 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3625 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3627 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3628 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3632 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3633 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3636 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3637 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)