1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(31 Dec 2009)()()
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. See the tech report for details.
108 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
110 This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
111 machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
112 files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
113 links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
114 in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
115 size of data portions of the transfer.
117 quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
119 A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
120 additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
121 / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
122 to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
123 containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
124 destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
125 files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
129 tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
130 tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
133 Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
134 copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
135 copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
138 tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
139 tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
142 You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
143 destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
144 an improved copy command.
146 Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
147 particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
149 quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
151 See the following section for more details.
153 manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
155 The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
156 specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
157 or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
159 quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
160 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
161 tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
163 Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
166 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
167 tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
169 This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
170 not as easy to use as the first method.
172 If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
173 specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
174 the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
177 quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
179 manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
181 It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
182 In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
183 using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
184 the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
185 CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
187 Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
191 it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
192 separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
193 it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
194 it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
196 it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
197 list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
198 it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
199 specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
200 it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
203 An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
205 verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
207 Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
208 you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
209 password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
210 the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
211 may be useful when scripting rsync.
213 WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
214 users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
216 You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
217 environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
218 your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
219 proxy connections to port 873.
221 You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
222 setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
223 wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
224 contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
225 command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
228 verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
229 rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
230 rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
232 The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
233 which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
236 manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
238 It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239 named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240 system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241 Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
242 a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
243 home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
244 daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
245 the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
246 change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
247 transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
248 configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
249 connections from "localhost".)
251 From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
252 connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
253 rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
254 explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
255 bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
256 will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
258 verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
260 If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
261 user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
262 module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
263 give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
264 this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
266 verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
268 The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
269 used to log-in to the "module".
271 manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
273 In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
274 daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
275 to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
276 For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
277 socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
278 file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
279 daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
281 If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
282 no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
284 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
286 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
288 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
289 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
291 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
293 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
296 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
300 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
302 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
305 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
306 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
307 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
309 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
312 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
314 This is launched from cron every few hours.
316 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
318 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
319 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
320 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
321 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
322 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
323 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
324 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
325 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
326 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
327 -R, --relative use relative path names
328 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
329 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
330 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
331 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
332 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
333 --inplace update destination files in-place
334 --append append data onto shorter files
335 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
336 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
337 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
338 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
339 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
340 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
341 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
342 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
343 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
344 -p, --perms preserve permissions
345 -E, --executability preserve executability
346 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
347 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
348 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
349 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
350 -g, --group preserve group
351 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
352 --specials preserve special files
353 -D same as --devices --specials
354 -t, --times preserve modification times
355 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
356 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
357 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
358 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
359 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
360 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
361 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
362 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
363 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
364 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
365 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
366 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
367 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
368 --del an alias for --delete-during
369 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
370 --delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
371 --delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
372 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
373 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
374 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
375 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
376 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
377 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
378 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
379 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
380 --partial keep partially transferred files
381 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
382 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
383 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
384 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
385 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
386 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
387 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
388 --size-only skip files that match in size
389 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
390 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
391 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
392 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
393 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
394 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
395 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
396 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
397 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
398 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
399 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
400 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
401 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
402 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
403 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
404 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
405 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
406 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
407 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
408 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
409 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
410 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
411 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
412 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
413 --stats give some file-transfer stats
414 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
415 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
416 --progress show progress during transfer
417 -P same as --partial --progress
418 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
419 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
420 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
421 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
422 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
423 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
424 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
425 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
426 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
427 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
428 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
429 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
430 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
431 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
432 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
433 --version print version number
434 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
436 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
438 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
439 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
440 --bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
441 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
442 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
443 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
444 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
445 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
446 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
447 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
448 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
449 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
450 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
454 rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line
455 options have two variants, one short and one long. These are shown
456 below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long variant.
457 The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace
461 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
462 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
463 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
464 option without any other args.
466 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
468 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
469 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
470 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
471 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
472 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
473 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
474 you are debugging rsync.
476 Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
477 a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
478 file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
479 level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
480 changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
481 bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
482 output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
483 any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
485 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
486 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
487 from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
490 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
491 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
492 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
493 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
494 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
495 request the list of modules from the daemon.
497 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
498 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
499 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
502 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
503 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
504 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
505 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
506 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
507 not preserve timestamps exactly.
509 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
510 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
511 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
512 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
513 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
514 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
515 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
517 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
518 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
519 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
520 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
521 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
522 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
523 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
524 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
525 so this can slow things down significantly.
527 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
528 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
529 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
530 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
531 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
533 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
534 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
535 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
536 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
537 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
539 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
540 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
542 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
543 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
544 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
545 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
546 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
548 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
549 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
552 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
553 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
554 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
555 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
556 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
557 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
558 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
560 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
561 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
562 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
564 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
565 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
566 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
567 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
568 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
571 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
572 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
574 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
575 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
576 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
577 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
578 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
579 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
581 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
582 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
583 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
584 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
585 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
586 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
587 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
588 than using bf(--delete-after).
590 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
591 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
593 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
594 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
595 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
596 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
597 example, if you used this command:
599 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
601 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
602 machine. If instead you used
604 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
606 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
607 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
608 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
611 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
612 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
613 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
614 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
615 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
616 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
617 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
618 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
620 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
621 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
622 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
623 the source path, like this:
625 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
627 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
628 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
629 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
630 source path. For example, when pushing files:
632 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
634 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
635 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
636 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
637 for a non-daemon transfer):
640 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
641 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
644 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
645 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
646 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
647 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
648 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
649 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
650 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
653 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
654 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
655 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
656 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
657 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
658 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
659 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
660 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
661 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
662 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
664 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
665 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
666 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
668 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
669 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
670 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
671 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
673 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
674 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
675 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
676 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
677 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
678 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
679 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
680 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
681 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
682 rule would never be reached).
684 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
685 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
686 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
687 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
688 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
689 will keep their original filenames).
691 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
692 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
693 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
694 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
695 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
697 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
698 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
699 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
701 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
702 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
703 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
704 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
706 Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
707 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
708 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
709 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
710 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
713 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
714 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
715 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
717 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
718 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
719 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
720 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
722 This has several effects:
725 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
726 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
727 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
728 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
729 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
730 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
732 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
733 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
735 it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
736 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
737 the open of the file for writing to be successful.
738 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
739 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
740 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
741 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
745 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
746 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
748 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
749 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
750 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
751 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
753 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
754 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
755 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
758 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
759 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
760 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
761 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
762 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
763 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
764 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
765 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
766 Implies bf(--inplace),
767 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
770 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
771 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
772 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
773 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
774 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
776 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
777 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
778 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
779 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
781 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
782 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
783 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
784 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
785 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
786 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
787 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
789 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
790 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
791 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
792 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
793 if you want to turn this off.
795 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
796 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
797 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
799 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
800 symlink on the destination.
802 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
803 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
804 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
805 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
806 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
807 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
808 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
809 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
811 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
812 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
813 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
814 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
815 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
817 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
818 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
819 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
820 give unexpected results.
822 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
823 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
824 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
825 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
827 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
828 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
829 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
830 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
832 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
835 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
836 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
837 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
838 to make the paths match up right. For example:
840 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
842 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
843 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
844 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
846 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
847 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
848 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
849 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
851 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
852 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
853 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
854 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
855 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
858 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
859 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
860 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
861 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
862 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
863 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
864 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
866 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
868 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
869 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
870 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
871 as though they were separate files.
873 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
874 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
875 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
878 it() If the destination contains extraneous hard-linked files, rsync will not
879 break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
880 differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
881 (unless you are using the bf(--inplace) option).
882 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
883 the linking of the destination files against the bf(--link-dest) files can
884 cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
885 bf(--link-dest) associations.
888 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
889 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
890 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
891 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
892 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
893 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
894 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
896 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
897 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
898 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
899 the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency
900 (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could
901 have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked
902 set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable
903 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
905 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
906 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
907 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
908 be the source permissions.)
910 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
913 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
914 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
915 the execute permission for the file.
916 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
917 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
918 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
919 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
920 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
921 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
924 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
925 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
926 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
928 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
929 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
930 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
931 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
932 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
933 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
934 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
935 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
937 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
939 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
941 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
943 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
944 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
946 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
947 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
948 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
949 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
950 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
951 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
952 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
953 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
956 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
957 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
958 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
959 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
960 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
961 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
964 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
966 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
967 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
970 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
972 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
973 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
974 The option also implies bf(--perms).
976 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
977 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
978 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
980 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
981 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
983 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
984 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
985 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
986 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
988 Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
989 used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
990 "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
992 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
993 comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
994 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
995 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
996 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
998 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
999 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1000 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1001 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1002 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1003 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1004 consistent executability across all bits:
1006 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1008 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1009 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1011 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1012 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1014 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1015 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1016 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1017 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1018 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1019 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1021 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1022 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1023 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1025 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1026 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1027 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1028 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1029 is a member of will be preserved.
1030 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1031 user on the receiving side.
1033 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1034 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1035 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1037 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1038 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1039 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1040 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1042 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1043 such as named sockets and fifos.
1045 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1047 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1048 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1049 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1050 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1051 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1052 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1053 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1055 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1056 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1057 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1058 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1060 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1061 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1062 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1063 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1064 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1065 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1066 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1067 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1068 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1070 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1071 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1072 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1073 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1074 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1075 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1076 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1077 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1078 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1079 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1080 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1082 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1083 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1085 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1086 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
1089 quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
1091 Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
1092 the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
1093 "localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
1094 script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
1095 shell (see bf(--rsh)).
1097 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1099 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1101 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1102 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1103 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1105 NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
1106 filesystem. It seems to have problems seeking over null regions,
1107 and ends up corrupting the files.
1109 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1110 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1111 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1112 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1113 to do before one actually runs it.
1115 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1116 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1117 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1118 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1119 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1120 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1121 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1122 where no file transfers were needed.
1124 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1125 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1126 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1127 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1128 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1129 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1130 batch-writing option is in effect.
1132 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1133 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1134 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1135 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1136 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1137 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1140 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1141 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1142 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1143 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1145 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1146 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1147 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1150 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1151 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1152 yet on the destination. If this option is
1153 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1154 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1156 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1157 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1158 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1160 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1161 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1162 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1164 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1165 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1166 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1168 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1169 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1170 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1171 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1172 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1173 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1174 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1176 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1177 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1178 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1180 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1181 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1182 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1183 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1184 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1185 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1186 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1187 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1188 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1189 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1191 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1192 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1193 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1195 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1196 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1197 going to be deleted.
1199 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1200 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1201 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1202 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1203 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1205 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1206 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1207 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1208 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1209 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1210 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1212 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1213 side be done before the transfer starts.
1214 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1216 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1217 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1218 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1219 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1220 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1221 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1222 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1224 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1225 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1226 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1227 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1228 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1229 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1230 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1232 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1233 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1234 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1235 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1236 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1237 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1238 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1239 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1240 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1241 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1242 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1244 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1246 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1247 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1248 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1249 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1250 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1251 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1252 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1253 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1255 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1256 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1257 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1258 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1259 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1260 bf(--delete-excluded).
1261 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1263 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1264 even when there are I/O errors.
1266 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1267 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1268 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1270 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1271 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1272 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1274 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1275 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
1276 and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
1278 Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1279 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1280 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1281 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1282 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1283 older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1285 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1286 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1287 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1288 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1290 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1291 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1292 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1294 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1295 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1296 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1297 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1298 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1299 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1300 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1302 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1305 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1306 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1307 transferring small, junk files.
1308 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1310 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1311 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1312 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1314 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1315 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1316 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1317 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1319 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1320 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1321 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1322 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1323 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1324 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1326 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1327 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1328 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1329 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1330 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1331 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1332 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1333 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1336 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1337 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1340 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1341 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1343 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1344 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1346 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1348 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1349 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1350 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1351 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1352 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1353 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1356 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1357 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1359 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1361 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1362 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1363 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1364 a file should be ignored.
1366 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1367 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1369 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1370 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1371 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/)))
1373 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1374 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1375 are delimited by whitespace).
1377 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1378 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1379 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1380 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1382 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1383 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1384 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1385 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1386 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1387 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1388 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1389 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1390 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1391 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1394 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1395 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1396 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1398 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1399 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1400 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1401 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1402 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1404 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1406 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1407 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1409 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1411 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1412 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1413 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1416 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1418 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1420 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1423 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1424 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1425 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1427 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1429 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1430 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1431 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1432 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1434 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1435 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1436 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1438 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1440 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1441 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1442 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1443 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1445 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1446 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1447 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1448 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1451 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1452 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1453 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1454 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1455 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1456 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1457 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1458 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1459 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1460 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1461 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1462 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1465 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1466 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1467 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1470 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1472 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1473 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1474 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1475 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1476 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1477 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1478 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1479 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1481 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1482 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1483 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1485 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1486 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1487 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1488 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1489 transfer". For example:
1491 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1493 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1494 was located on the remote "src" host.
1496 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1497 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1498 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1499 receiving host's charset.
1501 NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be
1502 more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared
1503 between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements
1504 (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
1505 eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
1507 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1508 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1509 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1510 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1511 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1512 file are split on whitespace).
1514 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1515 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1516 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1517 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1518 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1520 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1521 side will also be translated
1522 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1523 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1525 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1526 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1527 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1528 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1530 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1531 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1532 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1533 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1534 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1535 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1536 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1537 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1538 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1539 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1540 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1541 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1542 new version on the disk at the same time.
1544 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1545 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1546 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1547 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1548 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1549 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1550 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1551 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1552 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1553 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1554 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1555 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1557 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1558 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1559 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1560 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1561 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1563 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1564 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1565 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1567 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1568 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1569 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1570 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1571 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1572 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1573 have changed from an earlier backup.
1575 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1576 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1578 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1579 and the attributes updated.
1580 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1581 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1583 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1584 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1586 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1587 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1588 directory using a local copy.
1589 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1590 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1591 been successfully transferred.
1593 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1594 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1595 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1596 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1598 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1599 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1601 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1602 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1603 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1604 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1607 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1609 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1610 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1611 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1612 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1614 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1615 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1617 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1618 and the attributes updated.
1619 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1620 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1622 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1623 rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
1624 dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
1625 change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
1628 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1629 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1630 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1633 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1634 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1636 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1637 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1638 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1639 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1641 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1642 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1643 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1645 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1646 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1647 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1648 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1650 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1651 that will not be compressed.
1653 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1654 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1655 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1657 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1658 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1659 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1661 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1663 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1664 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1665 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1667 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1669 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1670 matches 2 suffixes):
1672 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1674 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1695 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1696 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1697 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1700 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1701 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1704 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1705 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1706 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1707 option is not specified.
1709 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1710 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1711 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1712 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1713 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1714 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1716 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1717 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1718 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1720 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1721 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1722 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1724 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1725 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1726 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
1727 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1729 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
1730 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
1731 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
1732 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
1733 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
1735 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
1736 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
1737 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
1738 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
1739 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
1740 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
1741 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
1742 bf(--daemon) mode section.
1744 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
1745 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
1746 rsync defaults to using
1747 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
1748 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
1750 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
1751 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
1752 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
1753 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
1754 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
1755 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
1758 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
1759 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
1760 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
1761 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
1764 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
1767 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
1769 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
1771 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
1772 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
1773 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
1775 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
1776 have attributes that are being modified).
1777 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
1778 a message (e.g. "deleting").
1781 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
1782 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
1783 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
1785 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
1786 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
1787 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
1788 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
1789 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
1790 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
1792 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
1795 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
1796 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
1798 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
1799 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
1800 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
1801 by the file transfer.
1802 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
1803 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
1804 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
1805 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
1806 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
1807 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
1808 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
1809 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
1810 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
1811 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
1812 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
1813 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
1814 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
1815 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
1816 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
1817 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
1820 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
1821 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
1822 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
1823 outputting them as a verbose message).
1825 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
1826 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
1827 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
1828 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
1829 bf(-v) is specified (which reports the name
1830 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
1831 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
1832 rsyncd.conf manpage.
1834 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option
1835 will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
1836 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
1837 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
1838 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
1839 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
1840 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
1841 option for a description of the output of "%i".
1843 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
1844 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
1845 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
1846 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
1847 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
1848 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
1850 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
1851 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
1852 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
1853 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
1854 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
1855 option if you wish to override this.
1857 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
1860 verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
1862 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
1865 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
1866 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
1867 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
1868 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
1869 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
1870 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
1872 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
1875 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
1876 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
1877 algorithm is for your data.
1879 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
1880 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
1881 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
1882 it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
1883 were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not include created
1884 dirs, symlinks, etc.
1885 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
1886 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
1887 include the size of symlinks.
1888 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
1889 for just the transferred files.
1890 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
1891 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
1892 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
1893 recreating the updated files.
1894 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
1895 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
1896 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
1898 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
1899 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
1900 sending side for this to be present.
1901 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
1902 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
1903 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
1904 from the client side to the server side.
1905 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
1906 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
1907 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
1908 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
1911 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
1912 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
1913 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
1914 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
1917 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
1918 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
1919 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
1920 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
1922 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
1923 This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
1924 this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
1925 G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
1928 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
1929 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
1930 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
1931 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
1932 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
1934 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
1935 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
1936 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
1937 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
1938 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
1939 after it has served its purpose.
1941 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
1942 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
1944 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
1946 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
1947 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
1948 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
1949 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
1950 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
1952 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
1953 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
1954 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
1955 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
1956 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
1957 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
1960 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
1961 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
1962 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
1963 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
1964 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
1965 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
1966 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
1967 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
1968 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
1970 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
1971 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
1973 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
1974 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
1975 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
1976 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
1977 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
1978 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
1979 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
1980 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
1981 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
1982 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
1984 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
1985 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
1986 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
1987 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
1988 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
1990 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
1991 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
1992 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
1993 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
1994 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
1995 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
1996 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
1997 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
1998 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
1999 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2000 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2002 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2003 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2004 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2005 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2007 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2008 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2010 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2011 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2013 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2014 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2015 parallel hierarchy of files).
2017 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2018 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2019 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2020 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2021 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2024 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2025 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2026 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2028 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2029 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2030 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2031 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2032 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2035 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2036 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2037 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2039 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2041 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2042 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2043 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2044 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2046 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2048 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2049 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2050 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2052 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2053 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2055 Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
2057 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2060 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2062 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2063 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2064 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2065 is maintained until the end.
2067 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2068 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2069 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2070 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2071 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2072 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2074 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2075 summary line that looks like this:
2077 verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
2079 In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2080 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2081 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2082 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2083 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2084 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2086 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2087 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2088 transfer that may be interrupted.
2090 dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
2091 file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
2092 It should contain just the password as the first line of the file (all
2093 other lines are ignored).
2095 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2096 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2097 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2098 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2099 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2102 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2103 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2104 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2105 command that includes a
2106 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2107 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2108 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2109 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2110 without using this option. For example:
2112 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2114 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2115 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2116 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2117 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2118 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2119 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2120 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2122 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2123 transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
2124 using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the nature
2125 of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the
2126 transfer was too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The
2127 result is an average transfer rate equaling the specified limit. A value
2128 of zero specifies no limit.
2130 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2131 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2132 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2134 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2135 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2136 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2137 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2139 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2140 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2141 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2142 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2143 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2146 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2147 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2148 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2149 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2151 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2152 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2153 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2154 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2156 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2157 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2158 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2159 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2160 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2161 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2162 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2164 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2165 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2166 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2167 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2168 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2169 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2170 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2171 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2172 to turn off any conversion.
2173 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2174 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2176 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2179 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2180 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2181 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2183 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2184 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2185 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2186 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2187 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2189 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2190 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2191 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2192 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2194 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2195 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2196 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2197 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2199 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2200 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2203 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer
2204 NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
2205 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
2206 by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
2207 is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2208 applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
2209 in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
2210 Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
2214 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2216 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2219 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2220 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2221 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2223 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2224 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2225 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2226 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2227 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2230 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2231 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2232 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2233 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2234 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2236 dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
2237 transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
2238 The client can still specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but their
2239 requested value will be rounded down if they try to exceed it. See the
2240 client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2242 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2243 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2244 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2245 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2246 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2248 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2249 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2250 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2251 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2252 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2253 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2254 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2257 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2258 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2259 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2261 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2262 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2265 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2266 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2267 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2268 case transfer logging is turned off.
2270 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2271 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2273 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2274 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2275 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2276 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2278 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2279 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2280 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2281 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2282 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2283 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2285 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2286 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2289 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2290 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2293 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2295 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2296 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2297 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2298 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2300 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2301 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2302 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2303 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2304 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2305 filename is not skipped.
2307 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2308 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2311 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2312 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2315 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2316 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2317 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2318 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2319 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2322 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2323 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2324 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2325 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2326 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2327 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2328 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2329 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2330 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2333 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2334 comment lines that start with a "#".
2336 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2337 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2338 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2339 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2341 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2342 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2343 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2344 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2347 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2348 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2349 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2350 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2352 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2354 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2355 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2356 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2357 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2358 can take several forms:
2361 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2362 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2363 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2364 regular expressions.
2365 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2366 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2367 per-directory rule).
2368 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2369 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2370 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2371 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2372 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2373 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2374 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2376 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2377 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2378 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2379 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2380 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2381 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2382 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2383 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2384 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2385 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2386 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2387 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2388 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2389 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2390 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2391 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2392 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2394 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2395 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2396 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2400 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2401 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2402 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2403 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2404 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2405 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2406 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2407 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2408 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2409 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2410 For instance, this won't work:
2413 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2414 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2418 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2419 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2420 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2421 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2422 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2423 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2424 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2429 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2430 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2431 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2435 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2438 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2439 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2440 transfer-root directory
2441 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2442 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2443 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2444 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2445 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2446 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2447 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2448 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2449 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2450 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2451 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2454 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2457 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2458 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2459 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2460 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2461 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2462 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2463 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2464 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2466 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2467 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2469 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2470 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2471 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2472 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2473 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2474 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2475 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2476 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2477 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2478 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2479 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2480 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2481 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2482 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2483 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2484 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2487 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2489 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2490 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2493 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2494 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2495 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2496 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2497 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2498 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2499 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2500 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2501 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2502 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2508 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2509 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2510 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2511 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2512 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2515 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2518 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2519 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2520 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2521 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2522 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2523 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2524 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2525 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2526 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2527 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2528 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2529 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2530 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2531 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2532 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2534 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2535 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2536 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2537 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2538 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2539 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2540 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2541 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2542 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2543 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2546 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2547 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2548 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2549 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2550 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2551 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2552 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2553 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2554 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2556 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2557 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2558 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2559 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2562 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2565 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2567 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2572 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2573 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2574 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2575 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2578 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2579 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2580 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2581 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2583 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2585 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2586 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2587 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2588 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2589 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2591 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2594 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2595 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2596 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2599 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2600 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2601 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2602 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2603 a part of the transfer.
2605 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2606 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2607 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2608 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2609 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2610 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2611 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2612 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2616 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2621 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2624 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2625 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2626 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2627 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2628 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2629 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2630 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2631 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2633 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2635 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2636 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2637 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2638 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2639 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2640 out the parent's rules).
2642 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
2644 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
2645 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
2646 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
2647 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
2648 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
2649 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
2651 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
2652 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
2653 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
2654 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
2655 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
2657 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
2658 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
2659 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
2662 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
2663 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
2664 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
2665 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2666 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2670 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
2671 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
2672 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
2673 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
2674 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
2678 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
2679 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
2680 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2681 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
2682 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
2686 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
2687 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
2688 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
2689 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
2690 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
2693 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
2694 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
2695 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
2697 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
2699 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
2700 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
2701 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
2702 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
2705 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2706 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
2709 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
2710 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
2711 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
2712 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
2713 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
2714 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
2716 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
2718 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
2719 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
2720 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
2721 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
2722 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
2724 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
2725 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2727 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
2728 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
2729 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
2730 per-directory merge rule.
2732 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
2733 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
2734 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
2735 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
2736 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
2737 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
2739 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
2741 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
2743 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
2745 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
2746 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
2747 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
2748 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
2749 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
2750 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
2751 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
2752 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
2753 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
2755 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
2756 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
2757 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
2758 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
2759 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
2761 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
2762 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
2763 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
2764 using the information stored in the batch file.
2766 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
2767 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
2768 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
2769 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
2770 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
2771 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
2772 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
2773 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
2778 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2779 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
2780 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
2784 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
2785 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
2788 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
2789 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
2790 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
2791 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
2792 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
2795 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
2796 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
2797 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
2798 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
2799 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
2800 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
2801 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
2802 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
2803 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
2804 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
2805 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
2810 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
2811 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
2812 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
2813 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
2814 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
2815 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
2816 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
2817 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
2818 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
2819 option (when reading the batch).
2820 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
2821 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
2822 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
2825 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
2826 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
2827 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
2828 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
2829 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
2830 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
2831 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
2833 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
2834 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
2835 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
2836 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
2837 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
2838 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
2839 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
2841 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
2842 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
2843 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
2844 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
2845 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
2846 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
2848 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
2849 version uses a new implementation.
2851 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
2853 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
2854 link in the source directory.
2856 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
2857 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
2859 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
2860 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
2863 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
2864 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
2866 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
2867 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
2868 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
2869 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
2870 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
2871 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
2872 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
2873 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
2875 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
2876 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
2877 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
2879 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
2880 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
2881 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
2883 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
2884 symlinks for any other options to affect).
2886 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
2887 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
2889 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
2890 skip all safe symlinks.
2892 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
2895 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
2897 manpagediagnostics()
2899 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
2900 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
2901 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
2903 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
2904 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
2905 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
2906 remote shell like this:
2908 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
2910 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
2911 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
2912 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
2913 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
2914 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
2915 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
2916 for non-interactive logins.
2918 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
2919 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
2920 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
2922 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
2926 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
2927 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
2928 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
2929 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
2930 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
2931 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
2933 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
2934 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
2935 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
2936 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
2937 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
2938 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
2939 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
2940 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
2941 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
2942 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
2943 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
2944 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
2945 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
2946 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
2947 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
2950 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
2953 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
2954 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
2956 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
2957 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
2958 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
2959 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
2960 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
2961 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
2962 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
2963 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
2964 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
2965 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
2966 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
2967 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
2968 consult the remote shell's documentation.
2969 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
2970 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
2971 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
2972 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
2973 default .cvsignore file.
2978 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
2986 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
2988 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
2990 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
2992 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
2995 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
2997 Please report bugs! See the web site at
2998 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3000 manpagesection(VERSION)
3002 This man page is current for version 3.0.7 of rsync.
3004 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3006 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3007 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3008 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3009 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3010 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3011 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3014 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3016 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
3017 COPYING for details.
3019 A WEB site is available at
3020 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3021 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3024 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3025 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3027 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3028 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3030 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3031 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3033 manpagesection(THANKS)
3035 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3036 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3037 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3039 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3040 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3044 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3045 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3048 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3049 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)