1 mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2 manpage(rsync)(1)(26 Jan 2014)()()
3 manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
6 verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
8 Access via remote shell:
9 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
12 Access via rsync daemon:
13 Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14 rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15 Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16 rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
18 Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
23 Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24 copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25 remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26 every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27 set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28 which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29 differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30 destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31 improved copy command for everyday use.
33 Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34 algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35 in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36 requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37 quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
39 Some of the additional features of rsync are:
42 it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43 it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44 it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45 it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46 it() does not require super-user privileges
47 it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48 it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
52 manpagesection(GENERAL)
54 Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55 current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
57 There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58 remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59 rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60 the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61 a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62 source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63 host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64 "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65 an exception to this latter rule).
67 As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68 destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
70 As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71 host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
73 Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74 "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75 server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
79 See the file README for installation instructions.
81 Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82 a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83 daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84 for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85 different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
87 You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88 command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
90 Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
95 You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96 and a destination, one of which may be remote.
98 Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
100 quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
102 This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103 current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104 the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105 remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106 differences. 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(SORTED TRANSFER ORDER)
286 Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list.
287 This handles the merging together of the contents of identically named
288 directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse
289 someone when the files are transferred in a different order than what was
290 given on the command-line.
292 If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either
293 separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using
294 bf(--delay-updates) (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but
295 does make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
297 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
299 Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
301 To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
302 files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
304 quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
306 each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
309 To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
313 rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
315 rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
318 this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
319 connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
320 lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
322 I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
325 tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
327 This is launched from cron every few hours.
329 manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
331 Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
332 to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
333 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
334 --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
335 --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
336 --msgs2stderr special output handling for debugging
337 -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
338 --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
339 -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
340 -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
341 --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
342 -r, --recursive recurse into directories
343 -R, --relative use relative path names
344 --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
345 -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
346 --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
347 --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
348 -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
349 --inplace update destination files in-place
350 --append append data onto shorter files
351 --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
352 -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
353 -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
354 -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
355 --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
356 --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
357 --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
358 -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
359 -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
360 -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
361 -p, --perms preserve permissions
362 -E, --executability preserve executability
363 --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
364 -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
365 -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
366 -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
367 -g, --group preserve group
368 --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
369 --specials preserve special files
370 -D same as --devices --specials
371 -t, --times preserve modification times
372 -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
373 -J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
374 --super receiver attempts super-user activities
375 --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
376 -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
377 --preallocate allocate dest files before writing
378 -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
379 -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
380 -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
381 -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
382 -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
383 --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
384 --existing skip creating new files on receiver
385 --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
386 --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
387 --del an alias for --delete-during
388 --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
389 --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
390 --delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
391 --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
392 --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
393 --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
394 --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
395 --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
396 --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
397 --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
398 --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
399 --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
400 --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
401 --partial keep partially transferred files
402 --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
403 --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
404 -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
405 --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
406 --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
407 --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
408 --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
409 --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
410 --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
411 -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
412 --size-only skip files that match in size
413 --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
414 -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
415 -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
416 --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
417 --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
418 --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
419 -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
420 --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
421 --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
422 -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
423 -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
424 -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
425 repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
426 --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
427 --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
428 --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
429 --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
430 --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
431 -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
432 -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
433 --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
434 --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
435 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
436 --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
437 --outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
438 --stats give some file-transfer stats
439 -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
440 -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
441 --progress show progress during transfer
442 -P same as --partial --progress
443 -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
444 -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
445 --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
446 --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
447 --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
448 --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
449 --list-only list the files instead of copying them
450 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
451 --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
452 --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
453 --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
454 --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
455 --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
456 --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
457 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
458 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
459 --version print version number
460 (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
462 Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
464 --daemon run as an rsync daemon
465 --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
466 --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
467 --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
468 -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
469 --no-detach do not detach from the parent
470 --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
471 --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
472 --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
473 --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
474 -v, --verbose increase verbosity
475 -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
476 -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
477 -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
481 Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter)
482 options. The full list of the available options are described below. If an
483 option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated.
484 Some options only have a long variant, not a short. If the option takes a
485 parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it
486 must also be specified for the short. When specifying a parameter, you can
487 either use the form --option=param or replace the '=' with whitespace. The
488 parameter may need to be quoted in some manner for it to survive the shell's
489 command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (~) in a filename is
490 substituted by your shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into
491 your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
494 dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
495 available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
496 versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
497 option without any other args.
499 dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
501 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
502 are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
503 single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
504 transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
505 information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
506 information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
507 you are debugging rsync.
509 In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
510 of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
511 options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
512 fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
513 bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
514 exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
516 However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "max verbosity" setting will limit how
517 high of a level the various individual flags can be set on the daemon side.
518 For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that is set to
519 a higher value than what would be set by bf(-vv) will be downgraded to the
520 bf(-vv) level in the daemon's logging.
522 dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
523 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
525 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
526 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
527 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
528 that support higher levels). Use
530 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
531 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
533 verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
534 rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
536 Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
537 bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
538 information on what is output and when.
540 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
541 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
542 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
543 See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
545 dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
546 This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug
547 output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
548 number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
549 level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
550 that support higher levels). Use
552 to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
553 are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
555 verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
556 rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
558 Note that some debug messages will only be output when bf(--msgs2stderr) is
559 specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
561 This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
562 reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
563 to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
564 See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
566 dit(bf(--msgs2stderr)) This option changes rsync to send all its output
567 directly to stderr rather than to send messages to the client side via the
568 protocol (which normally outputs info messages via stdout). This is mainly
569 intended for debugging in order to avoid changing the data sent via the
570 protocol, since the extra protocol data can change what is being tested.
571 Keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
572 messages back to the client side, so if you are doing any daemon-transfer
573 debugging using this option, you should start up a daemon using bf(--no-detach)
574 so that you can see the stderr output on the daemon side.
576 This option has the side-effect of making stderr output get line-buffered so
577 that the merging of the output of 3 programs happens in a more readable manner.
579 dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
580 are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
581 from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
584 dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
585 by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
586 message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
587 that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
588 a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
589 request the list of modules from the daemon.
591 dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
592 already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
593 This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
596 dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
597 finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
598 transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
599 time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
600 when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
601 not preserve timestamps exactly.
603 dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
604 timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
605 value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
606 to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
607 transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
608 times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
609 (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
611 dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
612 been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
613 uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
614 of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
615 changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
616 matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
617 a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
618 this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
619 so this can slow things down significantly.
621 The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
622 scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
623 its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
624 file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
625 either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
627 Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
628 correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
629 checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
630 automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
631 option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
633 For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
634 MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
636 dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
637 way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
638 everything (with -H being a notable omission).
639 The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
640 specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
642 Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
643 finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
646 dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
647 the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
648 only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
649 bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
650 (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
651 specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
652 (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
654 For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
655 bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
656 could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
658 The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
659 bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
660 Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
661 positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
662 changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
665 dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
666 recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
668 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
669 incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
670 transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
671 completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
672 does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
673 both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
675 Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
676 disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
677 bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
678 Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
679 bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
680 (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
681 explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
682 than using bf(--delete-after).
684 Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
685 option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
687 dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
688 names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
689 just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
690 you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
691 example, if you used this command:
693 quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
695 ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
696 machine. If instead you used
698 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
700 then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
701 machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
702 "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
705 Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
706 real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
707 symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
708 behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
709 a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
710 include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
711 path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
712 need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
714 It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
715 implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
716 sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
717 the source path, like this:
719 quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
721 That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
722 dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
723 For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
724 source path. For example, when pushing files:
726 quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
728 (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
729 "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
730 If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
731 for a non-daemon transfer):
734 tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
735 tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
738 dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
739 bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
740 directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
741 means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
742 left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
743 created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
744 elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
747 For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
748 transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
749 are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
750 "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
751 delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
752 the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
753 "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
754 ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
755 preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
756 affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
758 When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
759 option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
760 wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
762 dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
763 renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
764 backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
765 bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
767 Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
768 bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
769 also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
770 filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
771 (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
772 deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
773 need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
774 in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
775 your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
776 rule would never be reached).
778 dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
779 tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
780 side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
781 specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
782 (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
783 will keep their original filenames).
785 Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
786 relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
787 either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
788 daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
789 hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
791 dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
792 backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
793 if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
795 dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
796 the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
797 file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
798 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
800 Note that this does not affect the copying of dirs, symlinks, or other special
801 files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
802 is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
803 date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
804 where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
807 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
808 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
809 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
811 dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
812 its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
813 a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
814 instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
816 This has several effects:
819 it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
820 through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
821 copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
822 result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
823 it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
824 happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
826 it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
827 and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
829 it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
830 can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
831 the open of the file for writing to be successful.
832 it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
833 some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
834 a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
835 since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
839 WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
840 accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
842 This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
843 or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
844 bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
845 diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
847 The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
848 the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
849 Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
852 dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
853 the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
854 the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
855 side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
856 the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
857 does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
858 (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
859 transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
860 Implies bf(--inplace),
861 but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
864 dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
865 the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
866 checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
867 final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
868 bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
870 Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
871 bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
872 transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
873 will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
875 dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
876 are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
877 unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
878 (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
879 bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
880 output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
881 bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
883 The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
884 or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
885 bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
886 directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
887 if you want to turn this off.
889 There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
890 bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
891 an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
893 dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
894 symlink on the destination.
896 dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
897 they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
898 versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
899 receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
900 modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
901 to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
902 an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
903 will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
905 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
906 symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
907 are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
908 source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
909 additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
911 dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
912 which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
913 also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
914 give unexpected results.
916 dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
917 the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
918 below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
919 a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
920 to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
922 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
923 string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
924 that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
925 to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
927 The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
928 affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
929 transfer, the client side is the sender.)
931 This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
932 wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
933 "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
935 dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
936 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
937 useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
938 they would be using bf(--copy-links).
940 Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
941 symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
942 the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
943 bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
945 See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
948 bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
949 you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
950 pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
951 to make the paths match up right. For example:
953 quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
955 This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
956 trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
957 in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
959 dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
960 a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
961 matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
962 receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
964 For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
965 "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
966 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
967 directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
968 bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
971 One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
972 the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
973 create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
974 subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
975 content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
976 you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
977 to modify your receiving hierarchy.
979 See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
981 dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
982 the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
983 Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
984 as though they were separate files.
986 This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
987 destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
988 destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
991 it() If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than
992 what is present in the source file list), the copying algorithm will not
993 break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
994 differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
995 (unless you are using the bf(--inplace) option).
996 it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
997 the linking of the destination files against the bf(--link-dest) files can
998 cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
999 bf(--link-dest) associations.
1002 Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
1003 the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
1004 connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
1005 you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
1006 very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
1007 certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
1008 see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
1010 If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
1011 a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
1012 exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
1013 the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency
1014 (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could
1015 have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked
1016 set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable
1017 incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
1019 dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
1020 destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
1021 also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
1022 be the source permissions.)
1024 When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
1027 it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
1028 permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
1029 the execute permission for the file.
1030 it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
1031 file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
1032 permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
1033 specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
1034 their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
1035 directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
1038 Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
1039 rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
1040 such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
1042 In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
1043 permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
1044 permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
1045 bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
1046 all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
1047 behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
1048 putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
1049 and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
1051 quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
1053 You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1055 quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
1057 (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1058 the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1060 The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1061 directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1062 versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1063 newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1064 destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1065 observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1066 non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1067 (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1070 dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1071 executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1072 not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1073 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1074 executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1075 modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1078 it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1080 it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1081 has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1084 If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1086 dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1087 ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1088 The option also implies bf(--perms).
1090 The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1091 option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1092 and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1094 dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1095 extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1097 For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1098 super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1099 the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1100 a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1102 Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
1103 used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
1104 "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1106 dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1107 comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
1108 transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1109 that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1110 can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1112 In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1113 manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1114 prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1115 file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1116 that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1117 that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1118 consistent executability across all bits:
1120 quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1122 Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1124 quote(--chmod=D2775,F664)
1126 It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1127 additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1129 See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1130 permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1132 dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1133 destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1134 receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1135 and bf(--fake-super) options).
1136 Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1137 the invoking user on the receiving side.
1139 The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1140 may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1141 bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1143 dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1144 destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1145 program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1146 specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1147 is a member of will be preserved.
1148 Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1149 user on the receiving side.
1151 The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1152 default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1153 (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1155 dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1156 block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1157 This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1158 super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1160 dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1161 such as named sockets and fifos.
1163 dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1165 dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1166 with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1167 option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1168 modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1169 cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1170 updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1171 if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1173 dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1174 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1175 the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1176 This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1178 dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
1179 it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
1181 dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1182 activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1183 activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1184 all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1185 option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1186 for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1187 also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1188 being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1189 super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1191 dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1192 super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1193 special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1194 includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1195 device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1196 any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1197 the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1198 access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1199 files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1200 This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1201 extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1203 This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1204 ACLs from incompatible systems.
1206 The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1207 To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1208 bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1210 quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1212 For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1213 If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1214 files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1215 this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1218 This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1220 See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1222 dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1223 up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1224 not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1226 dit(bf(--preallocate)) This tells the receiver to allocate each destination
1227 file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use
1228 the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
1229 bf(fallocate)(2) system call or Cygwin's bf(posix_fallocate)(3), not the slow
1230 glibc implementation that writes a zero byte into each block.
1232 Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
1233 filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If the
1234 destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS,
1235 etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
1237 dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1238 make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1239 is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1240 bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1241 to do before one actually runs it.
1243 The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1244 dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1245 call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1246 unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1247 send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1248 the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1249 statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1250 where no file transfers were needed.
1252 dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1253 is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1254 faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1255 destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1256 "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1257 the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1258 batch-writing option is in effect.
1260 dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1261 filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1262 to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1263 through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1264 the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1265 in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1268 If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1269 the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1270 encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1271 the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1273 If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1274 bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1275 treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1278 dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1279 creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1280 yet on the destination. If this option is
1281 combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1282 (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1284 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1285 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1286 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1288 dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1289 already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1290 directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1292 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1293 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1294 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1296 This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1297 option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1298 a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1299 used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1300 already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1301 permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1302 is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1304 dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1305 side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1306 and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1308 Note that you should only use this option on source files that are quiescent.
1309 If you are using this to move files that show up in a particular directory over
1310 to another host, make sure that the finished files get renamed into the source
1311 directory, not directly written into it, so that rsync can't possibly transfer
1312 a file that is not yet fully written. If you can't first write the files into
1313 a different directory, you should use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid
1314 transferring files that are not yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new" when
1315 it is written, rename it to "foo" when it is done, and then use the option
1316 bf(--exclude='*.new') for the rsync transfer).
1318 Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an
1319 error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unchanged.
1321 dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1322 receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1323 directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1324 send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1325 for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1326 by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1327 the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1328 also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1329 option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1330 include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1332 Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1333 was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1334 (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1336 This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1337 first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1338 going to be deleted.
1340 If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1341 files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1342 prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1343 sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1344 destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1346 The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1347 without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1348 --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1349 bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1350 the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1351 bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1353 dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1354 side be done before the transfer starts.
1355 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1357 Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1358 and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1359 However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1360 and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1361 specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1362 algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1363 memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1365 dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1366 receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1367 per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1368 for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1369 including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1370 being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1371 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1373 dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1374 side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1375 removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1376 bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1377 bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1378 computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1379 If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1380 temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1381 is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1382 the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1383 using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1385 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1387 dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1388 side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1389 are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1390 you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1391 current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1392 recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1393 transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1394 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1396 dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1397 receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1398 delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1399 See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1400 this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1401 bf(--delete-excluded).
1402 See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1404 dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1405 requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1406 entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1407 suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1408 affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1409 present and later is no longer there.
1411 dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1412 bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1413 a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1414 (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1415 only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1416 that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1418 The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1419 display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1421 dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1422 even when there are I/O errors.
1424 dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1425 when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1426 deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1428 Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1429 using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1430 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1432 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1433 files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, all further deletions are
1434 skipped through the end of the transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning
1435 (including a count of the skipped deletions) and exits with an error code
1436 of 25 (unless some more important error condition also occurred).
1438 Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1439 about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1440 Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1441 version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1442 a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1443 really old versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1445 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1446 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1447 suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1448 may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1450 This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1451 data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1452 It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1454 The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1455 "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1456 gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1457 If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1458 "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1459 Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1460 be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1462 Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1465 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--max-size=0).
1467 dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1468 file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1469 transferring small, junk files.
1470 See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1472 Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--min-size=0).
1474 dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1475 rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1476 the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1478 dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1479 remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1480 remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1481 default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1483 If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1484 remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1485 remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1486 shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1487 running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1488 RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1490 Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1491 presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1492 or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1493 and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1494 argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1495 inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1496 double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1497 shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1500 tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1501 tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1504 (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1505 options in their .ssh/config file.)
1507 You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1508 environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1510 See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1512 dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1513 on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1514 the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1515 Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1516 program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1517 not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1520 One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1521 machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1523 quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1525 dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1526 situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1527 transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1528 bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1530 quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1532 If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1533 it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1536 quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1538 Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1539 rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1540 and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1542 Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1543 want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1544 option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1545 by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1547 When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1548 "remote" side is the receiver.
1550 Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1551 prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1552 option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1553 version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1555 dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1556 broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1557 systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1558 a file should be ignored.
1560 The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1561 initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1563 quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1564 .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1565 *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/)))
1567 then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1568 files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1569 are delimited by whitespace).
1571 Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1572 .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1573 rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1574 See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1576 If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1577 note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1578 regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1579 a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1580 control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1581 should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1582 bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1583 putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1584 The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1585 file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1588 dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1589 exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1590 most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1592 You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1593 to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1594 be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1595 argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1596 replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1598 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1600 dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1601 your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1603 quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1605 This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1606 been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1607 files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1610 quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1612 This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1614 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1617 dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1618 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1619 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1621 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1623 dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1624 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1625 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1626 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1628 dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1629 bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1630 the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1632 See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1634 dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1635 option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1636 Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1637 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1639 dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1640 exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1641 for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1642 transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1645 it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1646 information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1647 bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1648 it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1649 specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1650 them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1651 it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1652 (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1653 it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1654 of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1655 other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1656 bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1659 The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1660 source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1661 allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1664 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1666 If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1667 directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1668 contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1669 the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1670 mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1671 if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1672 also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1673 explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1675 that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1676 duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1677 force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1679 In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1680 instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1681 (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1682 specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1683 transfer". For example:
1685 quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1687 This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1688 was located on the remote "src" host.
1690 If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1691 bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1692 filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1693 receiving host's charset.
1695 NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be
1696 more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared
1697 between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements
1698 (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
1699 eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
1701 dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1702 file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1703 This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1704 merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1705 It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1706 file are split on whitespace).
1708 dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1709 the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1710 means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1711 characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1712 expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1714 If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1715 side will also be translated
1716 from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1717 wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1719 You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1720 variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1721 by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1722 overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1723 (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1724 Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1725 disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1728 Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1729 default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1730 This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1731 as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1733 dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1734 scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1735 on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1736 file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1737 Beginning with rsync 3.1.1, the temp-file names inside the specified DIR will
1738 not be prefixed with an extra dot (though they will still have a random suffix
1741 This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1742 have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1743 In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1744 partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1745 over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1746 into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1747 destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1748 truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1749 the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1750 temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1751 it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1752 someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1753 new version on the disk at the same time.
1755 If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1756 space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1757 which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1758 destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1759 have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1760 partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1761 about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1762 path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1763 single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1764 partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1765 rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1766 an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1768 dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1769 basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1770 looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1771 has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1772 found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1774 If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching
1775 alternate destination directories that are specified via bf(--compare-dest),
1776 bf(--copy-dest), or bf(--link-dest).
1778 Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1779 fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1780 filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1782 dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1783 the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1784 files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1785 directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1786 sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1787 directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1788 have changed from an earlier backup.
1789 This option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created)
1792 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1793 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1795 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1796 and the attributes updated.
1797 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1798 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1800 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1801 See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1803 NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a non-empty
1804 destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of the compare-dest
1805 hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh copy).
1807 dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1808 rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1809 directory using a local copy.
1810 This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1811 existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1812 been successfully transferred.
1814 Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1815 rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1816 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1817 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1819 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1820 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1822 dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1823 unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1824 The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1825 possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1828 quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1830 If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1831 attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1832 that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1833 ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1835 Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1836 provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1838 If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1839 and the attributes updated.
1840 If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1841 selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1843 This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1844 existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can affect alternate
1845 destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can get a bit
1846 muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0, an alternate-directory exact match
1847 would never be found (nor linked into the destination) when a destination file
1850 Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1851 link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1852 substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1855 If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1856 See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1858 Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1859 bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1860 specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1861 the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1863 dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1864 as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1865 being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1867 Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1868 be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1869 because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1870 blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection. This matching-data
1871 compression comes at a cost of CPU, though, and can be disabled by repeating
1872 the bf(-z) option, but only if both sides are at least version 3.1.1.
1874 Note that if your version of rsync was compiled with an external zlib (instead
1875 of the zlib that comes packaged with rsync) then it will not support the
1876 old-style compression, only the new-style (repeated-option) compression. In
1877 the future this new-style compression will likely become the default.
1879 The client rsync requests new-style compression on the server via the
1880 bf(--new-compress) option, so if you see that option rejected it means that
1881 the server is not new enough to support bf(-zz). Rsync also accepts the
1882 bf(--old-compress) option for a future time when new-style compression
1883 becomes the default.
1885 See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1886 that will not be compressed.
1888 dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1889 (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1890 the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1892 dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1893 not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1894 (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1896 You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1898 Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1899 of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1900 "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1902 The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1904 Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1905 matches 2 suffixes):
1907 verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1909 The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1941 This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1942 situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1943 its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1946 dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1947 and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1950 By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1951 what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1952 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1953 option is not specified.
1955 If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1956 on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1957 from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1958 "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1959 the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1960 users and groups and what you can do about it.
1962 dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
1963 specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
1964 receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
1965 values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
1966 replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
1967 or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
1968 also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
1969 names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
1970 why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
1971 numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
1973 verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
1975 The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
1976 all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
1977 your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
1979 Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
1980 to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
1981 the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
1982 bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
1983 match those in use on the receiving side.
1985 Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
1986 empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
1987 a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
1989 verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
1991 When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
1992 names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
1993 you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
1994 nameless IDs to different values.
1996 For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
1997 option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
1998 as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
1999 option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
2000 (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
2003 dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
2004 with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
2005 bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
2006 so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
2007 the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
2008 be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
2010 If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
2011 "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
2013 dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
2014 timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
2015 then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
2017 dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
2018 that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
2019 If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
2021 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2022 connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
2023 specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
2024 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2026 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
2027 rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
2028 double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
2029 syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
2030 option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2032 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
2033 who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
2034 sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
2035 slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
2036 details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
2037 special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
2038 connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
2039 bf(--daemon) mode section.
2041 dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
2042 a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
2043 rsync defaults to using
2044 blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
2045 ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
2047 dit(bf(--outbuf=MODE)) This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be
2048 None (aka Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little
2049 as a single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
2051 The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering
2052 when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
2054 dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
2055 changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
2056 This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
2057 If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
2058 if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
2059 with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
2062 The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
2063 format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
2064 type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
2065 other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
2068 The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
2071 it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
2073 it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
2075 it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
2076 (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
2077 it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
2079 it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
2080 have attributes that are being modified).
2081 it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
2082 a message (e.g. "deleting").
2085 The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
2086 directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
2087 special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
2089 The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
2090 will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
2091 a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
2092 item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
2093 dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
2094 a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
2096 The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
2099 it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
2100 (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
2102 Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
2103 change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
2104 it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
2105 by the file transfer.
2106 it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
2107 to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
2108 means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
2109 when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
2110 symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
2111 (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
2112 with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
2113 it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
2114 the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
2115 it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
2116 sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
2117 it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
2118 sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
2119 it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
2120 it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
2121 it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
2124 One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
2125 the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
2126 you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2127 outputting them as a verbose message).
2129 dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2130 rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2131 text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2132 with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2133 either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2134 of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2135 of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2136 rsyncd.conf manpage.
2138 Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2139 which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2140 way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2141 directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2142 the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2143 of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2144 as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2145 option for a description of the output of "%i".
2147 Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2148 one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2149 logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2150 is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2151 the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2152 (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2154 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2155 to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2156 requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2157 transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2158 enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2159 option if you wish to override this.
2161 Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2164 verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2166 This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2169 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2170 per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2171 (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2172 specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2173 For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2174 in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2176 The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2179 dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2180 on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2181 algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2182 if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2183 with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2185 The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2186 it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2187 sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2188 be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2189 For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2190 totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2191 files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2192 it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2193 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2194 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2195 it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2196 sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2197 followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2198 Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2199 if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2200 it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2201 that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2202 include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2203 "regular" into this heading.
2204 it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2205 This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2206 include the size of symlinks.
2207 it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2208 for just the transferred files.
2209 it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2210 send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2211 it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2212 recreating the updated files.
2213 it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2214 sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2215 file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2217 it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2218 sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2219 sending side for this to be present.
2220 it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2221 spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2222 it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2223 from the client side to the server side.
2224 it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2225 rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2226 bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2227 server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2230 dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2231 unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2232 valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2233 characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2236 The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2237 and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2238 would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2239 escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2241 dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2242 There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2243 set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2244 is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2245 (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2248 The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2249 by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2250 specifing the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2252 The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2253 G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2254 in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2256 Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2257 human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2258 two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2259 as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2260 options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2262 dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2263 transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2264 it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2265 bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2266 make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2268 dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2269 bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2270 partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2271 On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2272 dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2273 after it has served its purpose.
2275 Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2276 file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2278 rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2280 Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2281 the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2282 "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2283 partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2284 remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2286 If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2287 rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2288 sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2289 will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2290 receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2291 the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2294 If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2295 exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2296 rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2297 to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2298 rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2299 should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2300 bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2301 bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2302 left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2304 IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2305 is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2307 You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2308 variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2309 enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2310 specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2311 along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2312 environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2313 .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2314 option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2315 specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2316 bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2318 For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2319 bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2320 refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2321 of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2322 safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2324 dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2325 updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2326 transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2327 succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2328 atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2329 each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2330 bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2331 comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2332 ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2333 you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2334 Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2336 This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2337 transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2338 side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2339 you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2341 chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2342 the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2344 and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2345 delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2347 See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2348 update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2349 parallel hierarchy of files).
2351 dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2352 rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2353 that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2354 creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2355 recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2358 Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2359 not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2360 empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2362 Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2363 what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2364 mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2365 being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2366 destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2369 You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2370 by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2371 that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2373 quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2375 Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2376 the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2377 that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2378 (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2380 quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2382 If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2383 time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2384 in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2386 dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2387 showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2389 With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2390 bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2391 info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2393 While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2396 verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2398 In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2399 sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2400 per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2401 is maintained until the end.
2403 These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2404 in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2405 followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2406 dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2407 will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2408 was finishing the matched part of the file.
2410 When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2411 summary line that looks like this:
2413 verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2415 In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2416 of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2417 seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2418 during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2419 receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2420 the 396 total files in the file-list.
2422 In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2423 in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2424 transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2425 (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2426 knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2427 "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2428 in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2429 of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2432 dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2433 purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2434 transfer that may be interrupted.
2436 There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2437 on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2438 outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2439 want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2440 lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2441 order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2443 dit(bf(--password-file=FILE)) This option allows you to provide a password for
2444 accessing an rsync daemon via a file or via standard input if bf(FILE) is
2445 bf(-). The file should contain just the password on the first line (all other
2446 lines are ignored). Rsync will exit with an error if bf(FILE) is world
2447 readable or if a root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
2449 This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2450 ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2451 When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2452 option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2453 authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2456 dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2457 instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2458 arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2459 command that includes a
2460 destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2461 more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2462 Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2463 shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2464 without using this option. For example:
2466 verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2468 Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2469 by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2470 separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2471 unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2472 increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2473 bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2476 Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2477 that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2478 non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2479 option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2480 avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2481 need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2482 the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2484 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2485 rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2486 RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2487 be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2488 the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2489 been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2490 available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2492 For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2493 nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2495 Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2496 size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2497 rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2498 out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2500 Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2501 accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2502 files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2503 while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2504 occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2506 dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2507 another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2508 section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2510 dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2511 no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2512 This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2513 other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2515 Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2516 media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2517 can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2518 whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2519 partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2522 Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2523 system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2524 into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2525 (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2527 dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2528 file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2529 If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2530 See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2532 dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2533 is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2534 version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2535 bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2536 bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2537 batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2538 file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2540 dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2541 sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2542 the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2543 fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2544 separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2545 bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2546 will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2547 Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2548 to turn off any conversion.
2549 The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2550 affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2552 For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2555 If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2556 the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2557 remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2559 Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2560 (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2561 specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2562 For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2563 filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2565 When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2566 daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2567 regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2568 specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2570 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2571 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2572 control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2573 rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2575 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2576 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2579 dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4
2580 byte checksum seed is included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation
2581 (the more modern MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum
2582 seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This
2583 option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2584 applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case where the
2585 user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use
2586 the default of code(time()) for checksum seed.
2590 manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2592 The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2595 dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2596 daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2597 the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2599 If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2600 run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2601 become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2602 (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2603 requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2606 dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2607 run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2608 allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2609 makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2610 See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2612 dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2613 rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2614 specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2615 See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2617 dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2618 the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2619 The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2620 a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2621 the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2623 dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2624 parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2625 the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2626 definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2627 desire. For instance:
2629 verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2631 dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2632 rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2633 option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2634 be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2635 bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2636 bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2637 debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2640 dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2641 daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2642 global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2644 dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2645 given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2648 dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2649 given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2650 file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2651 case transfer logging is turned off.
2653 dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2654 rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2656 dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2657 daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2658 daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2659 used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2661 dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2662 when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2663 listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2664 versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2665 an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2666 try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2668 If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2669 will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2672 dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2673 page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2676 manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2678 The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2679 (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2680 specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2681 include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2683 As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2684 name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2685 turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2686 pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2687 filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2688 filename is not skipped.
2690 Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2691 command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2694 tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2695 tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2698 You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2699 below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2700 MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2701 must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2702 Here are the available rule prefixes:
2705 bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2706 bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2707 bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2708 bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2709 bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2710 bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2711 bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2712 bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2713 bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2716 When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2717 comment lines that start with a "#".
2719 Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2720 full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2721 specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2722 list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2724 does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2725 rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2726 an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2727 the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2730 Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2731 rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2732 the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2733 the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2735 manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2737 You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2738 "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2739 The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2740 the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2741 can take several forms:
2744 it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2745 particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2746 against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2747 regular expressions.
2748 Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2749 transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2750 per-directory rule).
2751 An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2752 tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2753 top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2754 end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2755 any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2756 named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2757 a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2759 it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2760 directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2761 it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2762 matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2763 characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2764 it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2765 it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2766 it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2767 it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2768 it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2769 character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2770 This means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a
2771 pattern contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has none.
2772 e.g. if you add a wildcard to "foo\bar" (which matches the backslash) you
2773 would need to use "foo\\bar*" to avoid the "\b" becoming just "b".
2774 it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2775 then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2776 directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2777 matched only against the final component of the filename.
2778 (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2779 can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2781 it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2782 "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2783 (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2787 Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2788 bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2789 include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2790 full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2791 "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2792 The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2793 when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2794 parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2795 because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2796 hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2797 For instance, this won't work:
2800 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2801 tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2805 This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2806 rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2807 directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2808 to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2809 "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2810 solution is to add specific include rules for all
2811 the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2816 tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2817 tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2818 tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2822 Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2825 it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2826 it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2827 transfer-root directory
2828 it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2829 it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2830 levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2831 it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2832 or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2833 it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2834 directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2835 bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2836 it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2837 only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2838 explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2841 The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2844 it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2845 against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2846 "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2847 was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2848 would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2849 if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2850 it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2851 the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2853 it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2854 should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2856 it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2857 side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2858 being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2859 unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2860 become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2861 which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2862 it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2863 side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2864 being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2865 protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2866 specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2867 it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2868 ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2869 option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2870 marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2871 on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2874 manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2876 You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2877 merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2880 There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2881 per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2882 its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2883 rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2884 it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2885 into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2886 must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2887 being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2888 also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2889 affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2895 tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2896 tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2897 tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2898 tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2899 tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2902 The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2905 it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2906 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2907 it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2908 patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2909 it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2910 CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2911 allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2912 provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2913 it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2914 "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2915 it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2916 it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2917 of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2918 space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2919 "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2921 it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2922 (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2923 default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2924 would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2925 treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2926 while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2927 per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2928 specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2929 then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2930 a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2933 Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2934 where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2935 subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2936 from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2937 inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2938 the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2939 dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2940 rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2941 file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2943 Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2944 anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2945 merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2946 would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2949 Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2952 tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2954 tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2959 This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2960 start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2961 filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2962 follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2965 If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2966 directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2967 dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2968 per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2970 quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2972 That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2973 directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2974 transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2975 the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2976 rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2978 Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2981 tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2982 tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2983 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2986 The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2987 "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2988 and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2989 and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2990 a part of the transfer.
2992 If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2993 you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2994 file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2995 use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2996 per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2997 ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2998 add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2999 rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
3003 tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
3008 tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
3011 Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
3012 the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
3013 at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
3014 that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
3015 affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
3016 the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
3017 omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
3018 your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
3020 manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
3022 You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
3023 rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
3024 list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
3025 parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
3026 inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
3027 out the parent's rules).
3029 manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
3031 As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
3032 "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
3033 anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
3034 a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
3035 transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
3036 directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
3038 Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
3039 trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
3040 option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
3041 changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
3042 host). The following examples demonstrate this.
3044 Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
3045 path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
3046 Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
3049 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
3050 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
3051 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
3052 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3053 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3057 Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
3058 +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
3059 +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
3060 Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
3061 Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
3065 Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
3066 +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
3067 +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3068 Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
3069 Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
3073 Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
3074 +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
3075 +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3076 Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3077 Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3080 The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
3081 look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
3082 (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
3084 manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
3086 Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
3087 sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
3088 without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
3089 this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
3092 tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3093 tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3096 However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
3097 files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
3098 receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
3099 the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
3100 because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
3101 rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
3103 quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
3105 However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
3106 either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
3107 line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
3108 the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
3109 remote .rules files exclude themselves):
3111 verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
3112 --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3114 In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
3115 transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
3116 merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
3117 per-directory merge rule.
3119 In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
3120 files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
3121 to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
3122 specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
3123 deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
3124 should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
3126 verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3128 rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3130 manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
3132 Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
3133 identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
3134 number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3135 source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3136 hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3137 write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3138 of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3139 client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3140 this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3142 Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3143 status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3144 updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3145 be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3146 at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3148 To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3149 with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3150 file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3151 using the information stored in the batch file.
3153 For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3154 option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3155 appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3156 destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3157 a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3158 destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3159 destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3160 current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3165 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3166 tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3167 tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3171 tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3172 tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3175 In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3176 and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3177 "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3178 into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3179 reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3182 it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3183 local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3184 remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3185 it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3186 rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3187 it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3188 the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3189 This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3190 bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3191 make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3192 standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3197 The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3198 to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3199 batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3200 is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3201 appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3202 and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3203 error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3204 if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3205 always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3206 option (when reading the batch).
3207 If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3208 partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3209 be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3212 The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3213 one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3214 protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3215 to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3216 creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3217 (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3218 older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3220 When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3221 to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3222 as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3223 For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3224 bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3225 bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3226 one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3228 The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3229 options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3230 shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3231 list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3232 user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3233 to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3235 The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3236 version uses a new implementation.
3238 manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3240 Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3241 link in the source directory.
3243 By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3244 "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3246 If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3247 target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3250 If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3251 copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3253 Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3254 example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3255 ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3256 bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3257 bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3258 they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3259 unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3260 bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3262 Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3263 (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3264 components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3266 Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3267 in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3268 use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3270 dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3271 symlinks for any other options to affect).
3273 dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3274 and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3276 dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3277 skip all safe symlinks.
3279 dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3282 dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3284 manpagediagnostics()
3286 rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3287 cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3288 version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3290 This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3291 facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3292 for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3293 remote shell like this:
3295 quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3297 then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3298 should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3299 rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3300 data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3301 it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3302 scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3303 for non-interactive logins.
3305 If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3306 try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3307 show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3309 manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3313 dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3314 dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3315 dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3316 dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3317 was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3318 them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3320 dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3321 dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3322 dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3323 dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3324 dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3325 dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3326 dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3327 dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3328 dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3329 dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3330 dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3331 dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3332 dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3333 dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3334 dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3337 manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3340 dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3341 ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3343 dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3344 environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3345 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3346 bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3347 sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3348 dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3349 override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3350 options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3351 dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3352 redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3353 rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3354 dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3355 password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3356 daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3357 password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3358 consult the remote shell's documentation.
3359 dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3360 are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3361 If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3362 dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3363 default .cvsignore file.
3368 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3376 times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3378 When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3380 See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3382 file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3385 see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3387 Please report bugs! See the web site at
3388 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3390 manpagesection(VERSION)
3392 This man page is current for version 3.1.1pre1 of rsync.
3394 manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3396 The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3397 and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3398 awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3399 when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3400 the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3401 named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3404 manpagesection(CREDITS)
3406 rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file
3407 COPYING for details.
3409 A WEB site is available at
3410 url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3411 includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3414 The primary ftp site for rsync is
3415 url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3417 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3418 Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3420 This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3421 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3423 manpagesection(THANKS)
3425 Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3426 David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3427 gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3429 Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3430 and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3434 rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3435 Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3438 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3439 url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)