mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(26 Jan 2014)()()
+manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Jan 2018)()()
manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
manpagesynopsis()
current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
-differences. See the tech report for details.
+differences in the data. Note that the expansion of wildcards on the
+commandline (*.c) into a list of files is handled by the shell before
+it runs rsync and not by rsync itself (exactly the same as all other
+posix-style programs).
quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
(%H).
+Note also that if the RSYNC_SHELL environment varibable is set, that
+program will be used to run the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG command instead of
+using the default shell of the system() call.
+
manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
-J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
--super receiver attempts super-user activities
--fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
- -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
+ -S, --sparse turn sequences of nulls into sparse blocks
--preallocate allocate dest files before writing
-n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
-W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
+ --checksum-choice=STR choose the checksum algorithms
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
--size-only skip files that match in size
- --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
+ -@, --modify-window=NUM set the accuracy for mod-time comparisons
-T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
substituted by your shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into
your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
-startdit()
+description(
+
dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
+However, do keep in mind that a daemon's "max verbosity" setting will limit how
+high of a level the various individual flags can be set on the daemon side.
+For instance, if the max is 2, then any info and/or debug flag that is set to
+a higher value than what would be set by bf(-vv) will be downgraded to the
+bf(-vv) level in the daemon's logging.
+
dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
information
This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
+See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug
This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
+See also the "max verbosity" caveat above when dealing with a daemon.
dit(bf(--msgs2stderr)) This option changes rsync to send all its output
directly to stderr rather than to send messages to the client side via the
protocol (which normally outputs info messages via stdout). This is mainly
intended for debugging in order to avoid changing the data sent via the
protocol, since the extra protocol data can change what is being tested.
-Keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
+The option does not affect the remote side of a transfer without using
+bf(--remote-option) -- e.g. bf(-M--msgs2stderr).
+Also keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
messages back to the client side, so if you are doing any daemon-transfer
debugging using this option, you should start up a daemon using bf(--no-detach)
so that you can see the stderr output on the daemon side.
when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
not preserve timestamps exactly.
-dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
+dit(bf(-@, --modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
-value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
-to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
-transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
-times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
-(allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
+value. The default is 0, which matches just integer seconds. If you specify a
+negative value (and the receiver is at least version 3.1.3) then nanoseconds
+will also be taken into account. Specifying 1 is useful for copies to/from MS
+Windows FAT filesystems, because FAT represents times with a 2-second
+resolution (allowing times to differ from the original by up to 1 second).
+
+If you want all your transfers to default to comparing nanoseconds, you can
+create a ~/.popt file and put these lines in it:
+
+quote(tt( rsync alias -a -a@-1))
+quote(tt( rsync alias -t -t@-1))
+
+With that as the default, you'd need to specify bf(--modify-window=0) (aka
+bf(-@0)) to override it and ignore nanoseconds, e.g. if you're copying between
+ext3 and ext4, or if the receiving rsync is older than 3.1.3.
dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
-bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
+bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be forced on, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
(e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
(e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
-Implies bf(--inplace),
-but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
-file's length).
+Implies bf(--inplace).
+
+The use of bf(--append) can be dangerous if you aren't 100% sure that the files
+that are longer have only grown by the appending of data onto the end. You
+should thus use include/exclude/filter rules to ensure that such a transfer is
+only affecting files that you know to be growing via appended data.
dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
symlink on the destination.
trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
-Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
-used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
-"copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
+The above name filtering can be overridden by using one or more filter options
+with the bf(x) modifier. When you specify an xattr-affecting filter rule, rsync
+requires that you do your own system/user filtering, as well as any additional
+filtering for what xattr names are copied and what names are allowed to be
+deleted. For example, to skip the system namespace, you could specify:
+
+quote(--filter='-x system.*')
+
+To skip all namespaces except the user namespace, you could specify a
+negated-user match:
+
+quote(--filter='-x! user.*')
+
+To prevent any attributes from being deleted, you could specify a receiver-only
+rule that excludes all names:
+
+quote(--filter='-xr *')
+
+Note that the bf(-X) option does not copy rsync's special xattr values (e.g.
+those used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX).
+This "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
+This option also has the side-effect of avoiding early creation of directories
+in incremental recursion copies. The default bf(--inc-recursive) copying
+normally does an early-create pass of all the sub-directories in a parent
+directory in order for it to be able to then set the modify time of the parent
+directory right away (without having to delay that until a bunch of recursive
+copying has finished). This early-create idiom is not necessary if directory
+modify times are not being preserved, so it is skipped. Since early-create
+directories don't have accurate mode, mtime, or ownership, the use of this
+option can help when someone wants to avoid these partially-finished
+directories.
+
dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
-up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
-not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
+up less space on the destination. If combined with bf(--inplace) the
+file created might not end up with sparse blocks with some combinations
+of kernel version and/or filesystem type. If bf(--whole-file) is in
+effect (e.g. for a local copy) then it will always work because rsync
+truncates the file prior to writing out the updated version.
+
+Note that versions of rsync older than 3.1.3 will reject the combination of
+bf(--sparse) and bf(--inplace).
dit(bf(--preallocate)) This tells the receiver to allocate each destination
-file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use
-the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
+file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only
+use the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
bf(fallocate)(2) system call or Cygwin's bf(posix_fallocate)(3), not the slow
-glibc implementation that writes a zero byte into each block.
+glibc implementation that writes a null byte into each block.
Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If the
destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS,
etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
+If combined with bf(--sparse), the file will only have sparse blocks (as
+opposed to allocated sequences of null bytes) if the kernel version and
+filesystem type support creating holes in the allocated data.
+
dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
where no file transfers were needed.
-dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
-is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
+dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) This option disables rsync's delta-transfer algorithm,
+which causes all transferred files to be sent whole. The transfer may be
faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
batch-writing option is in effect.
+dit(bf(--checksum-choice=STR)) This option overrides the checksum algoriths.
+If one algorithm name is specified, it is used for both the transfer checksums
+and (assuming bf(--checksum) is specifed) the pre-transfer checksumming. If two
+comma-separated names are supplied, the first name affects the transfer
+checksums, and the second name affects the pre-transfer checksumming.
+
+The algorithm choices are "auto", "md4", "md5", and "none". If "none" is
+specified for the first name, the bf(--whole-file) option is forced on and no
+checksum verification is performed on the transferred data. If "none" is
+specified for the second name, the bf(--checksum) option cannot be used. The
+"auto" option is the default, where rsync bases its algorithm choice on the
+protocol version (for backward compatibility with older rsync versions).
+
dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
by this option.
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
creating files (including directories) that do not exist
yet on the destination. If this option is
Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
-option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
+option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo)). If this bug affects your
version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
(implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
-for an exact match.
+for an exact match (there is a limit of 20 such directories).
If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
and the attributes updated.
If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
-blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
+blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection. This matching-data
+compression comes at a cost of CPU, though, and can be disabled by repeating
+the bf(-z) option, but only if both sides are at least version 3.1.1.
+
+Note that if your version of rsync was compiled with an external zlib (instead
+of the zlib that comes packaged with rsync) then it will not support the
+old-style compression, only the new-style (repeated-option) compression. In
+the future this new-style compression will likely become the default.
+
+The client rsync requests new-style compression on the server via the
+bf(--new-compress) option, so if you see that option rejected it means that
+the server is not new enough to support bf(-zz). Rsync also accepts the
+bf(--old-compress) option for a future time when new-style compression
+becomes the default.
See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
that will not be compressed.
would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
-outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
+outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0)) if you
want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
+)
+description(
+
dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use
the default of code(time()) for checksum seed.
-enddit()
+)
manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
-startdit()
+description(
+
dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
-enddit()
+
+)
manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
+ This means that there is an extra level of backslash removal when a
+ pattern contains wildcard characters compared to a pattern that has none.
+ e.g. if you add a wildcard to "foo\bar" (which matches the backslash) you
+ would need to use "foo\\bar*" to avoid the "\b" becoming just "b".
it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
)
Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
-bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
-include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
-full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
-"/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
-The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
-when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
-parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
-because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
-hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
-For instance, this won't work:
+bf(-a)), every subdir component of every path is visited left to right, with
+each directory having a chance for exclusion before its content. In this way
+include/exclude patterns are applied recursively to the pathname of each node
+in the filesystem's tree (those inside the transfer). The exclude patterns
+short-circuit the directory traversal stage as rsync finds the files to send.
+
+For instance, to include "/foo/bar/baz", the directories "/foo" and "/foo/bar"
+must not be excluded. Excluding one of those parent directories prevents the
+examination of its content, cutting off rsync's recursion into those paths and
+rendering the include for "/foo/bar/baz" ineffectual (since rsync can't match
+something it never sees in the cut-off section of the directory hierarchy).
+
+The concept path exclusion is particularly important when using a trailing '*'
+rule. For instance, this won't work:
quote(
tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
on the source from being deleted on the destination.
+ it() An bf(x) indicates that a rule affects xattr names in xattr copy/delete
+ operations (and is thus ignored when matching file/dir names). If no
+ xattr-matching rules are specified, a default xattr filtering rule is
+ used (see the bf(--xattrs) option).
)
manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
-startdit()
+description(
dit(bf(0)) Success
dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
-enddit()
+)
manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
-startdit()
+description(
dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
more details.
If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
default .cvsignore file.
-enddit()
+)
manpagefiles()
manpagesection(VERSION)
-This man page is current for version 3.1.1pre1 of rsync.
+This man page is current for version 3.1.3 of rsync.
manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
git.samba.org / rsync.git / blobdiff