mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
-manpage(rsync)(1)(15 Mar 2005)()()
-manpagename(rsync)(faster, flexible replacement for rcp)
+manpage(rsync)(1)(10 Feb 2008)()()
+manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
manpagesynopsis()
-rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
+verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
-rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
+Access via remote shell:
+ Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
+ Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
-rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
+Access via rsync daemon:
+ Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
+ rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
+ Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
+ rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
-rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
-
-rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
-
-rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
-
-rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
+Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
+instead of copying.
manpagedescription()
-rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does,
-but has many more options and uses the rsync remote-update protocol to
-greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is being
-updated.
-
-The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the
-differences between two sets of files across the network connection, using
-an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the technical
-report that accompanies this package.
+Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
+copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
+remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
+every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
+set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
+which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
+differences between the source files and the existing files in the
+destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
+improved copy command for everyday use.
+
+Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
+algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
+in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
+requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
+quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
-itemize(
+itemization(
it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
- it() does not require root privileges
+ it() does not require super-user privileges
it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
- it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for
+ it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
mirroring)
)
manpagesection(GENERAL)
-There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
-
-itemize(
- it() for copying local files. This is invoked when neither
- source nor destination path contains a : separator
- it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using
- a remote shell program as the transport (such as ssh or
- rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a
- single : separator.
- it() for copying from a remote machine to the local machine
- using a remote shell program. This is invoked when the source
- contains a : separator.
- it() for copying from a remote rsync server to the local
- machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
- separator or an rsync:// URL.
- it() for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync
- server. This is invoked when the destination path contains a ::
- separator or an rsync:// URL.
- it() for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell
- program as the transport, using rsync server on the remote
- machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a ::
- separator and the bf(--rsh=COMMAND) (aka "bf(-e COMMAND)") option is
- also provided.
- it() for copying from the local machine to a remote machine
- using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
- server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the
- destination path contains a :: separator and the
- bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option is also provided.
- it() for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the
- same way as rsync transfers except that you leave off the
- local destination.
-)
+Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
+current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
-Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source
-and destination paths must be local.
+There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
+remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
+rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
+the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
+a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
+source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
+host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
+"USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
+an exception to this latter rule).
+
+As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
+destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
+
+As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
+host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
manpagesection(SETUP)
You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
-One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of
-security.
-
Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
machines.
tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
)
+Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
+copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
+copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
+
+quote(
+tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
+tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
+)
+
You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
an improved copy command.
+Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
+particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
+
quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
-This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host
-somehost.mydomain.com. (See the following section for more details.)
+See the following section for more details.
manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
-The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using
-quoted spaces in the SRC. Some examples:
+The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
+specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
+or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
-quote(tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
+quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
+tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
+tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
-This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each
-additional arg must include the same "modname/" prefix as the first one,
-and must be preceded by a single space. All other spaces are assumed
-to be a part of the filenames.
+Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
+examples:
-quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest))
+quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
+tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
-This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This
-word-splitting is done by the remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means
-that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args based on
-whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer
-a filename that contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the
-whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand, or use wildcards
-in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
+This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
+not as easy to use as the first method.
-quote(
-tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest)nl()
-tt(rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest)nl()
-)
-
-This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched
-wildcards. If it complains about "no match", put the name in quotes.
+If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
+specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
+the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
+instance:
-manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER)
+quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
-It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the
-transport. In this case you will connect to a remote rsync server
-running on TCP port 873.
+manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
-You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
-environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
-your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
-proxy connections to port 873.
+It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
+In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
+using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
+the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
+CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
that:
-itemize(
+itemization(
it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
- it() the remote server may print a message of the day when you
+ it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
+ it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
connect.
- it() if you specify no path name on the remote server then the
- list of accessible paths on the server will be shown.
+ it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
+ list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
- specified files on the remote server is provided.
+ specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
+ it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
)
-Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then
+An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
+
+verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
+
+Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
-manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
-
-It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync
-server capabilities on the remote machine, while still using ssh or
-rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want to connect
-to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a
-firewall), but you still want to have access to the rsync server
-features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM,
-below).
-
-From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as
-using it to connect to an rsync server, except that you must
-explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
-bf(--rsh=COMMAND). (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on
-this functionality.)
+You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
+environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
+your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
+proxy connections to port 873.
-In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync
-server user, you can use '-l user' on your remote-shell command:
+You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
+setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
+wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
+contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
+command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
+example:
-verb( rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" \
- rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path)
+verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
+ rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
+ rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
+
+The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
+which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
+(%H).
+
+manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
+
+It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
+named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
+system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
+Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
+a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
+home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
+daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
+the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
+change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
+transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
+configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
+connections from "localhost".)
+
+From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
+connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
+rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
+explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
+bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
+will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
+
+verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
+
+If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
+user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
+module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
+give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
+this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
+
+verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
-used to check against the rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
-
-manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER)
-
-An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the
-rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more information. By default the configuration
-file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is running over a remote
-shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name
-is rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer
-(typically $HOME).
+used to log-in to the "module".
-manpagesection(RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM)
+manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
-See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync
-server configuration file.
+In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
+daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
+to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
+For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
+socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
+file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
+daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
-Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote
-user is root (e.g. chroot, setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to
-configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync server port
-if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
-
-To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section
-in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
+If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
+no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
+ --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
- -a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
+ -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
+ --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
- --no-relative turn off --relative
- --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
+ --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place
+ --append append data onto shorter files
+ --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
- -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
+ -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
+ -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
- -o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
+ -E, --executability preserve executability
+ --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
+ -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
+ -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
+ -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
-g, --group preserve group
- -D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
- -t, --times preserve times
- -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
+ --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
+ --specials preserve special files
+ -D same as --devices --specials
+ -t, --times preserve modification times
+ -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
+ --super receiver attempts super-user activities
+ --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
- -n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
- -W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
- --no-whole-file always use incremental rsync algorithm
+ -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
+ -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
-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
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
- --existing only update files that already exist
- --ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
- --remove-sent-files sent files/symlinks are removed from sender
+ --existing skip creating new files on receiver
+ --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
+ --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
--del an alias for --delete-during
- --delete delete files that don't exist on sender
+ --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during xfer, not before
+ --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
- --delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
+ --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
+ --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
+ -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
- --timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
+ --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
+ --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
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
+ --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
+ --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
--files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
- -0, --from0 all *from file lists are delimited by nulls
- --version print version number
+ -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
+ -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
+ --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
+ --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
- --no-blocking-io turn off blocking I/O when it is default
--stats give some file-transfer stats
+ -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
+ -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
- --log-format=FORMAT log file-transfers using specified format
- --password-file=FILE read password from FILE
+ --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
+ --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
+ --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
+ --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
+ --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
+ --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
+ --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
- -h, --help show this help screen)
+ --version print version number
+(-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
accepted: verb(
--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
--no-detach do not detach from the parent
--port=PORT listen on alternate port number
+ --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
+ --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
+ --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
- -h, --help show this help screen)
+ -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
manpageoptions()
can be used instead.
startdit()
-dit(bf(-h, --help)) Print a short help page describing the options
-available in rsync.
+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)
+option without any other args.
dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
you are debugging rsync.
Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using
-a default bf(--log-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
-file and, if the item is a symlink, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
+a default bf(--out-format) of "%n%L", which tells you just the name of the
+file and, if the item is a link, where it points. At the single bf(-v)
level of verbosity, this does not mention when a file gets its attributes
changed. If you ask for an itemized list of changed attributes (either
-bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--log-format) setting), the
+bf(--itemize-changes) or adding "%i" to the bf(--out-format) setting), the
output (on the client) increases to mention all items that are changed in
-any way. See the bf(--log-format) option for more details.
+any way. See the bf(--out-format) option for more details.
dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking rsync from
cron.
+dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
+by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
+message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
+that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
+a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
+request the list of modules from the daemon.
+
dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
-already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp.
-This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
+already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
+This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
+be updated.
-dit(bf(--size-only)) Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are
-already the same size and have the same modification time-stamp. With the
-bf(--size-only) option, files will not be transferred if they have the same size,
-regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync
-after using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps
-exactly.
+dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
+finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
+transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
+time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
+when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
+not preserve timestamps exactly.
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
times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
(allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
-dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This forces the sender to checksum all files using
-a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The checksum is then
-explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name
-which already exist and have the same checksum and size on the
-receiver are not transferred. This option can be quite slow.
+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
+uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
+of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
+changes this to compare a 128-bit MD4 checksum for each file that has a
+matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
+a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
+this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
+so this can slow things down significantly.
+
+The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
+scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
+its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
+file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
+either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
+
+Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
+correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
+checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
+automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
+option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
-everything. The only exception to this is if bf(--files-from) was
+everything (with -H being a notable omission).
+The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
specify bf(-H).
+dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
+the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
+only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
+bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
+(e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
+specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
+(e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
+
+For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
+bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
+could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
+
+The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
+bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
+Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
+positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
+changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
+details).
+
dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
+Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
+incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
+transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
+completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
+does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
+both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
+
+Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
+disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
+bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
+Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
+bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
+(use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
+explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
+than using bf(--delete-after).
+
+Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
+option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
+
dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
-example, if you used the command
+example, if you used this command:
-quote(tt( rsync /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
+quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
-then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote
+... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
machine. If instead you used
-quote(tt( rsync -R /foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/))
+quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
-then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote
-machine -- the full path name is preserved. To limit the amount of
-path information that is sent, do something like this:
+then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
+machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
+"implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
+above example).
-quote(
-tt( cd /foo)nl()
-tt( rsync -R bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/)nl()
-)
+Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
+real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
+symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
+behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
+a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
+include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
+path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
+need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
+
+It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
+implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
+sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
+the source path, like this:
+
+quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
+
+That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
+dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
+(2) For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
+source path. For example, when pushing files:
-That would create /tmp/bar/foo.c on the remote machine.
+quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
-dit(bf(--no-relative)) Turn off the bf(--relative) option. This is only
-needed if you want to use bf(--files-from) without its implied bf(--relative)
-file processing.
+(Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
+"cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
+If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
+for a non-daemon transfer):
-dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) When combined with the bf(--relative) option, the
-implied directories in each path are not explicitly duplicated as part
-of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
-the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the
-path. For instance, if you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with bf(-R),
-the default is for rsync to ensure that "/path" and "/path/foo" on the
-destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the source. Using
-the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option would omit both of these implied dirs,
-which means that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a
-symlink of the other machine, rsync would not try to change this.
+quote(
+tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
+tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
+)
+
+dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
+bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
+directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
+means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
+left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
+created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
+elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
+the receiving side.
+
+For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
+transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
+are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
+"bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
+delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
+the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
+"path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
+ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
+preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
+affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
+
+When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
+option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
+wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
-Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), the bf(--omit-dir-times)
-option will be enabled.
+
+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
+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 "Pp *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
+deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
+need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
+in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
+your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
+rule would never be reached).
dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
-tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory. This is
-very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally
+tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
+side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
(otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
will keep their original filenames).
dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
-file. (If an existing destination file has a modify time equal to the
+file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
-In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
-between the sender and receiver is always
-considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
-is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory or a
-symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
-regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel
-free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
+Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
+files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
+is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
+date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
+where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
+the timestamps.
dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
and then move it into place. Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
rsync will be unable to update a file in-place that is not writable by the
receiving user.
+dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
+the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
+the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
+side. Any files that are the same size or shorter on the receiving size
+are skipped. Files that do not yet exist on the receiving side are also
+sent, since they are considered to have 0 length. Implies bf(--inplace),
+but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
+file's length).
+
+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
+checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
+final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
+bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
+
+Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
+bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
+transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
+will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
+
dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
-unless the directory was specified on the command-line as either "." or a
-name with a trailing slash (e.g. "foo/"). Without this option or the
+unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
+(e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
-output a message to that effect for each one).
+output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
+bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
+
+This option is implied by the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
+bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
+directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
+if you want to override this. This option is also implied by
+bf(--files-from).
dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
symlink on the destination.
-dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the file that
+dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
-source path itself when bf(--relative) is used.
+source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
+additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
give unexpected results.
-dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to recreate hard links on
-the remote system to be the same as the local system. Without this
-option hard links are treated like regular files.
+dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
+a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
+useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
+they would be using bf(--copy-links).
+
+Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
+symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
+the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
+bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
+
+See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
+side.
+
+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
+receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
+
+For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
+"file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
+bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
+directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
+bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
+"bar".
+
+One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
+the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
+create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
+subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
+content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
+you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
+to modify your receiving hierarchy.
+
+See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
+
+dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
+the transfer and link together the corresponding files on the receiving
+side. Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated
+as though they were separate files.
+
+When you are updating a non-empty destination, this option only ensures
+that files that are hard-linked together on the source are hard-linked
+together on the destination. It does NOT currently endeavor to break
+already existing hard links on the destination that do not exist between
+the source files. Note, however, that if one or more extra-linked files
+have content changes, they will become unlinked when updated (assuming you
+are not using the bf(--inplace) option).
+
+Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
+the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
+connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
+you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
+very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
+certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
+see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
+
+If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
+a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
+exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
+the transfer, just its efficiency. One way to avoid this is to disable
+incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
+
+dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
+destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
+also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
+be the source permissions.)
+
+When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
+
+quote(itemization(
+ it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
+ permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
+ the execute permission for the file.
+ it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
+ file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
+ permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
+ specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
+ their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
+ directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
+))
-Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link
-are in the list of files being sent.
+Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
+rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
+such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
+
+In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
+permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
+permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
+bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
+all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
+behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
+putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
+and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
+
+quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
+
+You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
+
+quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
+
+(Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
+the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
+
+The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
+directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
+versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
+newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
+destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
+observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
+non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
+(Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
+these behaviors.)
+
+dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
+executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
+not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
+'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
+executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
+modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
+
+quote(itemization(
+ it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
+ permissions.
+ it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
+ has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
+))
-This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
+If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
-dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) On the receiving side, if a symlink is
-pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching a directory
-from the sender.
+dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
+ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
+The option also implies bf(--perms).
-dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the incremental rsync algorithm
-is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. 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.
+The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
+option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
+and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
+
+dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the remote
+extended attributes to be the same as the local ones.
-dit(bf(--no-whole-file)) Turn off bf(--whole-file), for use when it is the
-default.
+For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
+super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
+the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
+a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
-dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes rsync to set the destination
-permissions to be the same as the source permissions.
+dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
+comma-separated "chmod" strings to the permission of the files in the
+transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it was the permissions
+that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
+can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
-Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the
-source file's permissions and the umask at the receiving end, while all
-other files (including updated files) retain their existing permissions
-(which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities, such as cp).
+In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
+manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
+prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
+file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example:
+
+quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
+
+It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
+additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
+
+See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
+permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
-destination file to be the same as the source file. On most systems,
-only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preservation
-is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
-circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
+destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
+receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
+and bf(--fake-super) options).
+Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
+the invoking user on the receiving side.
+
+The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
+may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
+bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
-program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
-receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation
-is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some
-circumstances. See the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion.
+program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
+specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
+is a member of will be preserved.
+Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
+user on the receiving side.
-dit(bf(-D, --devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
-block device information to the remote system to recreate these
-devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
+The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
+default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
+(see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
+
+dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
+block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
+This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
+super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
+
+dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
+such as named sockets and fifos.
+
+dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
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).
-dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This tells rsync to not do any file transfers,
-instead it will just report the actions it would have taken.
+dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
+activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
+activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
+all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
+option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
+for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
+also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
+being running as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
+super-user can use bf(--no-super).
+
+dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
+super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
+special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
+includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
+device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
+any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
+the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
+access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
+files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
+This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
+extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
+
+This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
+ACLs from incompatible systems.
+
+The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
+To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync
+path:
+
+quote(tt( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/))
+
+Since there is only one "side" in a local copy, this option affects both
+the sending and receiving of files. You'll need to specify a copy using
+"localhost" if you need to avoid this, possibly using the "lsh" shell
+script (from the support directory) as a substitute for an actual remote
+shell (see bf(--rsh)).
+
+This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
+
+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.
+up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
+not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs"
filesystem. It doesn't seem to handle seeks over null regions
correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
-dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync not to cross filesystem
-boundaries when recursing. This is useful for transferring the
-contents of only one filesystem.
-
-dit(bf(--existing)) This tells rsync not to create any new files --
-only update files that already exist on the destination.
-
-dit(bf(--ignore-existing))
-This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on
-the destination.
+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
+bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
+to do before one actually runs it.
+
+The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
+dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
+call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output is the same to the
+extent practical, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
+send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
+the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
+statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
+where no file transfers are needed.
+
+dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option the delta-transfer algorithm
+is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. 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.
-dit(bf(--remove-sent-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
-side the files and/or symlinks that are newly created or whose content is
-updated on the receiving side. Directories and devices are not removed,
-nor are files/symlinks whose attributes are merely changed.
+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
+through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
+the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
+in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
+same filesystem.
+
+If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
+the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
+encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
+the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
+
+If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
+bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
+treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
+by this option.
+
+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
+combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
+(which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
+
+dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
+already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
+directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
+
+This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
+option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
+a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
+used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
+already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
+permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
+is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
+
+dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
+side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
+and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
-This option has no effect unless directory recursion is enabled.
+Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
+was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
+(bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
-This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea
-to run first using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files would be
-deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.
+This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
+first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
+going to be deleted.
If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
---delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will currently choose the
-bf(--delete-before) algorithm. A future version may change this to choose the
-bf(--delete-during) algorithm. See also bf(--delete-after).
+--delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
+bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to an rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
+the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
+bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
-side be done before the transfer starts. This is the default if bf(--delete)
-or bf(--delete-excluded) is specified without one of the --delete-WHEN options.
+side be done before the transfer starts.
See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
-specified).
+specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
+algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
+memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. This is
but it is only supported beginning with rsync version 2.6.4.
See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
+dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
+side be computed during the transfer, and then removed after the transfer
+completes. If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
+temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
+is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
+the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
+using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
+incremental scan).
+
dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
-current transfer.
+current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
+recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
+transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
even when there are I/O errors.
-dit(bf(--force)) This options tells rsync to delete directories even if
-they are not empty when they are to be replaced by non-directories. This
-is only relevant without bf(--delete) because deletions are now done depth-first.
-Requires the bf(--recursive) option (which is implied by bf(-a)) to have any effect.
+dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
+when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
+deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
+
+Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
+using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
+bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
-files or directories (NUM must be non-zero).
-This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
+files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
+and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
+
+Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
+about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
+Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
+version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
+a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
+older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
-suffixed with a letter to indicate a size multiplier (K, M, or G) and
+suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
+The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
+"M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
+gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
+If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
+"MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
+Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
+be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
+
+Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
+2147483649 bytes.
+
+dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
+file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
+transferring small, junk files.
+See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE.
+
dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
-remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync server on the
+remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
-running rsync server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING
-TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM" above.
+running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
+RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
-presented to rsync as a single argument. For example:
+presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
+or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
+and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
+argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
+inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
+double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
+shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
-quote(tt( -e "ssh -p 2234"))
+quote(
+tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
+tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
+)
(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
options in their .ssh/config file.)
One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
-quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" hst:c/d /e/))
+quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
-systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if
+systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
a file should be ignored.
-The exclude list is initialized to:
+The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
+initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
-.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej
-.del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/)))
+.nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
+*.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .bzr/)))
-then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
+then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
are delimited by whitespace).
Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
.cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
-See the bf(cvs(1)) manual for more information.
+See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
-to build up the list of files to exclude.
+to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
+be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
+argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
+replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
-quote(tt( --filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
+quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
rule:
-quote(tt( --filter='- .rsync-filter'))
+quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
-dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is similar to the bf(--exclude)
-option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns listed in the file
-FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with
-';' or '#' are ignored.
-If em(FILE) is bf(-) the list will be read from standard input.
+dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
+option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
+Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
+If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
-dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This specifies a list of include patterns
-from a file.
-If em(FILE) is "-" the list will be read from standard input.
+dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
+option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
+Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
+If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
-exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or "-"
+exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
-quote(itemize(
+quote(itemization(
it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
information that is specified for each item in the file (use
- bf(--no-relative) if you want to turn that off).
+ bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
- them.
+ them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
(bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
+ it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
+ of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
+ other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
+ bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
))
-The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
+The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
command:
quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
-directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the
-contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent unless you specified bf(-r)
-or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
+directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
+contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
+the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
+mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
+if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
+also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
+explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
+Also note
that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
was located on the remote "src" host.
-dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a
+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
merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
file are split on whitespace).
+If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
+bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
+filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
+receiving host's charset.
+
+dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and some options to
+the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
+means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
+characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
+expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
+
+If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args will also be translated
+from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
+wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
+
dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
-scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files
-transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create
-the temporary files in the receiving directory.
+scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
+on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
+file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
+
+This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
+have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
+In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory in on a different disk
+partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
+over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
+into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
+destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
+truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
+the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
+temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
+it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
+someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
+new version on the disk at the same time.
+
+If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
+space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
+which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
+destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
+have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
+partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
+about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
+path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
+single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
+partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
+rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
+an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
selected to try to speed up the transfer.
+This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
+rsync treats existing files as definitive (so it never looks in the link-dest
+dirs when a destination file already exists), and as malleable (so it might
+change the attributes of a destination file, which affects all the hard-linked
+versions).
+
+Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
+link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
+substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
+file is updated.
+
If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
-bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-root user when bf(-o) was specified
-(or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding the bf(-o) option
-when sending to an old rsync.
+bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
+specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
+the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
-Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can
+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.
+See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
+that will not be compressed.
+
+dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
+(see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
+the bf(--compress) option is implied.
+
+dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
+not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
+(without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
+
+You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
+
+Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
+of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
+"[:alpha:]", are supported).
+
+The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
+
+Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
+matches 2 suffixes):
+
+verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
+
+The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (several
+of these are newly added for 3.0.0):
+
+verb( gz/zip/z/rpm/deb/iso/bz2/t[gb]z/7z/mp[34]/mov/avi/ogg/jpg/jpeg)
+
+This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
+situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
+its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
+different default).
+
dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
at both ends.
timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
+dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
+that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
+If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
+
+dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
+connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
+specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
+option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
+
dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
+dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
+who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
+sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
+slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
+details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
+special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
+connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
+bf(--daemon) mode section.
+
dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
rsync defaults to using
blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
-dit(bf(--no-blocking-io)) Turn off bf(--blocking-io), for use when it is the
-default.
-
dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
-This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--log-format='%i %n%L').
-
-The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 9 letters long. The general
-format is like the string bf(UXcstpoga)), where bf(U) is replaced by the
-kind of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
+This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
+If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
+if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
+with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
+verbose messages).
+
+The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
+format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
+type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
modified.
-The update types that replace the bf(U) are as follows:
+The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
-quote(itemize(
+quote(itemization(
it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
(sent).
it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
(received).
- it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occuring for the item
+ it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
(such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
- it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard-link to another item (requires
+ it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
bf(--hard-links)).
it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
have attributes that are being modified).
))
The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
-dir, an bf(L) for a symlink, and a bf(D) for a device.
+directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
+special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
-item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces each
-letter with a space, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
-a "?" (this happens when talking to an older rsync).
+item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
+dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
+a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
-quote(itemize(
+quote(itemization(
it() A bf(c) means the checksum of the file is different and will be
- updated by the file transfer (requries bf(--checksum)).
+ updated by the file transfer (requires bf(--checksum)).
it() A bf(s) means the size of the file is different and will be updated
by the file transfer.
it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
- to the server's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
- means that the time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
- anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a file or device is transferred
- without bf(--times).
+ to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
+ means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
+ anytime a symlink is transferred, or when a regular file or device is
+ transferred without bf(--times).
it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
- the server's value (requires bf(--perms)).
+ the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
- server's value (requires bf(--owner) and root privileges).
+ sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
- server's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
- it() The bf(a) is reserved for a future enhanced version that supports
- extended file attributes, such as ACLs.
+ sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
+ it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for reporting update (access) time changes
+ (a feature that is not yet released).
+ it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
+ it() The bf(x) slot is reserved for reporting extended attribute changes
+ (a feature that is not yet released).
))
One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
outputting them as a verbose message).
-dit(bf(--log-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
-rsync client outputs to the user on a per-file basis. The format is a text
+dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
+rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a text
string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed with
a percent (%) character. For a list of the possible escape characters, see
-the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage. (Note that this
-option does not affect what a daemon logs to its logfile.)
+the "log format" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
Specifying this option will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated
in a significant way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a
-touched directory) unless the itemized-changes escape (%i) is included in
-the string, in which case the logging of names increases to mention any
-item that is updated in any way (as long as the receiving side is version
-2.6.4). See the bf(--itemized-changes) option for a description of the
+touched directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is
+included in the string, the logging of names increases to mention any
+item that is changed in any way (as long as the receiving side is at least
+2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes) option for a description of the
output of "%i".
The bf(--verbose) option implies a format of "%n%L", but you can use
-bf(--log-format) without bv(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
+bf(--out-format) without bf(--verbose) if you like, or you can override
the format of its per-file output using this option.
-Rsync will output the log-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
+Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
-(followed, of course, by the log-format output).
+(followed, of course, by the out-format output).
+
+dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
+to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
+requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
+transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
+enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
+option if you wish to override this.
+
+Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
+happening:
+
+verb( rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" src/ dest/)
+
+This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
+unexpectedly.
+
+dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
+per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
+(which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
+specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
+For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
+in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective the rsync
algorithm is for your data.
+The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
+ it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
+ sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc.
+ it() bf(Number of files transferred) is the count of normal files that
+ were updated via the rsync algorithm, which does not include created
+ dirs, symlinks, etc.
+ it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
+ This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
+ include the size of symlinks.
+ it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
+ for just the transferred files.
+ it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
+ send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
+ it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
+ recreating the updated files.
+ it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
+ sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
+ file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
+ list.
+ it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
+ sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
+ sending side for this to be present.
+ it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
+ spent sending the file list to the receiver.
+ it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
+ from the client side to the server side.
+ it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
+ rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
+ bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
+ server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
+))
+
+dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
+unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
+valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
+characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
+setting.
+
+The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
+and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
+would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
+escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
+
+dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
+This makes big numbers output using larger units, with a K, M, or G suffix. If
+this option was specified once, these units are K (1000), M (1000*1000), and
+G (1000*1000*1000); if the option is repeated, the units are powers of 1024
+instead of 1000.
+
dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
-dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then deletes it
+dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
after it has served its purpose.
+
Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
(since
-rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
+rsync is sending files without using the delta transfer algorithm).
Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
-If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add a directory
-bf(--exclude) of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
-will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
-untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
-the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add an "bf(--exclude=.rsync-partial/)"
-rule at the end of any other filter rules. Note that if you are
-supplying your own filter rules, you may need to manually insert a
-rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
-it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
-a trailing bf(--exclude='*') rule, the auto-added rule would never be
-reached).
+If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
+rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
+sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
+will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
+receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
+the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
+filter rules.
+
+If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
+exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
+rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
+to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
+rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
+should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
+bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
+bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
+left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
-enabled, but rather it effects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
+enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
-.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only time that the bf(--partial)
-option does not look for this environment value is (1) when bf(--inplace) was
-specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), or (2) when
+.rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
+option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
+specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
-For the purposes of the server-config's "refuse options" setting,
+For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
-each file's destination directory, but you can override this by specifying
-the bf(--partial-dir) option. (Note that RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR has no effect
-on this value, nor is bf(--partial-dir) considered to be implied for the
-purposes of the server-config's "refuse options" setting.)
-Conflicts with bf(--inplace).
+each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
+bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
+comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
+".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
+you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
+Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
-you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless there is no
+you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
+there is no
chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
-absolute).
+absolute)
+and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
+delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
parallel hierarchy of files).
+dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
+rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
+that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
+creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
+recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
+rules.
+
+Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
+what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
+mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
+being deleted (because an exclude hides source files and protects
+destination files).
+
+You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
+by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
+that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
+
+quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
+
+Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
+the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
+that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
+(note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
+
+quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
+
+If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
+time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
+in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
+
dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
something to watch.
Implies bf(--verbose) if it wasn't already specified.
-When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
+While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
+looks like this:
verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
-This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that
-is complete, the current calculated file-completion rate (including both
-data over the wire and data being matched locally), and the estimated time
-remaining in this transfer.
+In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
+sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
+per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
+is maintained until the end.
+
+These statistics can be misleading if the delta transfer algorithm is
+in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
+followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
+dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
+will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
+was finishing the matched part of the file.
-After a file is complete, the data looks like this:
+When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
+summary line that looks like this:
-verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396))
+verb( 1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfer#5, to-check=169/396))
-This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final
-transfer rate for the file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer
-the file, and the addition of a total-transfer summary in parentheses.
-These additional numbers tell you how many files have been updated, and
-what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
+In this example, the file was 1238099 bytes long in total, the average rate
+of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
+seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
+during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
+receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
+the 396 total files in the file-list.
dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
transfer that may be interrupted.
-dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password
-in a file for accessing a remote rsync server. Note that this option
-is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in
-transport, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file
-must not be world readable. It should contain just the password as a
-single line.
+dit(bf(--password-file)) This option allows you to provide a password in a
+file for accessing an rsync daemon. The file must not be world readable.
+It should contain just the password as a single line.
+
+This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
+ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
+When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
+option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
+authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
+config file).
dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
-instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is no destination
-specified, so you don't usually need to use it explicitly. However, it can
-come in handy for a power user that wants to avoid the "bf(-r --exclude='/*/*')"
-options that rsync might use as a compatibility kluge when generating a
-non-recursive listing.
+instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
+arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
+command that includes a
+destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
+more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
+Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
+shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
+without using this option. For example:
+
+verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
+
+Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
+that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
+non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
+option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
+avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
+need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
+the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option is most effective when
dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
-section for details.
+section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
+
+dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
+no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
+This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
+other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
+
+Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
+media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
+can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
+whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
+partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
+happening).
+
+Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
+system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
+into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
+(when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
-If em(FILE) is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input.
+If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
+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
+bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
+bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
+batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
+file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
+
+dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
+sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
+the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
+fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
+separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
+bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
+will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
+Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
+to turn off any conversion.
+The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
+affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
+
+For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
+run "iconv --list".
+
+If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
+the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
+remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
+
+Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
+(including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
+specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
+For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
+filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
+
+When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
+daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
+regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
+specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
+
dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
+If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
+will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
+is the case.
+
dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer
NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each block and file
MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated
-by the server and defaults to the current time(). This option
+by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This option
is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or
in the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed.
-Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of time()
+Note that setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use the default of code(time())
for checksum seed.
enddit()
run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
(rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
-requests accordingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more
+requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
details.
-dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address
-when run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option or when connecting to a
-rsync server. The bf(--address) option allows you to specify a specific IP
-address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible
-in conjunction with the bf(--config) option. See also the "address" global
-option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
+dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
+run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
+allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
+makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
+See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
dit(bf(--bwlimit=KBPS)) This option allows you to specify a maximum
transfer rate in kilobytes per second for the data the daemon sends.
dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
-a remote shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case
+a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
+dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
+given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
+file.
+
+dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
+given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
+file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
+case transfer logging is turned off.
+
+dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
+rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
+
dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
+If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
+will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
+is the case.
+
dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
enddit()
the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
can take several forms:
-itemize(
+itemization(
it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
regular expressions.
- Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at either the "root of the
+ Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
per-directory rule).
- An unqualified "foo" would match any file or directory named "foo"
- anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
- the
+ An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
+ tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
- end of the file name. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
+ end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
of the transfer.
it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
- directory, not a file, link, or device.
- it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
- *?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
- matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
- it() the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a
- single asterisk pattern "*" will stop at slashes.
- it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**"
+ directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
+ it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
+ matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
+ characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
+ it() a '*' matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes).
+ it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
+ it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
+ 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.
+ 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
matched only against the final component of the filename.
(Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
down.)
+ it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
+ "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
+ (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
+ version 2.6.7.
)
Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
-"- *" rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all
+"- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
+solution is to add specific include rules for all
the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
works fine:
Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
-itemize(
- it() "- *.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
- it() "- /foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
- it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
- it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
+itemization(
+ it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
+ it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
+ transfer-root directory
+ it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
+ it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
+ levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
+ it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
+ or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
- directories and C source files but nothing else.
+ directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
+ bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
-itemize(
+itemization(
it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
"- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
also disabled).
it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
- (below) in order to have the rules that are read-in from the file
+ (below) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
default to having that modifier set. For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
- per-directory rules apply only on the server side.
+ per-directory rules apply only on the sending side.
)
The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
-itemize(
- it() A "/" specifies that the include/exclude should be treated as an
- absolute path, relative to the root of the filesystem. For example,
+itemization(
+ it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
+ against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
"-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
- was sending files from the "/etc" directory.
- it() A "!" specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
+ was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
+ would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
+ if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
+ it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
non-directories.
it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
- which are an alternate way to specify server-side includes/excludes.
+ which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
+ it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
+ ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
+ option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
+ marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
+ on the source from being deleted on the destination.
)
Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
-filter file. All rules read-in prior to the start of the directory scan
+filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
of the transfer).
affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
-your filter rules; e.g. "--filter=-C".
+your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
option is used. This file's name is created by appending
".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains
a command-line suitable for updating a destination tree using that
-batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like) shell, optionally
+batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell,
+optionally
passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used
instead of the original path. This is useful when the destination tree
path differs from the original destination tree path.
into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
-itemize(
+itemization(
it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
-is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file
+is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
-to handle.
-
-The bf(--dry-run) (bf(-n)) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime
-error.
+to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
+creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
+(Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
+older than that with newer versions will not work.)
When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
-unsafe links to be omitted altogether.
+unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
+bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
-(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough bf("..")
+(start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
components to ascend from the directory being copied.
+Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
+in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
+use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
+
+dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
+symlinks for any other options to affect).
+
+dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
+and duplicate all safe symlinks.
+
+dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
+skip all safe symlinks.
+
+dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
+ones.
+
+dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
+
manpagediagnostics()
rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
-dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by waitpid()
+dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
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)
dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
more details.
+dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
+environment variable.
dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
-password to a shell transport such as ssh.
+password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
+consult the remote shell's documentation.
dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
-are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync server.
+are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
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.
manpageseealso()
-rsyncd.conf(5)
+bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
manpagebugs()
-times are transferred as unix time_t values
+times are transferred as *nix time_t values
When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
unmodified files.
see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
-Please report bugs! See the website at
+Please report bugs! See the web site at
url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
+manpagesection(VERSION)
+
+This man page is current for version 3.0.0pre9 of rsync.
+
+manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
+
+The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
+and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
+awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
+when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
+the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
+named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
+ssh login.
+
manpagesection(CREDITS)
rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file
url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
+Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
manpagesection(THANKS)
-Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
-and David Bell for helpful suggestions, patches and testing of rsync.
-I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
+Especial thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
+David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
+gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
-Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer,
-Martin Pool, Wayne Davison, J.W. Schultz.
+Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
+and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
manpageauthor()
rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
-Many people have later contributed to it.
+Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
+by Wayne Davison.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at
url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)
git.samba.org / rsync.git / blobdiff