a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool

-a, --archive
       This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way  of  saying  you  want  recursion  and  want  to
       preserve  almost  everything  (with -H being a notable omission).  The only exception to the above
       equivalence is when --files-from is specified, in which case -r is not implied.

       Note that -a does not preserve hardlinks, because finding multiply-linked files is expensive.  You
       must separately specify -H.

-v, --verbose
       This  option  increases  the amount of information you are given during the transfer.  By default,
       rsync works silently. A single -v will give you information about what files are being transferred
       and  a  brief summary at the end. Two -v options will give you information on what files are being
       skipped and slightly more information at the end. More than two -v options should only be used  if
       you are debugging rsync.

       Note that the names of the transferred files that are output are done using a default --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  -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  --itemize-changes  or
       adding  "%i"  to  the  --out-format  setting), the output (on the client) increases to mention all
       items that are changed in any way.  See the --out-format option for more details.

-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 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 --skip-compress option for the default list of file suffixes that will not be compressed.

-e, --rsh=COMMAND
       This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell  program  to  use  for  communication
       between  the  local  and  remote  copies  of  rsync.  Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
       default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.

       If this option is used with [user@]host::module/path, then the remote shell 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 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.  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:

    -e 'ssh -p 2234'
    -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"'

(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect options in their  .ssh/config
file.)

You  can  also  choose  the  remote  shell program using the RSYNC_RSH environment variable, which
accepts the same range of values as -e.

See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.

--chmod
       This  option  tells  rsync to apply one or more comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of
       the files in the transfer.  The resulting value is treated as though it were 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 --perms is not enabled.

       In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the 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, the following will ensure that  all
       directories  get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable, that both are user-writable and
       group-writable, and that both have consistent executability across all bits:

              --chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X

              It is also legal to specify multiple --chmod options, as each additional option is  just  appended
              to the list of changes to make.

              See  the --perms and --executability options for how the resulting permission value can be applied
              to the files in the transfer.

--progress
       This  option  tells  rsync to print information showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a
       bored user something to watch.  Implies --verbose if it wasn’t already specified.

              While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that looks like this:

                    782448  63%  110.64kB/s    0:00:04

              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 rsync’s 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.

              When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a summary line  that  looks
              like this:

                   1238099 100%  146.38kB/s    0:00:08  (xfer#5, to-check=169/396)

              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.

Local:  rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]

Access via remote shell:
  Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
  Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST: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