a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool
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-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also --dirs (-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: --delete-before, --delete-after, --prune-empty-dirs, and
--delay-updates. Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify --delete is now
--delete-during when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0 (use --del or --delete-during
to request this improved deletion mode explicitly). See also the --delete-delay option that is a
better choice than using --delete-after.
Incremental recursion can be disabled using the --no-inc-recursive option or its shorter --no-i-r
alias.
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-l, --links
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the destination.
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-t, --times
This tells rsync to transfer modification times along with the files and update them on the remote
system. Note that if this option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not
been modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will cause the next transfer
to behave as if it used -I, causing all files to be updated (though rsync’s delta-transfer
algorithm will make the update fairly efficient if the files haven’t actually changed, you’re much
better off using -t).
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-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.
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--exclude=PATTERN
This option is a simplified form of the --filter option that defaults to an exclude rule and does
not allow the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
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-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.
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--rsync-path=PROGRAM
Use this to specify what program is to be run on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used
when rsync is not in the default remote-shell’s path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any program, script, or command
sequence you’d care to run, so long as it does not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that
rsync is using to communicate.
One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote machine for use with the
--relative option. For instance:
rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/
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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
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Before a command is executed, its input and output may be redirected using a special notation interpreted
by the shell. Redirection may also be used to open and close files for the current shell execution
environment. The following redirection operators may precede or appear anywhere within a simple command
or may follow a command. Redirections are processed in the order they appear, from left to right.
Redirecting Output
Redirection of output causes the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for
writing on file descriptor n, or the standard output (file descriptor 1) if n is not specified. If the
file does not exist it is created; if it does exist it is truncated to zero size.
The general format for redirecting output is:
[n]>word
If the redirection operator is >, and the noclobber option to the set builtin has been enabled, the
redirection will fail if the file whose name results from the expansion of word exists and is a regular
file. If the redirection operator is >|, or the redirection operator is > and the noclobber option to
the set builtin command is not enabled, the redirection is attempted even if the file named by word
exists.
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If a command is terminated by the control operator &, the shell executes the command in the background in
a subshell. The shell does not wait for the command to finish, and the return status is 0.
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