1: mailto(rsync-bugs@samba.org)
2: manpage(rsync)(1)(28 Sep 2013)()()
3: manpagename(rsync)(a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool)
4: manpagesynopsis()
5:
6: verb(Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]
7:
8: Access via remote shell:
9: Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
10: Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:DEST
11:
12: Access via rsync daemon:
13: Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
14: rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
15: Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST::DEST
16: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST)
17:
18: Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files
19: instead of copying.
20:
21: manpagedescription()
22:
23: Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can
24: copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a
25: remote rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control
26: every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the
27: set of files to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm,
28: which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the
29: differences between the source files and the existing files in the
30: destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an
31: improved copy command for everyday use.
32:
33: Rsync finds files that need to be transferred using a "quick check"
34: algorithm (by default) that looks for files that have changed in size or
35: in last-modified time. Any changes in the other preserved attributes (as
36: requested by options) are made on the destination file directly when the
37: quick check indicates that the file's data does not need to be updated.
38:
39: Some of the additional features of rsync are:
40:
41: itemization(
42: it() support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
43: it() exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
44: it() a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
45: it() can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
46: it() does not require super-user privileges
47: it() pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
48: it() support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for
49: mirroring)
50: )
51:
52: manpagesection(GENERAL)
53:
54: Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the
55: current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts).
56:
57: There are two different ways for rsync to contact a remote system: using a
58: remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh) or contacting an
59: rsync daemon directly via TCP. The remote-shell transport is used whenever
60: the source or destination path contains a single colon (:) separator after
61: a host specification. Contacting an rsync daemon directly happens when the
62: source or destination path contains a double colon (::) separator after a
63: host specification, OR when an rsync:// URL is specified (see also the
64: "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" section for
65: an exception to this latter rule).
66:
67: As a special case, if a single source arg is specified without a
68: destination, the files are listed in an output format similar to "ls -l".
69:
70: As expected, if neither the source or destination path specify a remote
71: host, the copy occurs locally (see also the bf(--list-only) option).
72:
73: Rsync refers to the local side as the "client" and the remote side as the
74: "server". Don't confuse "server" with an rsync daemon -- a daemon is always a
75: server, but a server can be either a daemon or a remote-shell spawned process.
76:
77: manpagesection(SETUP)
78:
79: See the file README for installation instructions.
80:
81: Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via
82: a remote shell (as well as some that you can access using the rsync
83: daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync uses ssh
84: for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a
85: different remote shell by default, such as rsh or remsh.
86:
87: You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the bf(-e)
88: command line option, or by setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
89:
90: Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination
91: machines.
92:
93: manpagesection(USAGE)
94:
95: You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source
96: and a destination, one of which may be remote.
97:
98: Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
99:
100: quote(tt(rsync -t *.c foo:src/))
101:
102: This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the
103: current directory to the directory src on the machine foo. If any of
104: the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync
105: remote-update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the
106: differences. See the tech report for details.
107:
108: quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp))
109:
110: This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the
111: machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The
112: files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that symbolic
113: links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved
114: in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the
115: size of data portions of the transfer.
116:
117: quote(tt(rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp))
118:
119: A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an
120: additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing
121: / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this directory" as opposed
122: to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the
123: containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the
124: destination. In other words, each of the following commands copies the
125: files in the same way, including their setting of the attributes of
126: /dest/foo:
127:
128: quote(
129: tt(rsync -av /src/foo /dest)nl()
130: tt(rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo)nl()
131: )
132:
133: Note also that host and module references don't require a trailing slash to
134: copy the contents of the default directory. For example, both of these
135: copy the remote directory's contents into "/dest":
136:
137: quote(
138: tt(rsync -av host: /dest)nl()
139: tt(rsync -av host::module /dest)nl()
140: )
141:
142: You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and
143: destination don't have a ':' in the name. In this case it behaves like
144: an improved copy command.
145:
146: Finally, you can list all the (listable) modules available from a
147: particular rsync daemon by leaving off the module name:
148:
149: quote(tt(rsync somehost.mydomain.com::))
150:
151: See the following section for more details.
152:
153: manpagesection(ADVANCED USAGE)
154:
155: The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by
156: specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first,
157: or with the hostname omitted. For instance, all these work:
158:
159: quote(tt(rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/)nl()
160: tt(rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/)nl()
161: tt(rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}))
162:
163: Older versions of rsync required using quoted spaces in the SRC, like these
164: examples:
165:
166: quote(tt(rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest)nl()
167: tt(rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest))
168:
169: This word-splitting still works (by default) in the latest rsync, but is
170: not as easy to use as the first method.
171:
172: If you need to transfer a filename that contains whitespace, you can either
173: specify the bf(--protect-args) (bf(-s)) option, or you'll need to escape
174: the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will understand. For
175: instance:
176:
177: quote(tt(rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest))
178:
179: manpagesection(CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC DAEMON)
180:
181: It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport.
182: In this case you will directly connect to a remote rsync daemon, typically
183: using TCP port 873. (This obviously requires the daemon to be running on
184: the remote system, so refer to the STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT
185: CONNECTIONS section below for information on that.)
186:
187: Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except
188: that:
189:
190: itemization(
191: it() you either use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to
192: separate the hostname from the path, or you use an rsync:// URL.
193: it() the first word of the "path" is actually a module name.
194: it() the remote daemon may print a message of the day when you
195: connect.
196: it() if you specify no path name on the remote daemon then the
197: list of accessible paths on the daemon will be shown.
198: it() if you specify no local destination then a listing of the
199: specified files on the remote daemon is provided.
200: it() you must not specify the bf(--rsh) (bf(-e)) option.
201: )
202:
203: An example that copies all the files in a remote module named "src":
204:
205: verb( rsync -av host::src /dest)
206:
207: Some modules on the remote daemon may require authentication. If so,
208: you will receive a password prompt when you connect. You can avoid the
209: password prompt by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PASSWORD to
210: the password you want to use or using the bf(--password-file) option. This
211: may be useful when scripting rsync.
212:
213: WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all
214: users. On those systems using bf(--password-file) is recommended.
215:
216: You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the
217: environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair pointing to
218: your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
219: proxy connections to port 873.
220:
221: You may also establish a daemon connection using a program as a proxy by
222: setting the environment variable RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG to the commands you
223: wish to run in place of making a direct socket connection. The string may
224: contain the escape "%H" to represent the hostname specified in the rsync
225: command (so use "%%" if you need a single "%" in your string). For
226: example:
227:
228: verb( export RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG='ssh proxyhost nc %H 873'
229: rsync -av targethost1::module/src/ /dest/
230: rsync -av rsync:://targethost2/module/src/ /dest/ )
231:
232: The command specified above uses ssh to run nc (netcat) on a proxyhost,
233: which forwards all data to port 873 (the rsync daemon) on the targethost
234: (%H).
235:
236: manpagesection(USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION)
237:
238: It is sometimes useful to use various features of an rsync daemon (such as
239: named modules) without actually allowing any new socket connections into a
240: system (other than what is already required to allow remote-shell access).
241: Rsync supports connecting to a host using a remote shell and then spawning
242: a single-use "daemon" server that expects to read its config file in the
243: home dir of the remote user. This can be useful if you want to encrypt a
244: daemon-style transfer's data, but since the daemon is started up fresh by
245: the remote user, you may not be able to use features such as chroot or
246: change the uid used by the daemon. (For another way to encrypt a daemon
247: transfer, consider using ssh to tunnel a local port to a remote machine and
248: configure a normal rsync daemon on that remote host to only allow
249: connections from "localhost".)
250:
251: From the user's perspective, a daemon transfer via a remote-shell
252: connection uses nearly the same command-line syntax as a normal
253: rsync-daemon transfer, with the only exception being that you must
254: explicitly set the remote shell program on the command-line with the
255: bf(--rsh=COMMAND) option. (Setting the RSYNC_RSH in the environment
256: will not turn on this functionality.) For example:
257:
258: verb( rsync -av --rsh=ssh host::module /dest)
259:
260: If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the
261: user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-user value (for a
262: module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must
263: give the '-l user' option to ssh when specifying the remote-shell, as in
264: this example that uses the short version of the bf(--rsh) option:
265:
266: verb( rsync -av -e "ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module /dest)
267:
268: The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be
269: used to log-in to the "module".
270:
271: manpagesection(STARTING AN RSYNC DAEMON TO ACCEPT CONNECTIONS)
272:
273: In order to connect to an rsync daemon, the remote system needs to have a
274: daemon already running (or it needs to have configured something like inetd
275: to spawn an rsync daemon for incoming connections on a particular port).
276: For full information on how to start a daemon that will handling incoming
277: socket connections, see the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page -- that is the config
278: file for the daemon, and it contains the full details for how to run the
279: daemon (including stand-alone and inetd configurations).
280:
281: If you're using one of the remote-shell transports for the transfer, there is
282: no need to manually start an rsync daemon.
283:
284: manpagesection(SORTED TRANSFER ORDER)
285:
286: Rsync always sorts the specified filenames into its internal transfer list.
287: This handles the merging together of the contents of identically named
288: directories, makes it easy to remove duplicate filenames, and may confuse
289: someone when the files are transferred in a different order than what was
290: given on the command-line.
291:
292: If you need a particular file to be transferred prior to another, either
293: separate the files into different rsync calls, or consider using
294: bf(--delay-updates) (which doesn't affect the sorted transfer order, but
295: does make the final file-updating phase happen much more rapidly).
296:
297: manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
298:
299: Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
300:
301: To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word
302: files and mail folders, I use a cron job that runs
303:
304: quote(tt(rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup))
305:
306: each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine
307: "arvidsjaur".
308:
309: To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile
310: targets:
311:
312: verb( get:
313: rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
314: put:
315: rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
316: sync: get put)
317:
318: this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the
319: connection. I then do CVS operations on the remote machine, which saves a
320: lot of time as the remote CVS protocol isn't very efficient.
321:
322: I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the
323: command:
324:
325: tt(rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge")
326:
327: This is launched from cron every few hours.
328:
329: manpagesection(OPTIONS SUMMARY)
330:
331: Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer
332: to the detailed description below for a complete description. verb(
333: -v, --verbose increase verbosity
334: --info=FLAGS fine-grained informational verbosity
335: --debug=FLAGS fine-grained debug verbosity
336: --msgs2stderr special output handling for debugging
337: -q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
338: --no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see caveat)
339: -c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
340: -a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
341: --no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
342: -r, --recursive recurse into directories
343: -R, --relative use relative path names
344: --no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
345: -b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
346: --backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
347: --suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
348: -u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
349: --inplace update destination files in-place
350: --append append data onto shorter files
351: --append-verify --append w/old data in file checksum
352: -d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
353: -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
354: -L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
355: --copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
356: --safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the tree
357: --munge-links munge symlinks to make them safer
358: -k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to dir into referent dir
359: -K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
360: -H, --hard-links preserve hard links
361: -p, --perms preserve permissions
362: -E, --executability preserve executability
363: --chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
364: -A, --acls preserve ACLs (implies -p)
365: -X, --xattrs preserve extended attributes
366: -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
367: -g, --group preserve group
368: --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
369: --specials preserve special files
370: -D same as --devices --specials
371: -t, --times preserve modification times
372: -O, --omit-dir-times omit directories from --times
373: -J, --omit-link-times omit symlinks from --times
374: --super receiver attempts super-user activities
375: --fake-super store/recover privileged attrs using xattrs
376: -S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
377: --preallocate allocate dest files before writing
378: -n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
379: -W, --whole-file copy files whole (w/o delta-xfer algorithm)
380: -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
381: -B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
382: -e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
383: --rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on remote machine
384: --existing skip creating new files on receiver
385: --ignore-existing skip updating files that exist on receiver
386: --remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
387: --del an alias for --delete-during
388: --delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
389: --delete-before receiver deletes before xfer, not during
390: --delete-during receiver deletes during the transfer
391: --delete-delay find deletions during, delete after
392: --delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not during
393: --delete-excluded also delete excluded files from dest dirs
394: --ignore-missing-args ignore missing source args without error
395: --delete-missing-args delete missing source args from destination
396: --ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
397: --force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
398: --max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
399: --max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
400: --min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
401: --partial keep partially transferred files
402: --partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
403: --delay-updates put all updated files into place at end
404: -m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from file-list
405: --numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
406: --usermap=STRING custom username mapping
407: --groupmap=STRING custom groupname mapping
408: --chown=USER:GROUP simple username/groupname mapping
409: --timeout=SECONDS set I/O timeout in seconds
410: --contimeout=SECONDS set daemon connection timeout in seconds
411: -I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match size and time
412: --size-only skip files that match in size
413: --modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
414: -T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
415: -y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
416: --compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
417: --copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
418: --link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
419: -z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
420: --compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
421: --skip-compress=LIST skip compressing files with suffix in LIST
422: -C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files in the same way CVS does
423: -f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
424: -F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
425: repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
426: --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
427: --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
428: --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
429: --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
430: --files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
431: -0, --from0 all *from/filter files are delimited by 0s
432: -s, --protect-args no space-splitting; wildcard chars only
433: --address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
434: --port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
435: --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
436: --blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
437: --outbuf=N|L|B set out buffering to None, Line, or Block
438: --stats give some file-transfer stats
439: -8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
440: -h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
441: --progress show progress during transfer
442: -P same as --partial --progress
443: -i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
444: -M, --remote-option=OPTION send OPTION to the remote side only
445: --out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
446: --log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
447: --log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
448: --password-file=FILE read daemon-access password from FILE
449: --list-only list the files instead of copying them
450: --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
451: --write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
452: --only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating dest
453: --read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
454: --protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
455: --iconv=CONVERT_SPEC request charset conversion of filenames
456: --checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed (advanced)
457: -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
458: -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
459: --version print version number
460: (-h) --help show this help (see below for -h comment))
461:
462: Rsync can also be run as a daemon, in which case the following options are
463: accepted: verb(
464: --daemon run as an rsync daemon
465: --address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
466: --bwlimit=RATE limit socket I/O bandwidth
467: --config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
468: -M, --dparam=OVERRIDE override global daemon config parameter
469: --no-detach do not detach from the parent
470: --port=PORT listen on alternate port number
471: --log-file=FILE override the "log file" setting
472: --log-file-format=FMT override the "log format" setting
473: --sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
474: -v, --verbose increase verbosity
475: -4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
476: -6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
477: -h, --help show this help (if used after --daemon))
478:
479: manpageoptions()
480:
481: Rsync accepts both long (double-dash + word) and short (single-dash + letter)
482: options. The full list of the available options are described below. If an
483: option can be specified in more than one way, the choices are comma-separated.
484: Some options only have a long variant, not a short. If the option takes a
485: parameter, the parameter is only listed after the long variant, even though it
486: must also be specified for the short. When specifying a parameter, you can
487: either use the form --option=param or replace the '=' with whitespace. The
488: parameter may need to be quoted in some manner for it to survive the shell's
489: command-line parsing. Keep in mind that a leading tilde (~) in a filename is
490: substituted by your shell, so --option=~/foo will not change the tilde into
491: your home directory (remove the '=' for that).
492:
493: startdit()
494: dit(bf(--help)) Print a short help page describing the options
495: available in rsync and exit. For backward-compatibility with older
496: versions of rsync, the help will also be output if you use the bf(-h)
497: option without any other args.
498:
499: dit(bf(--version)) print the rsync version number and exit.
500:
501: dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information you
502: are given during the transfer. By default, rsync works silently. A
503: single bf(-v) will give you information about what files are being
504: transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two bf(-v) options will give you
505: information on what files are being skipped and slightly more
506: information at the end. More than two bf(-v) options should only be used if
507: you are debugging rsync.
508:
509: In a modern rsync, the bf(-v) option is equivalent to the setting of groups
510: of bf(--info) and bf(--debug) options. You can choose to use these newer
511: options in addition to, or in place of using bf(--verbose), as any
512: fine-grained settings override the implied settings of bf(-v). Both
513: bf(--info) and bf(--debug) have a way to ask for help that tells you
514: exactly what flags are set for each increase in verbosity.
515:
516: dit(bf(--info=FLAGS))
517: This option lets you have fine-grained control over the
518: information
519: output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
520: number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
521: level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
522: that support higher levels). Use
523: bf(--info=help)
524: to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
525: are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
526:
527: verb( rsync -a --info=progress2 src/ dest/
528: rsync -avv --info=stats2,misc1,flist0 src/ dest/ )
529:
530: Note that bf(--info=name)'s output is affected by the bf(--out-format) and
531: bf(--itemize-changes) (bf(-i)) options. See those options for more
532: information on what is output and when.
533:
534: This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
535: reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
536: to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
537:
538: dit(bf(--debug=FLAGS))
539: This option lets you have fine-grained control over the debug
540: output you want to see. An individual flag name may be followed by a level
541: number, with 0 meaning to silence that output, 1 being the default output
542: level, and higher numbers increasing the output of that flag (for those
543: that support higher levels). Use
544: bf(--debug=help)
545: to see all the available flag names, what they output, and what flag names
546: are added for each increase in the verbose level. Some examples:
547:
548: verb( rsync -avvv --debug=none src/ dest/
549: rsync -avA --del --debug=del2,acl src/ dest/ )
550:
551: Note that some debug messages will only be output when bf(--msgs2stderr) is
552: specified, especially those pertaining to I/O and buffer debugging.
553:
554: This option was added to 3.1.0, so an older rsync on the server side might
555: reject your attempts at fine-grained control (if one or more flags needed
556: to be send to the server and the server was too old to understand them).
557:
558: dit(bf(--msgs2stderr)) This option changes rsync to send all its output
559: directly to stderr rather than to send messages to the client side via the
560: protocol (which normally outputs info messages via stdout). This is mainly
561: intended for debugging in order to avoid changing the data sent via the
562: protocol, since the extra protocol data can change what is being tested.
563: Keep in mind that a daemon connection does not have a stderr channel to send
564: messages back to the client side, so if you are doing any daemon-transfer
565: debugging using this option, you should start up a daemon using bf(--no-detach)
566: so that you can see the stderr output on the daemon side.
567:
568: This option has the side-effect of making stderr output get line-buffered so
569: that the merging of the output of 3 programs happens in a more readable manner.
570:
571: dit(bf(-q, --quiet)) This option decreases the amount of information you
572: are given during the transfer, notably suppressing information messages
573: from the remote server. This option is useful when invoking rsync from
574: cron.
575:
576: dit(bf(--no-motd)) This option affects the information that is output
577: by the client at the start of a daemon transfer. This suppresses the
578: message-of-the-day (MOTD) text, but it also affects the list of modules
579: that the daemon sends in response to the "rsync host::" request (due to
580: a limitation in the rsync protocol), so omit this option if you want to
581: request the list of modules from the daemon.
582:
583: dit(bf(-I, --ignore-times)) Normally rsync will skip any files that are
584: already the same size and have the same modification timestamp.
585: This option turns off this "quick check" behavior, causing all files to
586: be updated.
587:
588: dit(bf(--size-only)) This modifies rsync's "quick check" algorithm for
589: finding files that need to be transferred, changing it from the default of
590: transferring files with either a changed size or a changed last-modified
591: time to just looking for files that have changed in size. This is useful
592: when starting to use rsync after using another mirroring system which may
593: not preserve timestamps exactly.
594:
595: dit(bf(--modify-window)) When comparing two timestamps, rsync treats the
596: timestamps as being equal if they differ by no more than the modify-window
597: value. This is normally 0 (for an exact match), but you may find it useful
598: to set this to a larger value in some situations. In particular, when
599: transferring to or from an MS Windows FAT filesystem (which represents
600: times with a 2-second resolution), bf(--modify-window=1) is useful
601: (allowing times to differ by up to 1 second).
602:
603: dit(bf(-c, --checksum)) This changes the way rsync checks if the files have
604: been changed and are in need of a transfer. Without this option, rsync
605: uses a "quick check" that (by default) checks if each file's size and time
606: of last modification match between the sender and receiver. This option
607: changes this to compare a 128-bit checksum for each file that has a
608: matching size. Generating the checksums means that both sides will expend
609: a lot of disk I/O reading all the data in the files in the transfer (and
610: this is prior to any reading that will be done to transfer changed files),
611: so this can slow things down significantly.
612:
613: The sending side generates its checksums while it is doing the file-system
614: scan that builds the list of the available files. The receiver generates
615: its checksums when it is scanning for changed files, and will checksum any
616: file that has the same size as the corresponding sender's file: files with
617: either a changed size or a changed checksum are selected for transfer.
618:
619: Note that rsync always verifies that each em(transferred) file was
620: correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file
621: checksum that is generated as the file is transferred, but that
622: automatic after-the-transfer verification has nothing to do with this
623: option's before-the-transfer "Does this file need to be updated?" check.
624:
625: For protocol 30 and beyond (first supported in 3.0.0), the checksum used is
626: MD5. For older protocols, the checksum used is MD4.
627:
628: dit(bf(-a, --archive)) This is equivalent to bf(-rlptgoD). It is a quick
629: way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost
630: everything (with -H being a notable omission).
631: The only exception to the above equivalence is when bf(--files-from) is
632: specified, in which case bf(-r) is not implied.
633:
634: Note that bf(-a) bf(does not preserve hardlinks), because
635: finding multiply-linked files is expensive. You must separately
636: specify bf(-H).
637:
638: dit(--no-OPTION) You may turn off one or more implied options by prefixing
639: the option name with "no-". Not all options may be prefixed with a "no-":
640: only options that are implied by other options (e.g. bf(--no-D),
641: bf(--no-perms)) or have different defaults in various circumstances
642: (e.g. bf(--no-whole-file), bf(--no-blocking-io), bf(--no-dirs)). You may
643: specify either the short or the long option name after the "no-" prefix
644: (e.g. bf(--no-R) is the same as bf(--no-relative)).
645:
646: For example: if you want to use bf(-a) (bf(--archive)) but don't want
647: bf(-o) (bf(--owner)), instead of converting bf(-a) into bf(-rlptgD), you
648: could specify bf(-a --no-o) (or bf(-a --no-owner)).
649:
650: The order of the options is important: if you specify bf(--no-r -a), the
651: bf(-r) option would end up being turned on, the opposite of bf(-a --no-r).
652: Note also that the side-effects of the bf(--files-from) option are NOT
653: positional, as it affects the default state of several options and slightly
654: changes the meaning of bf(-a) (see the bf(--files-from) option for more
655: details).
656:
657: dit(bf(-r, --recursive)) This tells rsync to copy directories
658: recursively. See also bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)).
659:
660: Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used is now an
661: incremental scan that uses much less memory than before and begins the
662: transfer after the scanning of the first few directories have been
663: completed. This incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
664: does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only possible when
665: both ends of the transfer are at least version 3.0.0.
666:
667: Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so these options
668: disable the incremental recursion mode. These include: bf(--delete-before),
669: bf(--delete-after), bf(--prune-empty-dirs), and bf(--delay-updates).
670: Because of this, the default delete mode when you specify bf(--delete) is now
671: bf(--delete-during) when both ends of the connection are at least 3.0.0
672: (use bf(--del) or bf(--delete-during) to request this improved deletion mode
673: explicitly). See also the bf(--delete-delay) option that is a better choice
674: than using bf(--delete-after).
675:
676: Incremental recursion can be disabled using the bf(--no-inc-recursive)
677: option or its shorter bf(--no-i-r) alias.
678:
679: dit(bf(-R, --relative)) Use relative paths. This means that the full path
680: names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than
681: just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when
682: you want to send several different directories at the same time. For
683: example, if you used this command:
684:
685: quote(tt( rsync -av /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
686:
687: ... this would create a file named baz.c in /tmp/ on the remote
688: machine. If instead you used
689:
690: quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
691:
692: then a file named /tmp/foo/bar/baz.c would be created on the remote
693: machine, preserving its full path. These extra path elements are called
694: "implied directories" (i.e. the "foo" and the "foo/bar" directories in the
695: above example).
696:
697: Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, rsync always sends these implied directories as
698: real directories in the file list, even if a path element is really a
699: symlink on the sending side. This prevents some really unexpected
700: behaviors when copying the full path of a file that you didn't realize had
701: a symlink in its path. If you want to duplicate a server-side symlink,
702: include both the symlink via its path, and referent directory via its real
703: path. If you're dealing with an older rsync on the sending side, you may
704: need to use the bf(--no-implied-dirs) option.
705:
706: It is also possible to limit the amount of path information that is sent as
707: implied directories for each path you specify. With a modern rsync on the
708: sending side (beginning with 2.6.7), you can insert a dot and a slash into
709: the source path, like this:
710:
711: quote(tt( rsync -avR /foo/./bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/))
712:
713: That would create /tmp/bar/baz.c on the remote machine. (Note that the
714: dot must be followed by a slash, so "/foo/." would not be abbreviated.)
715: For older rsync versions, you would need to use a chdir to limit the
716: source path. For example, when pushing files:
717:
718: quote(tt( (cd /foo; rsync -avR bar/baz.c remote:/tmp/) ))
719:
720: (Note that the parens put the two commands into a sub-shell, so that the
721: "cd" command doesn't remain in effect for future commands.)
722: If you're pulling files from an older rsync, use this idiom (but only
723: for a non-daemon transfer):
724:
725: quote(
726: tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /foo; rsync" \ )nl()
727: tt( remote:bar/baz.c /tmp/)
728: )
729:
730: dit(bf(--no-implied-dirs)) This option affects the default behavior of the
731: bf(--relative) option. When it is specified, the attributes of the implied
732: directories from the source names are not included in the transfer. This
733: means that the corresponding path elements on the destination system are
734: left unchanged if they exist, and any missing implied directories are
735: created with default attributes. This even allows these implied path
736: elements to have big differences, such as being a symlink to a directory on
737: the receiving side.
738:
739: For instance, if a command-line arg or a files-from entry told rsync to
740: transfer the file "path/foo/file", the directories "path" and "path/foo"
741: are implied when bf(--relative) is used. If "path/foo" is a symlink to
742: "bar" on the destination system, the receiving rsync would ordinarily
743: delete "path/foo", recreate it as a directory, and receive the file into
744: the new directory. With bf(--no-implied-dirs), the receiving rsync updates
745: "path/foo/file" using the existing path elements, which means that the file
746: ends up being created in "path/bar". Another way to accomplish this link
747: preservation is to use the bf(--keep-dirlinks) option (which will also
748: affect symlinks to directories in the rest of the transfer).
749:
750: When pulling files from an rsync older than 3.0.0, you may need to use this
751: option if the sending side has a symlink in the path you request and you
752: wish the implied directories to be transferred as normal directories.
753:
754: dit(bf(-b, --backup)) With this option, preexisting destination files are
755: renamed as each file is transferred or deleted. You can control where the
756: backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended using the
757: bf(--backup-dir) and bf(--suffix) options.
758:
759: Note that if you don't specify bf(--backup-dir), (1) the
760: bf(--omit-dir-times) option will be implied, and (2) if bf(--delete) is
761: also in effect (without bf(--delete-excluded)), rsync will add a "protect"
762: filter-rule for the backup suffix to the end of all your existing excludes
763: (e.g. bf(-f "P *~")). This will prevent previously backed-up files from being
764: deleted. Note that if you are supplying your own filter rules, you may
765: need to manually insert your own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up
766: in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if
767: your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclusion of '*', the auto-added
768: rule would never be reached).
769:
770: dit(bf(--backup-dir=DIR)) In combination with the bf(--backup) option, this
771: tells rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on the receiving
772: side. This can be used for incremental backups. You can additionally
773: specify a backup suffix using the bf(--suffix) option
774: (otherwise the files backed up in the specified directory
775: will keep their original filenames).
776:
777: Note that if you specify a relative path, the backup directory will be
778: relative to the destination directory, so you probably want to specify
779: either an absolute path or a path that starts with "../". If an rsync
780: daemon is the receiver, the backup dir cannot go outside the module's path
781: hierarchy, so take extra care not to delete it or copy into it.
782:
783: dit(bf(--suffix=SUFFIX)) This option allows you to override the default
784: backup suffix used with the bf(--backup) (bf(-b)) option. The default suffix is a ~
785: if no -bf(-backup-dir) was specified, otherwise it is an empty string.
786:
787: dit(bf(-u, --update)) This forces rsync to skip any files which exist on
788: the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
789: file. (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
790: source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
791:
792: Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
793: files. Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
794: is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
795: date is on the objects. In other words, if the source has a directory
796: where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
797: the timestamps.
798:
799: This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
800: data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
801: It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
802:
803: dit(bf(--inplace)) This option changes how rsync transfers a file when
804: its data needs to be updated: instead of the default method of creating
805: a new copy of the file and moving it into place when it is complete, rsync
806: instead writes the updated data directly to the destination file.
807:
808: This has several effects:
809:
810: quote(itemization(
811: it() Hard links are not broken. This means the new data will be visible
812: through other hard links to the destination file. Moreover, attempts to
813: copy differing source files onto a multiply-linked destination file will
814: result in a "tug of war" with the destination data changing back and forth.
815: it() In-use binaries cannot be updated (either the OS will prevent this from
816: happening, or binaries that attempt to swap-in their data will misbehave or
817: crash).
818: it() The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer
819: and will be left that way if the transfer is interrupted or if an update
820: fails.
821: it() A file that rsync cannot write to cannot be updated. While a super user
822: can update any file, a normal user needs to be granted write permission for
823: the open of the file for writing to be successful.
824: it() The efficiency of rsync's delta-transfer algorithm may be reduced if
825: some data in the destination file is overwritten before it can be copied to
826: a position later in the file. This does not apply if you use bf(--backup),
827: since rsync is smart enough to use the backup file as the basis file for the
828: transfer.
829: ))
830:
831: WARNING: you should not use this option to update files that are being
832: accessed by others, so be careful when choosing to use this for a copy.
833:
834: This option is useful for transferring large files with block-based changes
835: or appended data, and also on systems that are disk bound, not network
836: bound. It can also help keep a copy-on-write filesystem snapshot from
837: diverging the entire contents of a file that only has minor changes.
838:
839: The option implies bf(--partial) (since an interrupted transfer does not delete
840: the file), but conflicts with bf(--partial-dir) and bf(--delay-updates).
841: Prior to rsync 2.6.4 bf(--inplace) was also incompatible with bf(--compare-dest)
842: and bf(--link-dest).
843:
844: dit(bf(--append)) This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto
845: the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on
846: the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending
847: side. If a file needs to be transferred and its size on the receiver is
848: the same or longer than the size on the sender, the file is skipped. This
849: does not interfere with the updating of a file's non-content attributes
850: (e.g. permissions, ownership, etc.) when the file does not need to be
851: transferred, nor does it affect the updating of any non-regular files.
852: Implies bf(--inplace),
853: but does not conflict with bf(--sparse) (since it is always extending a
854: file's length).
855:
856: dit(bf(--append-verify)) This works just like the bf(--append) option, but
857: the existing data on the receiving side is included in the full-file
858: checksum verification step, which will cause a file to be resent if the
859: final verification step fails (rsync uses a normal, non-appending
860: bf(--inplace) transfer for the resend).
861:
862: Note: prior to rsync 3.0.0, the bf(--append) option worked like
863: bf(--append-verify), so if you are interacting with an older rsync (or the
864: transfer is using a protocol prior to 30), specifying either append option
865: will initiate an bf(--append-verify) transfer.
866:
867: dit(bf(-d, --dirs)) Tell the sending side to include any directories that
868: are encountered. Unlike bf(--recursive), a directory's contents are not copied
869: unless the directory name specified is "." or ends with a trailing slash
870: (e.g. ".", "dir/.", "dir/", etc.). Without this option or the
871: bf(--recursive) option, rsync will skip all directories it encounters (and
872: output a message to that effect for each one). If you specify both
873: bf(--dirs) and bf(--recursive), bf(--recursive) takes precedence.
874:
875: The bf(--dirs) option is implied by the bf(--files-from) option
876: or the bf(--list-only) option (including an implied
877: bf(--list-only) usage) if bf(--recursive) wasn't specified (so that
878: directories are seen in the listing). Specify bf(--no-dirs) (or bf(--no-d))
879: if you want to turn this off.
880:
881: There is also a backward-compatibility helper option, bf(--old-dirs) (or
882: bf(--old-d)) that tells rsync to use a hack of "-r --exclude='/*/*'" to get
883: an older rsync to list a single directory without recursing.
884:
885: dit(bf(-l, --links)) When symlinks are encountered, recreate the
886: symlink on the destination.
887:
888: dit(bf(-L, --copy-links)) When symlinks are encountered, the item that
889: they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink. In older
890: versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling the
891: receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a
892: modern rsync such as this one, you'll need to specify bf(--keep-dirlinks) (bf(-K))
893: to get this extra behavior. The only exception is when sending files to
894: an rsync that is too old to understand bf(-K) -- in that case, the bf(-L) option
895: will still have the side-effect of bf(-K) on that older receiving rsync.
896:
897: dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) This tells rsync to copy the referent of
898: symbolic links that point outside the copied tree. Absolute symlinks
899: are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the
900: source path itself when bf(--relative) is used. This option has no
901: additional effect if bf(--copy-links) was also specified.
902:
903: dit(bf(--safe-links)) This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links
904: which point outside the copied tree. All absolute symlinks are
905: also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with bf(--relative) may
906: give unexpected results.
907:
908: dit(bf(--munge-links)) This option tells rsync to (1) modify all symlinks on
909: the receiving side in a way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see
910: below), or (2) to unmunge symlinks on the sending side that had been stored in
911: a munged state. This is useful if you don't quite trust the source of the data
912: to not try to slip in a symlink to a unexpected place.
913:
914: The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one with the
915: string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from being used as long as
916: that directory does not exist. When this option is enabled, rsync will refuse
917: to run if that path is a directory or a symlink to a directory.
918:
919: The option only affects the client side of the transfer, so if you need it to
920: affect the server, specify it via bf(--remote-option). (Note that in a local
921: transfer, the client side is the sender.)
922:
923: This option has no affect on a daemon, since the daemon configures whether it
924: wants munged symlinks via its "munge symlinks" parameter. See also the
925: "munge-symlinks" perl script in the support directory of the source code.
926:
927: dit(bf(-k, --copy-dirlinks)) This option causes the sending side to treat
928: a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory. This is
929: useful if you don't want symlinks to non-directories to be affected, as
930: they would be using bf(--copy-links).
931:
932: Without this option, if the sending side has replaced a directory with a
933: symlink to a directory, the receiving side will delete anything that is in
934: the way of the new symlink, including a directory hierarchy (as long as
935: bf(--force) or bf(--delete) is in effect).
936:
937: See also bf(--keep-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the receiving
938: side.
939:
940: bf(--copy-dirlinks) applies to all symlinks to directories in the source. If
941: you want to follow only a few specified symlinks, a trick you can use is to
942: pass them as additional source args with a trailing slash, using bf(--relative)
943: to make the paths match up right. For example:
944:
945: quote(tt(rsync -r --relative src/./ src/./follow-me/ dest/))
946:
947: This works because rsync calls bf(lstat)(2) on the source arg as given, and the
948: trailing slash makes bf(lstat)(2) follow the symlink, giving rise to a directory
949: in the file-list which overrides the symlink found during the scan of "src/./".
950:
951: dit(bf(-K, --keep-dirlinks)) This option causes the receiving side to treat
952: a symlink to a directory as though it were a real directory, but only if it
953: matches a real directory from the sender. Without this option, the
954: receiver's symlink would be deleted and replaced with a real directory.
955:
956: For example, suppose you transfer a directory "foo" that contains a file
957: "file", but "foo" is a symlink to directory "bar" on the receiver. Without
958: bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver deletes symlink "foo", recreates it as a
959: directory, and receives the file into the new directory. With
960: bf(--keep-dirlinks), the receiver keeps the symlink and "file" ends up in
961: "bar".
962:
963: One note of caution: if you use bf(--keep-dirlinks), you must trust all
964: the symlinks in the copy! If it is possible for an untrusted user to
965: create their own symlink to any directory, the user could then (on a
966: subsequent copy) replace the symlink with a real directory and affect the
967: content of whatever directory the symlink references. For backup copies,
968: you are better off using something like a bind mount instead of a symlink
969: to modify your receiving hierarchy.
970:
971: See also bf(--copy-dirlinks) for an analogous option for the sending side.
972:
973: dit(bf(-H, --hard-links)) This tells rsync to look for hard-linked files in
974: the source and link together the corresponding files on the destination.
975: Without this option, hard-linked files in the source are treated
976: as though they were separate files.
977:
978: This option does NOT necessarily ensure that the pattern of hard links on the
979: destination exactly matches that on the source. Cases in which the
980: destination may end up with extra hard links include the following:
981:
982: quote(itemization(
983: it() If the destination contains extraneous hard-links (more linking than
984: what is present in the source file list), the copying algorithm will not
985: break them explicitly. However, if one or more of the paths have content
986: differences, the normal file-update process will break those extra links
987: (unless you are using the bf(--inplace) option).
988: it() If you specify a bf(--link-dest) directory that contains hard links,
989: the linking of the destination files against the bf(--link-dest) files can
990: cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the
991: bf(--link-dest) associations.
992: ))
993:
994: Note that rsync can only detect hard links between files that are inside
995: the transfer set. If rsync updates a file that has extra hard-link
996: connections to files outside the transfer, that linkage will be broken. If
997: you are tempted to use the bf(--inplace) option to avoid this breakage, be
998: very careful that you know how your files are being updated so that you are
999: certain that no unintended changes happen due to lingering hard links (and
1000: see the bf(--inplace) option for more caveats).
1001:
1002: If incremental recursion is active (see bf(--recursive)), rsync may transfer
1003: a missing hard-linked file before it finds that another link for that contents
1004: exists elsewhere in the hierarchy. This does not affect the accuracy of
1005: the transfer (i.e. which files are hard-linked together), just its efficiency
1006: (i.e. copying the data for a new, early copy of a hard-linked file that could
1007: have been found later in the transfer in another member of the hard-linked
1008: set of files). One way to avoid this inefficiency is to disable
1009: incremental recursion using the bf(--no-inc-recursive) option.
1010:
1011: dit(bf(-p, --perms)) This option causes the receiving rsync to set the
1012: destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions. (See
1013: also the bf(--chmod) option for a way to modify what rsync considers to
1014: be the source permissions.)
1015:
1016: When this option is em(off), permissions are set as follows:
1017:
1018: quote(itemization(
1019: it() Existing files (including updated files) retain their existing
1020: permissions, though the bf(--executability) option might change just
1021: the execute permission for the file.
1022: it() New files get their "normal" permission bits set to the source
1023: file's permissions masked with the receiving directory's default
1024: permissions (either the receiving process's umask, or the permissions
1025: specified via the destination directory's default ACL), and
1026: their special permission bits disabled except in the case where a new
1027: directory inherits a setgid bit from its parent directory.
1028: ))
1029:
1030: Thus, when bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) are both disabled,
1031: rsync's behavior is the same as that of other file-copy utilities,
1032: such as bf(cp)(1) and bf(tar)(1).
1033:
1034: In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source
1035: permissions, use bf(--perms). To give new files the destination-default
1036: permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the
1037: bf(--perms) option is off and use bf(--chmod=ugo=rwX) (which ensures that
1038: all non-masked bits get enabled). If you'd care to make this latter
1039: behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as
1040: putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the bf(-Z) option,
1041: and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):
1042:
1043: quote(tt( rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX))
1044:
1045: You could then use this new option in a command such as this one:
1046:
1047: quote(tt( rsync -avZ src/ dest/))
1048:
1049: (Caveat: make sure that bf(-a) does not follow bf(-Z), or it will re-enable
1050: the two "--no-*" options mentioned above.)
1051:
1052: The preservation of the destination's setgid bit on newly-created
1053: directories when bf(--perms) is off was added in rsync 2.6.7. Older rsync
1054: versions erroneously preserved the three special permission bits for
1055: newly-created files when bf(--perms) was off, while overriding the
1056: destination's setgid bit setting on a newly-created directory. Default ACL
1057: observance was added to the ACL patch for rsync 2.6.7, so older (or
1058: non-ACL-enabled) rsyncs use the umask even if default ACLs are present.
1059: (Keep in mind that it is the version of the receiving rsync that affects
1060: these behaviors.)
1061:
1062: dit(bf(-E, --executability)) This option causes rsync to preserve the
1063: executability (or non-executability) of regular files when bf(--perms) is
1064: not enabled. A regular file is considered to be executable if at least one
1065: 'x' is turned on in its permissions. When an existing destination file's
1066: executability differs from that of the corresponding source file, rsync
1067: modifies the destination file's permissions as follows:
1068:
1069: quote(itemization(
1070: it() To make a file non-executable, rsync turns off all its 'x'
1071: permissions.
1072: it() To make a file executable, rsync turns on each 'x' permission that
1073: has a corresponding 'r' permission enabled.
1074: ))
1075:
1076: If bf(--perms) is enabled, this option is ignored.
1077:
1078: dit(bf(-A, --acls)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1079: ACLs to be the same as the source ACLs.
1080: The option also implies bf(--perms).
1081:
1082: The source and destination systems must have compatible ACL entries for this
1083: option to work properly. See the bf(--fake-super) option for a way to backup
1084: and restore ACLs that are not compatible.
1085:
1086: dit(bf(-X, --xattrs)) This option causes rsync to update the destination
1087: extended attributes to be the same as the source ones.
1088:
1089: For systems that support extended-attribute namespaces, a copy being done by a
1090: super-user copies all namespaces except system.*. A normal user only copies
1091: the user.* namespace. To be able to backup and restore non-user namespaces as
1092: a normal user, see the bf(--fake-super) option.
1093:
1094: Note that this option does not copy rsyncs special xattr values (e.g. those
1095: used by bf(--fake-super)) unless you repeat the option (e.g. -XX). This
1096: "copy all xattrs" mode cannot be used with bf(--fake-super).
1097:
1098: dit(bf(--chmod)) This option tells rsync to apply one or more
1099: comma-separated "chmod" modes to the permission of the files in the
1100: transfer. The resulting value is treated as though it were the permissions
1101: that the sending side supplied for the file, which means that this option
1102: can seem to have no effect on existing files if bf(--perms) is not enabled.
1103:
1104: In addition to the normal parsing rules specified in the bf(chmod)(1)
1105: manpage, you can specify an item that should only apply to a directory by
1106: prefixing it with a 'D', or specify an item that should only apply to a
1107: file by prefixing it with a 'F'. For example, the following will ensure
1108: that all directories get marked set-gid, that no files are other-writable,
1109: that both are user-writable and group-writable, and that both have
1110: consistent executability across all bits:
1111:
1112: quote(--chmod=Dg+s,ug+w,Fo-w,+X)
1113:
1114: Using octal mode numbers is also allowed:
1115:
1116: quote(--chmod=D2775,F664)
1117:
1118: It is also legal to specify multiple bf(--chmod) options, as each
1119: additional option is just appended to the list of changes to make.
1120:
1121: See the bf(--perms) and bf(--executability) options for how the resulting
1122: permission value can be applied to the files in the transfer.
1123:
1124: dit(bf(-o, --owner)) This option causes rsync to set the owner of the
1125: destination file to be the same as the source file, but only if the
1126: receiving rsync is being run as the super-user (see also the bf(--super)
1127: and bf(--fake-super) options).
1128: Without this option, the owner of new and/or transferred files are set to
1129: the invoking user on the receiving side.
1130:
1131: The preservation of ownership will associate matching names by default, but
1132: may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances (see also the
1133: bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1134:
1135: dit(bf(-g, --group)) This option causes rsync to set the group of the
1136: destination file to be the same as the source file. If the receiving
1137: program is not running as the super-user (or if bf(--no-super) was
1138: specified), only groups that the invoking user on the receiving side
1139: is a member of will be preserved.
1140: Without this option, the group is set to the default group of the invoking
1141: user on the receiving side.
1142:
1143: The preservation of group information will associate matching names by
1144: default, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances
1145: (see also the bf(--numeric-ids) option for a full discussion).
1146:
1147: dit(bf(--devices)) This option causes rsync to transfer character and
1148: block device files to the remote system to recreate these devices.
1149: This option has no effect if the receiving rsync is not run as the
1150: super-user (see also the bf(--super) and bf(--fake-super) options).
1151:
1152: dit(bf(--specials)) This option causes rsync to transfer special files
1153: such as named sockets and fifos.
1154:
1155: dit(bf(-D)) The bf(-D) option is equivalent to bf(--devices) bf(--specials).
1156:
1157: dit(bf(-t, --times)) This tells rsync to transfer modification times along
1158: with the files and update them on the remote system. Note that if this
1159: option is not used, the optimization that excludes files that have not been
1160: modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing bf(-t) or bf(-a) will
1161: cause the next transfer to behave as if it used bf(-I), causing all files to be
1162: updated (though rsync's delta-transfer algorithm will make the update fairly efficient
1163: if the files haven't actually changed, you're much better off using bf(-t)).
1164:
1165: dit(bf(-O, --omit-dir-times)) This tells rsync to omit directories when
1166: it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)). If NFS is sharing
1167: the directories on the receiving side, it is a good idea to use bf(-O).
1168: This option is inferred if you use bf(--backup) without bf(--backup-dir).
1169:
1170: dit(bf(-J, --omit-link-times)) This tells rsync to omit symlinks when
1171: it is preserving modification times (see bf(--times)).
1172:
1173: dit(bf(--super)) This tells the receiving side to attempt super-user
1174: activities even if the receiving rsync wasn't run by the super-user. These
1175: activities include: preserving users via the bf(--owner) option, preserving
1176: all groups (not just the current user's groups) via the bf(--groups)
1177: option, and copying devices via the bf(--devices) option. This is useful
1178: for systems that allow such activities without being the super-user, and
1179: also for ensuring that you will get errors if the receiving side isn't
1180: being run as the super-user. To turn off super-user activities, the
1181: super-user can use bf(--no-super).
1182:
1183: dit(bf(--fake-super)) When this option is enabled, rsync simulates
1184: super-user activities by saving/restoring the privileged attributes via
1185: special extended attributes that are attached to each file (as needed). This
1186: includes the file's owner and group (if it is not the default), the file's
1187: device info (device & special files are created as empty text files), and
1188: any permission bits that we won't allow to be set on the real file (e.g.
1189: the real file gets u-s,g-s,o-t for safety) or that would limit the owner's
1190: access (since the real super-user can always access/change a file, the
1191: files we create can always be accessed/changed by the creating user).
1192: This option also handles ACLs (if bf(--acls) was specified) and non-user
1193: extended attributes (if bf(--xattrs) was specified).
1194:
1195: This is a good way to backup data without using a super-user, and to store
1196: ACLs from incompatible systems.
1197:
1198: The bf(--fake-super) option only affects the side where the option is used.
1199: To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, use the
1200: bf(--remote-option) (bf(-M)) option:
1201:
1202: quote(tt( rsync -av -M--fake-super /src/ host:/dest/))
1203:
1204: For a local copy, this option affects both the source and the destination.
1205: If you wish a local copy to enable this option just for the destination
1206: files, specify bf(-M--fake-super). If you wish a local copy to enable
1207: this option just for the source files, combine bf(--fake-super) with
1208: bf(-M--super).
1209:
1210: This option is overridden by both bf(--super) and bf(--no-super).
1211:
1212: See also the "fake super" setting in the daemon's rsyncd.conf file.
1213:
1214: dit(bf(-S, --sparse)) Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take
1215: up less space on the destination. Conflicts with bf(--inplace) because it's
1216: not possible to overwrite data in a sparse fashion.
1217:
1218: dit(bf(--preallocate)) This tells the receiver to allocate each destination
1219: file to its eventual size before writing data to the file. Rsync will only use
1220: the real filesystem-level preallocation support provided by Linux's
1221: bf(fallocate)(2) system call or Cygwin's bf(posix_fallocate)(3), not the slow
1222: glibc implementation that writes a zero byte into each block.
1223:
1224: Without this option, larger files may not be entirely contiguous on the
1225: filesystem, but with this option rsync will probably copy more slowly. If the
1226: destination is not an extent-supporting filesystem (such as ext4, xfs, NTFS,
1227: etc.), this option may have no positive effect at all.
1228:
1229: dit(bf(-n, --dry-run)) This makes rsync perform a trial run that doesn't
1230: make any changes (and produces mostly the same output as a real run). It
1231: is most commonly used in combination with the bf(-v, --verbose) and/or
1232: bf(-i, --itemize-changes) options to see what an rsync command is going
1233: to do before one actually runs it.
1234:
1235: The output of bf(--itemize-changes) is supposed to be exactly the same on a
1236: dry run and a subsequent real run (barring intentional trickery and system
1237: call failures); if it isn't, that's a bug. Other output should be mostly
1238: unchanged, but may differ in some areas. Notably, a dry run does not
1239: send the actual data for file transfers, so bf(--progress) has no effect,
1240: the "bytes sent", "bytes received", "literal data", and "matched data"
1241: statistics are too small, and the "speedup" value is equivalent to a run
1242: where no file transfers were needed.
1243:
1244: dit(bf(-W, --whole-file)) With this option rsync's delta-transfer algorithm
1245: is not used and the whole file is sent as-is instead. The transfer may be
1246: faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the source and
1247: destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
1248: "disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both
1249: the source and destination are specified as local paths, but only if no
1250: batch-writing option is in effect.
1251:
1252: dit(bf(-x, --one-file-system)) This tells rsync to avoid crossing a
1253: filesystem boundary when recursing. This does not limit the user's ability
1254: to specify items to copy from multiple filesystems, just rsync's recursion
1255: through the hierarchy of each directory that the user specified, and also
1256: the analogous recursion on the receiving side during deletion. Also keep
1257: in mind that rsync treats a "bind" mount to the same device as being on the
1258: same filesystem.
1259:
1260: If this option is repeated, rsync omits all mount-point directories from
1261: the copy. Otherwise, it includes an empty directory at each mount-point it
1262: encounters (using the attributes of the mounted directory because those of
1263: the underlying mount-point directory are inaccessible).
1264:
1265: If rsync has been told to collapse symlinks (via bf(--copy-links) or
1266: bf(--copy-unsafe-links)), a symlink to a directory on another device is
1267: treated like a mount-point. Symlinks to non-directories are unaffected
1268: by this option.
1269:
1270: dit(bf(--existing, --ignore-non-existing)) This tells rsync to skip
1271: creating files (including directories) that do not exist
1272: yet on the destination. If this option is
1273: combined with the bf(--ignore-existing) option, no files will be updated
1274: (which can be useful if all you want to do is delete extraneous files).
1275:
1276: This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1277: data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1278: It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1279:
1280: dit(bf(--ignore-existing)) This tells rsync to skip updating files that
1281: already exist on the destination (this does em(not) ignore existing
1282: directories, or nothing would get done). See also bf(--existing).
1283:
1284: This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1285: data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1286: It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1287:
1288: This option can be useful for those doing backups using the bf(--link-dest)
1289: option when they need to continue a backup run that got interrupted. Since
1290: a bf(--link-dest) run is copied into a new directory hierarchy (when it is
1291: used properly), using bf(--ignore existing) will ensure that the
1292: already-handled files don't get tweaked (which avoids a change in
1293: permissions on the hard-linked files). This does mean that this option
1294: is only looking at the existing files in the destination hierarchy itself.
1295:
1296: dit(bf(--remove-source-files)) This tells rsync to remove from the sending
1297: side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer
1298: and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side.
1299:
1300: Note that you should only use this option on source files that are quiescent.
1301: If you are using this to move files that show up in a particular directory over
1302: to another host, make sure that the finished files get renamed into the source
1303: directory, not directly written into it, so that rsync can't possibly transfer
1304: a file that is not yet fully written. If you can't first write the files into
1305: a different directory, you should use a naming idiom that lets rsync avoid
1306: transferring files that are not yet finished (e.g. name the file "foo.new" when
1307: it is written, rename it to "foo" when it is done, and then use the option
1308: bf(--exclude='*.new') for the rsync transfer).
1309:
1310: Starting with 3.1.0, rsync will skip the sender-side removal (and output an
1311: error) if the file's size or modify time has not stayed unchanged.
1312:
1313: dit(bf(--delete)) This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the
1314: receiving side (ones that aren't on the sending side), but only for the
1315: directories that are being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to
1316: send the whole directory (e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard
1317: for the directory's contents (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded
1318: by the shell and rsync thus gets a request to transfer individual files, not
1319: the files' parent directory. Files that are excluded from the transfer are
1320: also excluded from being deleted unless you use the bf(--delete-excluded)
1321: option or mark the rules as only matching on the sending side (see the
1322: include/exclude modifiers in the FILTER RULES section).
1323:
1324: Prior to rsync 2.6.7, this option would have no effect unless bf(--recursive)
1325: was enabled. Beginning with 2.6.7, deletions will also occur when bf(--dirs)
1326: (bf(-d)) is enabled, but only for directories whose contents are being copied.
1327:
1328: This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to
1329: first try a run using the bf(--dry-run) option (bf(-n)) to see what files are
1330: going to be deleted.
1331:
1332: If the sending side detects any I/O errors, then the deletion of any
1333: files at the destination will be automatically disabled. This is to
1334: prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS errors) on the
1335: sending side from causing a massive deletion of files on the
1336: destination. You can override this with the bf(--ignore-errors) option.
1337:
1338: The bf(--delete) option may be combined with one of the --delete-WHEN options
1339: without conflict, as well as bf(--delete-excluded). However, if none of the
1340: --delete-WHEN options are specified, rsync will choose the
1341: bf(--delete-during) algorithm when talking to rsync 3.0.0 or newer, and
1342: the bf(--delete-before) algorithm when talking to an older rsync. See also
1343: bf(--delete-delay) and bf(--delete-after).
1344:
1345: dit(bf(--delete-before)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1346: side be done before the transfer starts.
1347: See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1348:
1349: Deleting before the transfer is helpful if the filesystem is tight for space
1350: and removing extraneous files would help to make the transfer possible.
1351: However, it does introduce a delay before the start of the transfer,
1352: and this delay might cause the transfer to timeout (if bf(--timeout) was
1353: specified). It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental recursion
1354: algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the transfer into
1355: memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1356:
1357: dit(bf(--delete-during, --del)) Request that the file-deletions on the
1358: receiving side be done incrementally as the transfer happens. The
1359: per-directory delete scan is done right before each directory is checked
1360: for updates, so it behaves like a more efficient bf(--delete-before),
1361: including doing the deletions prior to any per-directory filter files
1362: being updated. This option was first added in rsync version 2.6.4.
1363: See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1364:
1365: dit(bf(--delete-delay)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1366: side be computed during the transfer (like bf(--delete-during)), and then
1367: removed after the transfer completes. This is useful when combined with
1368: bf(--delay-updates) and/or bf(--fuzzy), and is more efficient than using
1369: bf(--delete-after) (but can behave differently, since bf(--delete-after)
1370: computes the deletions in a separate pass after all updates are done).
1371: If the number of removed files overflows an internal buffer, a
1372: temporary file will be created on the receiving side to hold the names (it
1373: is removed while open, so you shouldn't see it during the transfer). If
1374: the creation of the temporary file fails, rsync will try to fall back to
1375: using bf(--delete-after) (which it cannot do if bf(--recursive) is doing an
1376: incremental scan).
1377: See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1378:
1379: dit(bf(--delete-after)) Request that the file-deletions on the receiving
1380: side be done after the transfer has completed. This is useful if you
1381: are sending new per-directory merge files as a part of the transfer and
1382: you want their exclusions to take effect for the delete phase of the
1383: current transfer. It also forces rsync to use the old, non-incremental
1384: recursion algorithm that requires rsync to scan all the files in the
1385: transfer into memory at once (see bf(--recursive)).
1386: See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1387:
1388: dit(bf(--delete-excluded)) In addition to deleting the files on the
1389: receiving side that are not on the sending side, this tells rsync to also
1390: delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see bf(--exclude)).
1391: See the FILTER RULES section for a way to make individual exclusions behave
1392: this way on the receiver, and for a way to protect files from
1393: bf(--delete-excluded).
1394: See bf(--delete) (which is implied) for more details on file-deletion.
1395:
1396: dit(bf(--ignore-missing-args)) When rsync is first processing the explicitly
1397: requested source files (e.g. command-line arguments or bf(--files-from)
1398: entries), it is normally an error if the file cannot be found. This option
1399: suppresses that error, and does not try to transfer the file. This does not
1400: affect subsequent vanished-file errors if a file was initially found to be
1401: present and later is no longer there.
1402:
1403: dit(bf(--delete-missing-args)) This option takes the behavior of (the implied)
1404: bf(--ignore-missing-args) option a step farther: each missing arg will become
1405: a deletion request of the corresponding destination file on the receiving side
1406: (should it exist). If the destination file is a non-empty directory, it will
1407: only be successfully deleted if --force or --delete are in effect. Other than
1408: that, this option is independent of any other type of delete processing.
1409:
1410: The missing source files are represented by special file-list entries which
1411: display as a "*missing" entry in the bf(--list-only) output.
1412:
1413: dit(bf(--ignore-errors)) Tells bf(--delete) to go ahead and delete files
1414: even when there are I/O errors.
1415:
1416: dit(bf(--force)) This option tells rsync to delete a non-empty directory
1417: when it is to be replaced by a non-directory. This is only relevant if
1418: deletions are not active (see bf(--delete) for details).
1419:
1420: Note for older rsync versions: bf(--force) used to still be required when
1421: using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
1422: bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
1423:
1424: dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
1425: files or directories. If that limit is exceeded, all further deletions are
1426: skipped through the end of the transfer. At the end, rsync outputs a warning
1427: (including a count of the skipped deletions) and exits with an error code
1428: of 25 (unless some more important error condition also occurred).
1429:
1430: Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
1431: about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
1432: Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
1433: version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
1434: a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
1435: really old versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
1436:
1437: dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1438: file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be
1439: suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and
1440: may be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--max-size=1.5m)").
1441:
1442: This option is a transfer rule, not an exclude, so it doesn't affect the
1443: data that goes into the file-lists, and thus it doesn't affect deletions.
1444: It just limits the files that the receiver requests to be transferred.
1445:
1446: The suffixes are as follows: "K" (or "KiB") is a kibibyte (1024),
1447: "M" (or "MiB") is a mebibyte (1024*1024), and "G" (or "GiB") is a
1448: gibibyte (1024*1024*1024).
1449: If you want the multiplier to be 1000 instead of 1024, use "KB",
1450: "MB", or "GB". (Note: lower-case is also accepted for all values.)
1451: Finally, if the suffix ends in either "+1" or "-1", the value will
1452: be offset by one byte in the indicated direction.
1453:
1454: Examples: --max-size=1.5mb-1 is 1499999 bytes, and --max-size=2g+1 is
1455: 2147483649 bytes.
1456:
1457: Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--max-size=0).
1458:
1459: dit(bf(--min-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
1460: file that is smaller than the specified SIZE, which can help in not
1461: transferring small, junk files.
1462: See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of SIZE and other information.
1463:
1464: Note that rsync versions prior to 3.1.0 did not allow bf(--min-size=0).
1465:
1466: dit(bf(-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE)) This forces the block size used in
1467: rsync's delta-transfer algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally selected based on
1468: the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
1469:
1470: dit(bf(-e, --rsh=COMMAND)) This option allows you to choose an alternative
1471: remote shell program to use for communication between the local and
1472: remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
1473: default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
1474:
1475: If this option is used with bf([user@]host::module/path), then the
1476: remote shell em(COMMAND) will be used to run an rsync daemon on the
1477: remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that remote
1478: shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a
1479: running rsync daemon on the remote host. See the section "USING
1480: RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A REMOTE-SHELL CONNECTION" above.
1481:
1482: Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is
1483: presented to rsync as a single argument. You must use spaces (not tabs
1484: or other whitespace) to separate the command and args from each other,
1485: and you can use single- and/or double-quotes to preserve spaces in an
1486: argument (but not backslashes). Note that doubling a single-quote
1487: inside a single-quoted string gives you a single-quote; likewise for
1488: double-quotes (though you need to pay attention to which quotes your
1489: shell is parsing and which quotes rsync is parsing). Some examples:
1490:
1491: quote(
1492: tt( -e 'ssh -p 2234')nl()
1493: tt( -e 'ssh -o "ProxyCommand nohup ssh firewall nc -w1 %h %p"')nl()
1494: )
1495:
1496: (Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect
1497: options in their .ssh/config file.)
1498:
1499: You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH
1500: environment variable, which accepts the same range of values as bf(-e).
1501:
1502: See also the bf(--blocking-io) option which is affected by this option.
1503:
1504: dit(bf(--rsync-path=PROGRAM)) Use this to specify what program is to be run
1505: on the remote machine to start-up rsync. Often used when rsync is not in
1506: the default remote-shell's path (e.g. --rsync-path=/usr/local/bin/rsync).
1507: Note that PROGRAM is run with the help of a shell, so it can be any
1508: program, script, or command sequence you'd care to run, so long as it does
1509: not corrupt the standard-in & standard-out that rsync is using to
1510: communicate.
1511:
1512: One tricky example is to set a different default directory on the remote
1513: machine for use with the bf(--relative) option. For instance:
1514:
1515: quote(tt( rsync -avR --rsync-path="cd /a/b && rsync" host:c/d /e/))
1516:
1517: dit(bf(-M, --remote-option=OPTION)) This option is used for more advanced
1518: situations where you want certain effects to be limited to one side of the
1519: transfer only. For instance, if you want to pass bf(--log-file=FILE) and
1520: bf(--fake-super) to the remote system, specify it like this:
1521:
1522: quote(tt( rsync -av -M --log-file=foo -M--fake-super src/ dest/))
1523:
1524: If you want to have an option affect only the local side of a transfer when
1525: it normally affects both sides, send its negation to the remote side. Like
1526: this:
1527:
1528: quote(tt( rsync -av -x -M--no-x src/ dest/))
1529:
1530: Be cautious using this, as it is possible to toggle an option that will cause
1531: rsync to have a different idea about what data to expect next over the socket,
1532: and that will make it fail in a cryptic fashion.
1533:
1534: Note that it is best to use a separate bf(--remote-option) for each option you
1535: want to pass. This makes your useage compatible with the bf(--protect-args)
1536: option. If that option is off, any spaces in your remote options will be split
1537: by the remote shell unless you take steps to protect them.
1538:
1539: When performing a local transfer, the "local" side is the sender and the
1540: "remote" side is the receiver.
1541:
1542: Note some versions of the popt option-parsing library have a bug in them that
1543: prevents you from using an adjacent arg with an equal in it next to a short
1544: option letter (e.g. tt(-M--log-file=/tmp/foo). If this bug affects your
1545: version of popt, you can use the version of popt that is included with rsync.
1546:
1547: dit(bf(-C, --cvs-exclude)) This is a useful shorthand for excluding a
1548: broad range of files that you often don't want to transfer between
1549: systems. It uses a similar algorithm to CVS to determine if
1550: a file should be ignored.
1551:
1552: The exclude list is initialized to exclude the following items (these
1553: initial items are marked as perishable -- see the FILTER RULES section):
1554:
1555: quote(quote(tt(RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state
1556: .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$ *.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-*
1557: *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/ .git/ .hg/ .bzr/)))
1558:
1559: then, files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any
1560: files listed in the CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names
1561: are delimited by whitespace).
1562:
1563: Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a
1564: .cvsignore file and matches one of the patterns listed therein. Unlike
1565: rsync's filter/exclude files, these patterns are split on whitespace.
1566: See the bf(cvs)(1) manual for more information.
1567:
1568: If you're combining bf(-C) with your own bf(--filter) rules, you should
1569: note that these CVS excludes are appended at the end of your own rules,
1570: regardless of where the bf(-C) was placed on the command-line. This makes them
1571: a lower priority than any rules you specified explicitly. If you want to
1572: control where these CVS excludes get inserted into your filter rules, you
1573: should omit the bf(-C) as a command-line option and use a combination of
1574: bf(--filter=:C) and bf(--filter=-C) (either on your command-line or by
1575: putting the ":C" and "-C" rules into a filter file with your other rules).
1576: The first option turns on the per-directory scanning for the .cvsignore
1577: file. The second option does a one-time import of the CVS excludes
1578: mentioned above.
1579:
1580: dit(bf(-f, --filter=RULE)) This option allows you to add rules to selectively
1581: exclude certain files from the list of files to be transferred. This is
1582: most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
1583:
1584: You may use as many bf(--filter) options on the command line as you like
1585: to build up the list of files to exclude. If the filter contains whitespace,
1586: be sure to quote it so that the shell gives the rule to rsync as a single
1587: argument. The text below also mentions that you can use an underscore to
1588: replace the space that separates a rule from its arg.
1589:
1590: See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1591:
1592: dit(bf(-F)) The bf(-F) option is a shorthand for adding two bf(--filter) rules to
1593: your command. The first time it is used is a shorthand for this rule:
1594:
1595: quote(tt( --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'))
1596:
1597: This tells rsync to look for per-directory .rsync-filter files that have
1598: been sprinkled through the hierarchy and use their rules to filter the
1599: files in the transfer. If bf(-F) is repeated, it is a shorthand for this
1600: rule:
1601:
1602: quote(tt( --filter='exclude .rsync-filter'))
1603:
1604: This filters out the .rsync-filter files themselves from the transfer.
1605:
1606: See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on how these options
1607: work.
1608:
1609: dit(bf(--exclude=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1610: bf(--filter) option that defaults to an exclude rule and does not allow
1611: the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1612:
1613: See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1614:
1615: dit(bf(--exclude-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--exclude)
1616: option, but it specifies a FILE that contains exclude patterns (one per line).
1617: Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1618: If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1619:
1620: dit(bf(--include=PATTERN)) This option is a simplified form of the
1621: bf(--filter) option that defaults to an include rule and does not allow
1622: the full rule-parsing syntax of normal filter rules.
1623:
1624: See the FILTER RULES section for detailed information on this option.
1625:
1626: dit(bf(--include-from=FILE)) This option is related to the bf(--include)
1627: option, but it specifies a FILE that contains include patterns (one per line).
1628: Blank lines in the file and lines starting with ';' or '#' are ignored.
1629: If em(FILE) is bf(-), the list will be read from standard input.
1630:
1631: dit(bf(--files-from=FILE)) Using this option allows you to specify the
1632: exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or bf(-)
1633: for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make
1634: transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
1635:
1636: quote(itemization(
1637: it() The bf(--relative) (bf(-R)) option is implied, which preserves the path
1638: information that is specified for each item in the file (use
1639: bf(--no-relative) or bf(--no-R) if you want to turn that off).
1640: it() The bf(--dirs) (bf(-d)) option is implied, which will create directories
1641: specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping
1642: them (use bf(--no-dirs) or bf(--no-d) if you want to turn that off).
1643: it() The bf(--archive) (bf(-a)) option's behavior does not imply bf(--recursive)
1644: (bf(-r)), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
1645: it() These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position
1646: of the bf(--files-from) option on the command-line has no bearing on how
1647: other options are parsed (e.g. bf(-a) works the same before or after
1648: bf(--files-from), as does bf(--no-R) and all other options).
1649: ))
1650:
1651: The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the
1652: source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are
1653: allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this
1654: command:
1655:
1656: quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup))
1657:
1658: If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin
1659: directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it
1660: contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of
1661: the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly
1662: mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases,
1663: if the bf(-r) option was enabled, that dir's entire hierarchy would
1664: also be transferred (keep in mind that bf(-r) needs to be specified
1665: explicitly with bf(--files-from), since it is not implied by bf(-a)).
1666: Also note
1667: that the effect of the (enabled by default) bf(--relative) option is to
1668: duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not
1669: force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
1670:
1671: In addition, the bf(--files-from) file can be read from the remote host
1672: instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file
1673: (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can
1674: specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the
1675: transfer". For example:
1676:
1677: quote(tt( rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy))
1678:
1679: This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that
1680: was located on the remote "src" host.
1681:
1682: If the bf(--iconv) and bf(--protect-args) options are specified and the
1683: bf(--files-from) filenames are being sent from one host to another, the
1684: filenames will be translated from the sending host's charset to the
1685: receiving host's charset.
1686:
1687: NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be
1688: more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared
1689: between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements
1690: (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will
1691: eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.
1692:
1693: dit(bf(-0, --from0)) This tells rsync that the rules/filenames it reads from a
1694: file are terminated by a null ('\0') character, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF.
1695: This affects bf(--exclude-from), bf(--include-from), bf(--files-from), and any
1696: merged files specified in a bf(--filter) rule.
1697: It does not affect bf(--cvs-exclude) (since all names read from a .cvsignore
1698: file are split on whitespace).
1699:
1700: dit(bf(-s, --protect-args)) This option sends all filenames and most options to
1701: the remote rsync without allowing the remote shell to interpret them. This
1702: means that spaces are not split in names, and any non-wildcard special
1703: characters are not translated (such as ~, $, ;, &, etc.). Wildcards are
1704: expanded on the remote host by rsync (instead of the shell doing it).
1705:
1706: If you use this option with bf(--iconv), the args related to the remote
1707: side will also be translated
1708: from the local to the remote character-set. The translation happens before
1709: wild-cards are expanded. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
1710:
1711: You may also control this option via the RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS environment
1712: variable. If this variable has a non-zero value, this option will be enabled
1713: by default, otherwise it will be disabled by default. Either state is
1714: overridden by a manually specified positive or negative version of this option
1715: (note that bf(--no-s) and bf(--no-protect-args) are the negative versions).
1716: Since this option was first introduced in 3.0.0, you'll need to make sure it's
1717: disabled if you ever need to interact with a remote rsync that is older than
1718: that.
1719:
1720: Rsync can also be configured (at build time) to have this option enabled by
1721: default (with is overridden by both the environment and the command-line).
1722: This option will eventually become a new default setting at some
1723: as-yet-undetermined point in the future.
1724:
1725: dit(bf(-T, --temp-dir=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a
1726: scratch directory when creating temporary copies of the files transferred
1727: on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create each temporary
1728: file in the same directory as the associated destination file.
1729:
1730: This option is most often used when the receiving disk partition does not
1731: have enough free space to hold a copy of the largest file in the transfer.
1732: In this case (i.e. when the scratch directory is on a different disk
1733: partition), rsync will not be able to rename each received temporary file
1734: over the top of the associated destination file, but instead must copy it
1735: into place. Rsync does this by copying the file over the top of the
1736: destination file, which means that the destination file will contain
1737: truncated data during this copy. If this were not done this way (even if
1738: the destination file were first removed, the data locally copied to a
1739: temporary file in the destination directory, and then renamed into place)
1740: it would be possible for the old file to continue taking up disk space (if
1741: someone had it open), and thus there might not be enough room to fit the
1742: new version on the disk at the same time.
1743:
1744: If you are using this option for reasons other than a shortage of disk
1745: space, you may wish to combine it with the bf(--delay-updates) option,
1746: which will ensure that all copied files get put into subdirectories in the
1747: destination hierarchy, awaiting the end of the transfer. If you don't
1748: have enough room to duplicate all the arriving files on the destination
1749: partition, another way to tell rsync that you aren't overly concerned
1750: about disk space is to use the bf(--partial-dir) option with a relative
1751: path; because this tells rsync that it is OK to stash off a copy of a
1752: single file in a subdir in the destination hierarchy, rsync will use the
1753: partial-dir as a staging area to bring over the copied file, and then
1754: rename it into place from there. (Specifying a bf(--partial-dir) with
1755: an absolute path does not have this side-effect.)
1756:
1757: dit(bf(-y, --fuzzy)) This option tells rsync that it should look for a
1758: basis file for any destination file that is missing. The current algorithm
1759: looks in the same directory as the destination file for either a file that
1760: has an identical size and modified-time, or a similarly-named file. If
1761: found, rsync uses the fuzzy basis file to try to speed up the transfer.
1762:
1763: If the option is repeated, the fuzzy scan will also be done in any matching
1764: alternate destination directories that are specified via bf(--compare-dest),
1765: bf(--copy-dest), or bf(--link-dest).
1766:
1767: Note that the use of the bf(--delete) option might get rid of any potential
1768: fuzzy-match files, so either use bf(--delete-after) or specify some
1769: filename exclusions if you need to prevent this.
1770:
1771: dit(bf(--compare-dest=DIR)) This option instructs rsync to use em(DIR) on
1772: the destination machine as an additional hierarchy to compare destination
1773: files against doing transfers (if the files are missing in the destination
1774: directory). If a file is found in em(DIR) that is identical to the
1775: sender's file, the file will NOT be transferred to the destination
1776: directory. This is useful for creating a sparse backup of just files that
1777: have changed from an earlier backup.
1778: This option is typically used to copy into an empty (or newly created)
1779: directory.
1780:
1781: Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--compare-dest) directories may be
1782: provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1783: for an exact match.
1784: If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1785: and the attributes updated.
1786: If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1787: selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1788:
1789: If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1790: See also bf(--copy-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1791:
1792: NOTE: beginning with version 3.1.0, rsync will remove a file from a non-empty
1793: destination hierarchy if an exact match is found in one of the compare-dest
1794: hierarchies (making the end result more closely match a fresh copy).
1795:
1796: dit(bf(--copy-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--compare-dest), but
1797: rsync will also copy unchanged files found in em(DIR) to the destination
1798: directory using a local copy.
1799: This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
1800: existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have
1801: been successfully transferred.
1802:
1803: Multiple bf(--copy-dest) directories may be provided, which will cause
1804: rsync to search the list in the order specified for an unchanged file.
1805: If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1806: selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1807:
1808: If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1809: See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--link-dest).
1810:
1811: dit(bf(--link-dest=DIR)) This option behaves like bf(--copy-dest), but
1812: unchanged files are hard linked from em(DIR) to the destination directory.
1813: The files must be identical in all preserved attributes (e.g. permissions,
1814: possibly ownership) in order for the files to be linked together.
1815: An example:
1816:
1817: quote(tt( rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/))
1818:
1819: If file's aren't linking, double-check their attributes. Also check if some
1820: attributes are getting forced outside of rsync's control, such a mount option
1821: that squishes root to a single user, or mounts a removable drive with generic
1822: ownership (such as OS X's "Ignore ownership on this volume" option).
1823:
1824: Beginning in version 2.6.4, multiple bf(--link-dest) directories may be
1825: provided, which will cause rsync to search the list in the order specified
1826: for an exact match.
1827: If a match is found that differs only in attributes, a local copy is made
1828: and the attributes updated.
1829: If a match is not found, a basis file from one of the em(DIR)s will be
1830: selected to try to speed up the transfer.
1831:
1832: This option works best when copying into an empty destination hierarchy, as
1833: existing files may get their attributes tweaked, and that can affect alternate
1834: destination files via hard-links. Also, itemizing of changes can get a bit
1835: muddled. Note that prior to version 3.1.0, an alternate-directory exact match
1836: would never be found (nor linked into the destination) when a destination file
1837: already exists.
1838:
1839: Note that if you combine this option with bf(--ignore-times), rsync will not
1840: link any files together because it only links identical files together as a
1841: substitute for transferring the file, never as an additional check after the
1842: file is updated.
1843:
1844: If em(DIR) is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
1845: See also bf(--compare-dest) and bf(--copy-dest).
1846:
1847: Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent
1848: bf(--link-dest) from working properly for a non-super-user when bf(-o) was
1849: specified (or implied by bf(-a)). You can work-around this bug by avoiding
1850: the bf(-o) option when sending to an old rsync.
1851:
1852: dit(bf(-z, --compress)) With this option, rsync compresses the file data
1853: as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data
1854: being transmitted -- something that is useful over a slow connection.
1855:
1856: Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can
1857: be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport
1858: because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data
1859: blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
1860:
1861: See the bf(--skip-compress) option for the default list of file suffixes
1862: that will not be compressed.
1863:
1864: dit(bf(--compress-level=NUM)) Explicitly set the compression level to use
1865: (see bf(--compress)) instead of letting it default. If NUM is non-zero,
1866: the bf(--compress) option is implied.
1867:
1868: dit(bf(--skip-compress=LIST)) Override the list of file suffixes that will
1869: not be compressed. The bf(LIST) should be one or more file suffixes
1870: (without the dot) separated by slashes (/).
1871:
1872: You may specify an empty string to indicate that no file should be skipped.
1873:
1874: Simple character-class matching is supported: each must consist of a list
1875: of letters inside the square brackets (e.g. no special classes, such as
1876: "[:alpha:]", are supported, and '-' has no special meaning).
1877:
1878: The characters asterisk (*) and question-mark (?) have no special meaning.
1879:
1880: Here's an example that specifies 6 suffixes to skip (since 1 of the 5 rules
1881: matches 2 suffixes):
1882:
1883: verb( --skip-compress=gz/jpg/mp[34]/7z/bz2)
1884:
1885: The default list of suffixes that will not be compressed is this (in this
1886: version of rsync):
1887:
1888: bf(7z)
1889: bf(ace)
1890: bf(avi)
1891: bf(bz2)
1892: bf(deb)
1893: bf(gpg)
1894: bf(gz)
1895: bf(iso)
1896: bf(jpeg)
1897: bf(jpg)
1898: bf(lz)
1899: bf(lzma)
1900: bf(lzo)
1901: bf(mov)
1902: bf(mp3)
1903: bf(mp4)
1904: bf(ogg)
1905: bf(png)
1906: bf(rar)
1907: bf(rpm)
1908: bf(rzip)
1909: bf(tbz)
1910: bf(tgz)
1911: bf(tlz)
1912: bf(txz)
1913: bf(xz)
1914: bf(z)
1915: bf(zip)
1916:
1917: This list will be replaced by your bf(--skip-compress) list in all but one
1918: situation: a copy from a daemon rsync will add your skipped suffixes to
1919: its list of non-compressing files (and its list may be configured to a
1920: different default).
1921:
1922: dit(bf(--numeric-ids)) With this option rsync will transfer numeric group
1923: and user IDs rather than using user and group names and mapping them
1924: at both ends.
1925:
1926: By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine
1927: what ownership to give files. The special uid 0 and the special group
1928: 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if the bf(--numeric-ids)
1929: option is not specified.
1930:
1931: If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match
1932: on the destination system, then the numeric ID
1933: from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
1934: "use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how
1935: the chroot setting affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the
1936: users and groups and what you can do about it.
1937:
1938: dit(bf(--usermap=STRING, --groupmap=STRING)) These options allow you to
1939: specify users and groups that should be mapped to other values by the
1940: receiving side. The bf(STRING) is one or more bf(FROM):bf(TO) pairs of
1941: values separated by commas. Any matching bf(FROM) value from the sender is
1942: replaced with a bf(TO) value from the receiver. You may specify usernames
1943: or user IDs for the bf(FROM) and bf(TO) values, and the bf(FROM) value may
1944: also be a wild-card string, which will be matched against the sender's
1945: names (wild-cards do NOT match against ID numbers, though see below for
1946: why a '*' matches everything). You may instead specify a range of ID
1947: numbers via an inclusive range: LOW-HIGH. For example:
1948:
1949: verb( --usermap=0-99:nobody,wayne:admin,*:normal --groupmap=usr:1,1:usr)
1950:
1951: The first match in the list is the one that is used. You should specify
1952: all your user mappings using a single bf(--usermap) option, and/or all
1953: your group mappings using a single bf(--groupmap) option.
1954:
1955: Note that the sender's name for the 0 user and group are not transmitted
1956: to the receiver, so you should either match these values using a 0, or use
1957: the names in effect on the receiving side (typically "root"). All other
1958: bf(FROM) names match those in use on the sending side. All bf(TO) names
1959: match those in use on the receiving side.
1960:
1961: Any IDs that do not have a name on the sending side are treated as having an
1962: empty name for the purpose of matching. This allows them to be matched via
1963: a "*" or using an empty name. For instance:
1964:
1965: verb( --usermap=:nobody --groupmap=*:nobody)
1966:
1967: When the bf(--numeric-ids) option is used, the sender does not send any
1968: names, so all the IDs are treated as having an empty name. This means that
1969: you will need to specify numeric bf(FROM) values if you want to map these
1970: nameless IDs to different values.
1971:
1972: For the bf(--usermap) option to have any effect, the bf(-o) (bf(--owner))
1973: option must be used (or implied), and the receiver will need to be running
1974: as a super-user (see also the bf(--fake-super) option). For the bf(--groupmap)
1975: option to have any effect, the bf(-g) (bf(--groups)) option must be used
1976: (or implied), and the receiver will need to have permissions to set that
1977: group.
1978:
1979: dit(bf(--chown=USER:GROUP)) This option forces all files to be owned by USER
1980: with group GROUP. This is a simpler interface than using bf(--usermap) and
1981: bf(--groupmap) directly, but it is implemented using those options internally,
1982: so you cannot mix them. If either the USER or GROUP is empty, no mapping for
1983: the omitted user/group will occur. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may
1984: be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied.
1985:
1986: If you specify "--chown=foo:bar, this is exactly the same as specifying
1987: "--usermap=*:foo --groupmap=*:bar", only easier.
1988:
1989: dit(bf(--timeout=TIMEOUT)) This option allows you to set a maximum I/O
1990: timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for the specified time
1991: then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
1992:
1993: dit(bf(--contimeout)) This option allows you to set the amount of time
1994: that rsync will wait for its connection to an rsync daemon to succeed.
1995: If the timeout is reached, rsync exits with an error.
1996:
1997: dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
1998: connecting to an rsync daemon. The bf(--address) option allows you to
1999: specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. See also this
2000: option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2001:
2002: dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use
2003: rather than the default of 873. This is only needed if you are using the
2004: double-colon (::) syntax to connect with an rsync daemon (since the URL
2005: syntax has a way to specify the port as a part of the URL). See also this
2006: option in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2007:
2008: dit(bf(--sockopts)) This option can provide endless fun for people
2009: who like to tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all
2010: sorts of socket options which may make transfers faster (or
2011: slower!). Read the man page for the code(setsockopt()) system call for
2012: details on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
2013: special socket options are set. This only affects direct socket
2014: connections to a remote rsync daemon. This option also exists in the
2015: bf(--daemon) mode section.
2016:
2017: dit(bf(--blocking-io)) This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching
2018: a remote shell transport. If the remote shell is either rsh or remsh,
2019: rsync defaults to using
2020: blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to using non-blocking I/O. (Note that
2021: ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
2022:
2023: dit(bf(--outbuf=MODE)) This sets the output buffering mode. The mode can be
2024: None (aka Unbuffered), Line, or Block (aka Full). You may specify as little
2025: as a single letter for the mode, and use upper or lower case.
2026:
2027: The main use of this option is to change Full buffering to Line buffering
2028: when rsync's output is going to a file or pipe.
2029:
2030: dit(bf(-i, --itemize-changes)) Requests a simple itemized list of the
2031: changes that are being made to each file, including attribute changes.
2032: This is exactly the same as specifying bf(--out-format='%i %n%L').
2033: If you repeat the option, unchanged files will also be output, but only
2034: if the receiving rsync is at least version 2.6.7 (you can use bf(-vv)
2035: with older versions of rsync, but that also turns on the output of other
2036: verbose messages).
2037:
2038: The "%i" escape has a cryptic output that is 11 letters long. The general
2039: format is like the string bf(YXcstpoguax), where bf(Y) is replaced by the
2040: type of update being done, bf(X) is replaced by the file-type, and the
2041: other letters represent attributes that may be output if they are being
2042: modified.
2043:
2044: The update types that replace the bf(Y) are as follows:
2045:
2046: quote(itemization(
2047: it() A bf(<) means that a file is being transferred to the remote host
2048: (sent).
2049: it() A bf(>) means that a file is being transferred to the local host
2050: (received).
2051: it() A bf(c) means that a local change/creation is occurring for the item
2052: (such as the creation of a directory or the changing of a symlink, etc.).
2053: it() A bf(h) means that the item is a hard link to another item (requires
2054: bf(--hard-links)).
2055: it() A bf(.) means that the item is not being updated (though it might
2056: have attributes that are being modified).
2057: it() A bf(*) means that the rest of the itemized-output area contains
2058: a message (e.g. "deleting").
2059: ))
2060:
2061: The file-types that replace the bf(X) are: bf(f) for a file, a bf(d) for a
2062: directory, an bf(L) for a symlink, a bf(D) for a device, and a bf(S) for a
2063: special file (e.g. named sockets and fifos).
2064:
2065: The other letters in the string above are the actual letters that
2066: will be output if the associated attribute for the item is being updated or
2067: a "." for no change. Three exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created
2068: item replaces each letter with a "+", (2) an identical item replaces the
2069: dots with spaces, and (3) an unknown attribute replaces each letter with
2070: a "?" (this can happen when talking to an older rsync).
2071:
2072: The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
2073:
2074: quote(itemization(
2075: it() A bf(c) means either that a regular file has a different checksum
2076: (requires bf(--checksum)) or that a symlink, device, or special file has
2077: a changed value.
2078: Note that if you are sending files to an rsync prior to 3.0.1, this
2079: change flag will be present only for checksum-differing regular files.
2080: it() A bf(s) means the size of a regular file is different and will be updated
2081: by the file transfer.
2082: it() A bf(t) means the modification time is different and is being updated
2083: to the sender's value (requires bf(--times)). An alternate value of bf(T)
2084: means that the modification time will be set to the transfer time, which happens
2085: when a file/symlink/device is updated without bf(--times) and when a
2086: symlink is changed and the receiver can't set its time.
2087: (Note: when using an rsync 3.0.0 client, you might see the bf(s) flag combined
2088: with bf(t) instead of the proper bf(T) flag for this time-setting failure.)
2089: it() A bf(p) means the permissions are different and are being updated to
2090: the sender's value (requires bf(--perms)).
2091: it() An bf(o) means the owner is different and is being updated to the
2092: sender's value (requires bf(--owner) and super-user privileges).
2093: it() A bf(g) means the group is different and is being updated to the
2094: sender's value (requires bf(--group) and the authority to set the group).
2095: it() The bf(u) slot is reserved for future use.
2096: it() The bf(a) means that the ACL information changed.
2097: it() The bf(x) means that the extended attribute information changed.
2098: ))
2099:
2100: One other output is possible: when deleting files, the "%i" will output
2101: the string "*deleting" for each item that is being removed (assuming that
2102: you are talking to a recent enough rsync that it logs deletions instead of
2103: outputting them as a verbose message).
2104:
2105: dit(bf(--out-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what the
2106: rsync client outputs to the user on a per-update basis. The format is a
2107: text string containing embedded single-character escape sequences prefixed
2108: with a percent (%) character. A default format of "%n%L" is assumed if
2109: either bf(--info=name) or bf(-v) is specified (this tells you just the name
2110: of the file and, if the item is a link, where it points). For a full list
2111: of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting in the
2112: rsyncd.conf manpage.
2113:
2114: Specifying the bf(--out-format) option implies the bf(--info=name) option,
2115: which will mention each file, dir, etc. that gets updated in a significant
2116: way (a transferred file, a recreated symlink/device, or a touched
2117: directory). In addition, if the itemize-changes escape (%i) is included in
2118: the string (e.g. if the bf(--itemize-changes) option was used), the logging
2119: of names increases to mention any item that is changed in any way (as long
2120: as the receiving side is at least 2.6.4). See the bf(--itemize-changes)
2121: option for a description of the output of "%i".
2122:
2123: Rsync will output the out-format string prior to a file's transfer unless
2124: one of the transfer-statistic escapes is requested, in which case the
2125: logging is done at the end of the file's transfer. When this late logging
2126: is in effect and bf(--progress) is also specified, rsync will also output
2127: the name of the file being transferred prior to its progress information
2128: (followed, of course, by the out-format output).
2129:
2130: dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option causes rsync to log what it is doing
2131: to a file. This is similar to the logging that a daemon does, but can be
2132: requested for the client side and/or the server side of a non-daemon
2133: transfer. If specified as a client option, transfer logging will be
2134: enabled with a default format of "%i %n%L". See the bf(--log-file-format)
2135: option if you wish to override this.
2136:
2137: Here's a example command that requests the remote side to log what is
2138: happening:
2139:
2140: verb( rsync -av --remote-option=--log-file=/tmp/rlog src/ dest/)
2141:
2142: This is very useful if you need to debug why a connection is closing
2143: unexpectedly.
2144:
2145: dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This allows you to specify exactly what
2146: per-update logging is put into the file specified by the bf(--log-file) option
2147: (which must also be specified for this option to have any effect). If you
2148: specify an empty string, updated files will not be mentioned in the log file.
2149: For a list of the possible escape characters, see the "log format" setting
2150: in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2151:
2152: The default FORMAT used if bf(--log-file) is specified and this option is not
2153: is '%i %n%L'.
2154:
2155: dit(bf(--stats)) This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics
2156: on the file transfer, allowing you to tell how effective rsync's delta-transfer
2157: algorithm is for your data. This option is equivalent to bf(--info=stats2)
2158: if combined with 0 or 1 bf(-v) options, or bf(--info=stats3) if combined
2159: with 2 or more bf(-v) options.
2160:
2161: The current statistics are as follows: quote(itemization(
2162: it() bf(Number of files) is the count of all "files" (in the generic
2163: sense), which includes directories, symlinks, etc. The total count will
2164: be followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2165: For example: "(reg: 5, dir: 3, link: 2, dev: 1, special: 1)" lists the
2166: totals for regular files, directories, symlinks, devices, and special
2167: files. If any of value is 0, it is completely omitted from the list.
2168: it() bf(Number of created files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2169: sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2170: followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2171: it() bf(Number of deleted files) is the count of how many "files" (generic
2172: sense) were created (as opposed to updated). The total count will be
2173: followed by a list of counts by filetype (if the total is non-zero).
2174: Note that this line is only output if deletions are in effect, and only
2175: if protocol 31 is being used (the default for rsync 3.1.x).
2176: it() bf(Number of regular files transferred) is the count of normal files
2177: that were updated via rsync's delta-transfer algorithm, which does not
2178: include dirs, symlinks, etc. Note that rsync 3.1.0 added the word
2179: "regular" into this heading.
2180: it() bf(Total file size) is the total sum of all file sizes in the transfer.
2181: This does not count any size for directories or special files, but does
2182: include the size of symlinks.
2183: it() bf(Total transferred file size) is the total sum of all files sizes
2184: for just the transferred files.
2185: it() bf(Literal data) is how much unmatched file-update data we had to
2186: send to the receiver for it to recreate the updated files.
2187: it() bf(Matched data) is how much data the receiver got locally when
2188: recreating the updated files.
2189: it() bf(File list size) is how big the file-list data was when the sender
2190: sent it to the receiver. This is smaller than the in-memory size for the
2191: file list due to some compressing of duplicated data when rsync sends the
2192: list.
2193: it() bf(File list generation time) is the number of seconds that the
2194: sender spent creating the file list. This requires a modern rsync on the
2195: sending side for this to be present.
2196: it() bf(File list transfer time) is the number of seconds that the sender
2197: spent sending the file list to the receiver.
2198: it() bf(Total bytes sent) is the count of all the bytes that rsync sent
2199: from the client side to the server side.
2200: it() bf(Total bytes received) is the count of all non-message bytes that
2201: rsync received by the client side from the server side. "Non-message"
2202: bytes means that we don't count the bytes for a verbose message that the
2203: server sent to us, which makes the stats more consistent.
2204: ))
2205:
2206: dit(bf(-8, --8-bit-output)) This tells rsync to leave all high-bit characters
2207: unescaped in the output instead of trying to test them to see if they're
2208: valid in the current locale and escaping the invalid ones. All control
2209: characters (but never tabs) are always escaped, regardless of this option's
2210: setting.
2211:
2212: The escape idiom that started in 2.6.7 is to output a literal backslash (\)
2213: and a hash (#), followed by exactly 3 octal digits. For example, a newline
2214: would output as "\#012". A literal backslash that is in a filename is not
2215: escaped unless it is followed by a hash and 3 digits (0-9).
2216:
2217: dit(bf(-h, --human-readable)) Output numbers in a more human-readable format.
2218: There are 3 possible levels: (1) output numbers with a separator between each
2219: set of 3 digits (either a comma or a period, depending on if the decimal point
2220: is represented by a period or a comma); (2) output numbers in units of 1000
2221: (with a character suffix for larger units -- see below); (3) output numbers in
2222: units of 1024.
2223:
2224: The default is human-readable level 1. Each bf(-h) option increases the level
2225: by one. You can take the level down to 0 (to output numbers as pure digits) by
2226: specifing the bf(--no-human-readable) (bf(--no-h)) option.
2227:
2228: The unit letters that are appended in levels 2 and 3 are: K (kilo), M (mega),
2229: G (giga), or T (tera). For example, a 1234567-byte file would output as 1.23M
2230: in level-2 (assuming that a period is your local decimal point).
2231:
2232: Backward compatibility note: versions of rsync prior to 3.1.0 do not support
2233: human-readable level 1, and they default to level 0. Thus, specifying one or
2234: two bf(-h) options will behave in a comparable manner in old and new versions
2235: as long as you didn't specify a bf(--no-h) option prior to one or more bf(-h)
2236: options. See the bf(--list-only) option for one difference.
2237:
2238: dit(bf(--partial)) By default, rsync will delete any partially
2239: transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances
2240: it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
2241: bf(--partial) option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should
2242: make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
2243:
2244: dit(bf(--partial-dir=DIR)) A better way to keep partial files than the
2245: bf(--partial) option is to specify a em(DIR) that will be used to hold the
2246: partial data (instead of writing it out to the destination file).
2247: On the next transfer, rsync will use a file found in this
2248: dir as data to speed up the resumption of the transfer and then delete it
2249: after it has served its purpose.
2250:
2251: Note that if bf(--whole-file) is specified (or implied), any partial-dir
2252: file that is found for a file that is being updated will simply be removed
2253: (since
2254: rsync is sending files without using rsync's delta-transfer algorithm).
2255:
2256: Rsync will create the em(DIR) if it is missing (just the last dir -- not
2257: the whole path). This makes it easy to use a relative path (such as
2258: "bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-partial)") to have rsync create the
2259: partial-directory in the destination file's directory when needed, and then
2260: remove it again when the partial file is deleted.
2261:
2262: If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will add an exclude
2263: rule at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent the
2264: sending of any partial-dir files that may exist on the sending side, and
2265: will also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the
2266: receiving side. An example: the above bf(--partial-dir) option would add
2267: the equivalent of "bf(-f '-p .rsync-partial/')" at the end of any other
2268: filter rules.
2269:
2270: If you are supplying your own exclude rules, you may need to add your own
2271: exclude/hide/protect rule for the partial-dir because (1) the auto-added
2272: rule may be ineffective at the end of your other rules, or (2) you may wish
2273: to override rsync's exclude choice. For instance, if you want to make
2274: rsync clean-up any left-over partial-dirs that may be lying around, you
2275: should specify bf(--delete-after) and add a "risk" filter rule, e.g.
2276: bf(-f 'R .rsync-partial/'). (Avoid using bf(--delete-before) or
2277: bf(--delete-during) unless you don't need rsync to use any of the
2278: left-over partial-dir data during the current run.)
2279:
2280: IMPORTANT: the bf(--partial-dir) should not be writable by other users or it
2281: is a security risk. E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
2282:
2283: You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment
2284: variable. Setting this in the environment does not force bf(--partial) to be
2285: enabled, but rather it affects where partial files go when bf(--partial) is
2286: specified. For instance, instead of using bf(--partial-dir=.rsync-tmp)
2287: along with bf(--progress), you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
2288: environment and then just use the bf(-P) option to turn on the use of the
2289: .rsync-tmp dir for partial transfers. The only times that the bf(--partial)
2290: option does not look for this environment value are (1) when bf(--inplace) was
2291: specified (since bf(--inplace) conflicts with bf(--partial-dir)), and (2) when
2292: bf(--delay-updates) was specified (see below).
2293:
2294: For the purposes of the daemon-config's "refuse options" setting,
2295: bf(--partial-dir) does em(not) imply bf(--partial). This is so that a
2296: refusal of the bf(--partial) option can be used to disallow the overwriting
2297: of destination files with a partial transfer, while still allowing the
2298: safer idiom provided by bf(--partial-dir).
2299:
2300: dit(bf(--delay-updates)) This option puts the temporary file from each
2301: updated file into a holding directory until the end of the
2302: transfer, at which time all the files are renamed into place in rapid
2303: succession. This attempts to make the updating of the files a little more
2304: atomic. By default the files are placed into a directory named ".~tmp~" in
2305: each file's destination directory, but if you've specified the
2306: bf(--partial-dir) option, that directory will be used instead. See the
2307: comments in the bf(--partial-dir) section for a discussion of how this
2308: ".~tmp~" dir will be excluded from the transfer, and what you can do if
2309: you want rsync to cleanup old ".~tmp~" dirs that might be lying around.
2310: Conflicts with bf(--inplace) and bf(--append).
2311:
2312: This option uses more memory on the receiving side (one bit per file
2313: transferred) and also requires enough free disk space on the receiving
2314: side to hold an additional copy of all the updated files. Note also that
2315: you should not use an absolute path to bf(--partial-dir) unless (1)
2316: there is no
2317: chance of any of the files in the transfer having the same name (since all
2318: the updated files will be put into a single directory if the path is
2319: absolute)
2320: and (2) there are no mount points in the hierarchy (since the
2321: delayed updates will fail if they can't be renamed into place).
2322:
2323: See also the "atomic-rsync" perl script in the "support" subdir for an
2324: update algorithm that is even more atomic (it uses bf(--link-dest) and a
2325: parallel hierarchy of files).
2326:
2327: dit(bf(-m, --prune-empty-dirs)) This option tells the receiving rsync to get
2328: rid of empty directories from the file-list, including nested directories
2329: that have no non-directory children. This is useful for avoiding the
2330: creation of a bunch of useless directories when the sending rsync is
2331: recursively scanning a hierarchy of files using include/exclude/filter
2332: rules.
2333:
2334: Note that the use of transfer rules, such as the bf(--min-size) option, does
2335: not affect what goes into the file list, and thus does not leave directories
2336: empty, even if none of the files in a directory match the transfer rule.
2337:
2338: Because the file-list is actually being pruned, this option also affects
2339: what directories get deleted when a delete is active. However, keep in
2340: mind that excluded files and directories can prevent existing items from
2341: being deleted due to an exclude both hiding source files and protecting
2342: destination files. See the perishable filter-rule option for how to avoid
2343: this.
2344:
2345: You can prevent the pruning of certain empty directories from the file-list
2346: by using a global "protect" filter. For instance, this option would ensure
2347: that the directory "emptydir" was kept in the file-list:
2348:
2349: quote( --filter 'protect emptydir/')
2350:
2351: Here's an example that copies all .pdf files in a hierarchy, only creating
2352: the necessary destination directories to hold the .pdf files, and ensures
2353: that any superfluous files and directories in the destination are removed
2354: (note the hide filter of non-directories being used instead of an exclude):
2355:
2356: quote( rsync -avm --del --include='*.pdf' -f 'hide,! */' src/ dest)
2357:
2358: If you didn't want to remove superfluous destination files, the more
2359: time-honored options of "bf(--include='*/' --exclude='*')" would work fine
2360: in place of the hide-filter (if that is more natural to you).
2361:
2362: dit(bf(--progress)) This option tells rsync to print information
2363: showing the progress of the transfer. This gives a bored user
2364: something to watch.
2365: With a modern rsync this is the same as specifying
2366: bf(--info=flist2,name,progress), but any user-supplied settings for those
2367: info flags takes precedence (e.g. "--info=flist0 --progress").
2368:
2369: While rsync is transferring a regular file, it updates a progress line that
2370: looks like this:
2371:
2372: verb( 782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04)
2373:
2374: In this example, the receiver has reconstructed 782448 bytes or 63% of the
2375: sender's file, which is being reconstructed at a rate of 110.64 kilobytes
2376: per second, and the transfer will finish in 4 seconds if the current rate
2377: is maintained until the end.
2378:
2379: These statistics can be misleading if rsync's delta-transfer algorithm is
2380: in use. For example, if the sender's file consists of the basis file
2381: followed by additional data, the reported rate will probably drop
2382: dramatically when the receiver gets to the literal data, and the transfer
2383: will probably take much longer to finish than the receiver estimated as it
2384: was finishing the matched part of the file.
2385:
2386: When the file transfer finishes, rsync replaces the progress line with a
2387: summary line that looks like this:
2388:
2389: verb( 1,238,099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (xfr#5, to-chk=169/396))
2390:
2391: In this example, the file was 1,238,099 bytes long in total, the average rate
2392: of transfer for the whole file was 146.38 kilobytes per second over the 8
2393: seconds that it took to complete, it was the 5th transfer of a regular file
2394: during the current rsync session, and there are 169 more files for the
2395: receiver to check (to see if they are up-to-date or not) remaining out of
2396: the 396 total files in the file-list.
2397:
2398: In an incremental recursion scan, rsync won't know the total number of files
2399: in the file-list until it reaches the ends of the scan, but since it starts to
2400: transfer files during the scan, it will display a line with the text "ir-chk"
2401: (for incremental recursion check) instead of "to-chk" until the point that it
2402: knows the full size of the list, at which point it will switch to using
2403: "to-chk". Thus, seeing "ir-chk" lets you know that the total count of files
2404: in the file list is still going to increase (and each time it does, the count
2405: of files left to check will increase by the number of the files added to the
2406: list).
2407:
2408: dit(bf(-P)) The bf(-P) option is equivalent to bf(--partial) bf(--progress). Its
2409: purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long
2410: transfer that may be interrupted.
2411:
2412: There is also a bf(--info=progress2) option that outputs statistics based
2413: on the whole transfer, rather than individual files. Use this flag without
2414: outputting a filename (e.g. avoid bf(-v) or specify bf(--info=name0) if you
2415: want to see how the transfer is doing without scrolling the screen with a
2416: lot of names. (You don't need to specify the bf(--progress) option in
2417: order to use bf(--info=progress2).)
2418:
2419: dit(bf(--password-file=FILE)) This option allows you to provide a password for
2420: accessing an rsync daemon via a file or via standard input if bf(FILE) is
2421: bf(-). The file should contain just the password on the first line (all other
2422: lines are ignored). Rsync will exit with an error if bf(FILE) is world
2423: readable or if a root-run rsync command finds a non-root-owned file.
2424:
2425: This option does not supply a password to a remote shell transport such as
2426: ssh; to learn how to do that, consult the remote shell's documentation.
2427: When accessing an rsync daemon using a remote shell as the transport, this
2428: option only comes into effect after the remote shell finishes its
2429: authentication (i.e. if you have also specified a password in the daemon's
2430: config file).
2431:
2432: dit(bf(--list-only)) This option will cause the source files to be listed
2433: instead of transferred. This option is inferred if there is a single source
2434: arg and no destination specified, so its main uses are: (1) to turn a copy
2435: command that includes a
2436: destination arg into a file-listing command, or (2) to be able to specify
2437: more than one source arg (note: be sure to include the destination).
2438: Caution: keep in mind that a source arg with a wild-card is expanded by the
2439: shell into multiple args, so it is never safe to try to list such an arg
2440: without using this option. For example:
2441:
2442: verb( rsync -av --list-only foo* dest/)
2443:
2444: Starting with rsync 3.1.0, the sizes output by bf(--list-only) are affected
2445: by the bf(--human-readable) option. By default they will contain digit
2446: separators, but higher levels of readability will output the sizes with
2447: unit suffixes. Note also that the column width for the size output has
2448: increased from 11 to 14 characters for all human-readable levels. Use
2449: bf(--no-h) if you want just digits in the sizes, and the old column width
2450: of 11 characters.
2451:
2452: Compatibility note: when requesting a remote listing of files from an rsync
2453: that is version 2.6.3 or older, you may encounter an error if you ask for a
2454: non-recursive listing. This is because a file listing implies the bf(--dirs)
2455: option w/o bf(--recursive), and older rsyncs don't have that option. To
2456: avoid this problem, either specify the bf(--no-dirs) option (if you don't
2457: need to expand a directory's content), or turn on recursion and exclude
2458: the content of subdirectories: bf(-r --exclude='/*/*').
2459:
2460: dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2461: rate for the data sent over the socket, specified in units per second. The
2462: RATE value can be suffixed with a string to indicate a size multiplier, and may
2463: be a fractional value (e.g. "bf(--bwlimit=1.5m)"). If no suffix is specified,
2464: the value will be assumed to be in units of 1024 bytes (as if "K" or "KiB" had
2465: been appended). See the bf(--max-size) option for a description of all the
2466: available suffixes. A value of zero specifies no limit.
2467:
2468: For backward-compatibility reasons, the rate limit will be rounded to the
2469: nearest KiB unit, so no rate smaller than 1024 bytes per second is possible.
2470:
2471: Rsync writes data over the socket in blocks, and this option both limits the
2472: size of the blocks that rsync writes, and tries to keep the average transfer
2473: rate at the requested limit. Some "burstiness" may be seen where rsync writes
2474: out a block of data and then sleeps to bring the average rate into compliance.
2475:
2476: Due to the internal buffering of data, the bf(--progress) option may not be an
2477: accurate reflection on how fast the data is being sent. This is because some
2478: files can show up as being rapidly sent when the data is quickly buffered,
2479: while other can show up as very slow when the flushing of the output buffer
2480: occurs. This may be fixed in a future version.
2481:
2482: dit(bf(--write-batch=FILE)) Record a file that can later be applied to
2483: another identical destination with bf(--read-batch). See the "BATCH MODE"
2484: section for details, and also the bf(--only-write-batch) option.
2485:
2486: dit(bf(--only-write-batch=FILE)) Works like bf(--write-batch), except that
2487: no updates are made on the destination system when creating the batch.
2488: This lets you transport the changes to the destination system via some
2489: other means and then apply the changes via bf(--read-batch).
2490:
2491: Note that you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable
2492: media: if this media fills to capacity before the end of the transfer, you
2493: can just apply that partial transfer to the destination and repeat the
2494: whole process to get the rest of the changes (as long as you don't mind a
2495: partially updated destination system while the multi-update cycle is
2496: happening).
2497:
2498: Also note that you only save bandwidth when pushing changes to a remote
2499: system because this allows the batched data to be diverted from the sender
2500: into the batch file without having to flow over the wire to the receiver
2501: (when pulling, the sender is remote, and thus can't write the batch).
2502:
2503: dit(bf(--read-batch=FILE)) Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a
2504: file previously generated by bf(--write-batch).
2505: If em(FILE) is bf(-), the batch data will be read from standard input.
2506: See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
2507:
2508: dit(bf(--protocol=NUM)) Force an older protocol version to be used. This
2509: is useful for creating a batch file that is compatible with an older
2510: version of rsync. For instance, if rsync 2.6.4 is being used with the
2511: bf(--write-batch) option, but rsync 2.6.3 is what will be used to run the
2512: bf(--read-batch) option, you should use "--protocol=28" when creating the
2513: batch file to force the older protocol version to be used in the batch
2514: file (assuming you can't upgrade the rsync on the reading system).
2515:
2516: dit(bf(--iconv=CONVERT_SPEC)) Rsync can convert filenames between character
2517: sets using this option. Using a CONVERT_SPEC of "." tells rsync to look up
2518: the default character-set via the locale setting. Alternately, you can
2519: fully specify what conversion to do by giving a local and a remote charset
2520: separated by a comma in the order bf(--iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE), e.g.
2521: bf(--iconv=utf8,iso88591). This order ensures that the option
2522: will stay the same whether you're pushing or pulling files.
2523: Finally, you can specify either bf(--no-iconv) or a CONVERT_SPEC of "-"
2524: to turn off any conversion.
2525: The default setting of this option is site-specific, and can also be
2526: affected via the RSYNC_ICONV environment variable.
2527:
2528: For a list of what charset names your local iconv library supports, you can
2529: run "iconv --list".
2530:
2531: If you specify the bf(--protect-args) option (bf(-s)), rsync will translate
2532: the filenames you specify on the command-line that are being sent to the
2533: remote host. See also the bf(--files-from) option.
2534:
2535: Note that rsync does not do any conversion of names in filter files
2536: (including include/exclude files). It is up to you to ensure that you're
2537: specifying matching rules that can match on both sides of the transfer.
2538: For instance, you can specify extra include/exclude rules if there are
2539: filename differences on the two sides that need to be accounted for.
2540:
2541: When you pass an bf(--iconv) option to an rsync daemon that allows it, the
2542: daemon uses the charset specified in its "charset" configuration parameter
2543: regardless of the remote charset you actually pass. Thus, you may feel free to
2544: specify just the local charset for a daemon transfer (e.g. bf(--iconv=utf8)).
2545:
2546: dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2547: when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync has direct
2548: control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an
2549: rsync daemon. See also these options in the bf(--daemon) mode section.
2550:
2551: If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2552: will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2553: is the case.
2554:
2555: dit(bf(--checksum-seed=NUM)) Set the checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4
2556: byte checksum seed is included in each block and MD4 file checksum calculation
2557: (the more modern MD5 file checksums don't use a seed). By default the checksum
2558: seed is generated by the server and defaults to the current code(time()). This
2559: option is used to set a specific checksum seed, which is useful for
2560: applications that want repeatable block checksums, or in the case where the
2561: user wants a more random checksum seed. Setting NUM to 0 causes rsync to use
2562: the default of code(time()) for checksum seed.
2563:
2564: enddit()
2565:
2566: manpagesection(DAEMON OPTIONS)
2567:
2568: The options allowed when starting an rsync daemon are as follows:
2569:
2570: startdit()
2571: dit(bf(--daemon)) This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The
2572: daemon you start running may be accessed using an rsync client using
2573: the bf(host::module) or bf(rsync://host/module/) syntax.
2574:
2575: If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being
2576: run via inetd, otherwise it will detach from the current terminal and
2577: become a background daemon. The daemon will read the config file
2578: (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to
2579: requests accordingly. See the bf(rsyncd.conf)(5) man page for more
2580: details.
2581:
2582: dit(bf(--address)) By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when
2583: run as a daemon with the bf(--daemon) option. The bf(--address) option
2584: allows you to specify a specific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This
2585: makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction with the bf(--config) option.
2586: See also the "address" global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2587:
2588: dit(bf(--bwlimit=RATE)) This option allows you to specify the maximum transfer
2589: rate for the data the daemon sends over the socket. The client can still
2590: specify a smaller bf(--bwlimit) value, but no larger value will be allowed.
2591: See the client version of this option (above) for some extra details.
2592:
2593: dit(bf(--config=FILE)) This specifies an alternate config file than
2594: the default. This is only relevant when bf(--daemon) is specified.
2595: The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over
2596: a remote shell program and the remote user is not the super-user; in that case
2597: the default is rsyncd.conf in the current directory (typically $HOME).
2598:
2599: dit(bf(-M, --dparam=OVERRIDE)) This option can be used to set a daemon-config
2600: parameter when starting up rsync in daemon mode. It is equivalent to adding
2601: the parameter at the end of the global settings prior to the first module's
2602: definition. The parameter names can be specified without spaces, if you so
2603: desire. For instance:
2604:
2605: verb( rsync --daemon -M pidfile=/path/rsync.pid )
2606:
2607: dit(bf(--no-detach)) When running as a daemon, this option instructs
2608: rsync to not detach itself and become a background process. This
2609: option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also
2610: be useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as
2611: bf(daemontools) or AIX's bf(System Resource Controller).
2612: bf(--no-detach) is also recommended when rsync is run under a
2613: debugger. This option has no effect if rsync is run from inetd or
2614: sshd.
2615:
2616: dit(bf(--port=PORT)) This specifies an alternate TCP port number for the
2617: daemon to listen on rather than the default of 873. See also the "port"
2618: global option in the rsyncd.conf manpage.
2619:
2620: dit(bf(--log-file=FILE)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2621: given log-file name instead of using the "log file" setting in the config
2622: file.
2623:
2624: dit(bf(--log-file-format=FORMAT)) This option tells the rsync daemon to use the
2625: given FORMAT string instead of using the "log format" setting in the config
2626: file. It also enables "transfer logging" unless the string is empty, in which
2627: case transfer logging is turned off.
2628:
2629: dit(bf(--sockopts)) This overrides the bf(socket options) setting in the
2630: rsyncd.conf file and has the same syntax.
2631:
2632: dit(bf(-v, --verbose)) This option increases the amount of information the
2633: daemon logs during its startup phase. After the client connects, the
2634: daemon's verbosity level will be controlled by the options that the client
2635: used and the "max verbosity" setting in the module's config section.
2636:
2637: dit(bf(-4, --ipv4) or bf(-6, --ipv6)) Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6
2638: when creating the incoming sockets that the rsync daemon will use to
2639: listen for connections. One of these options may be required in older
2640: versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel (if you see
2641: an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port,
2642: try specifying bf(--ipv6) or bf(--ipv4) when starting the daemon).
2643:
2644: If rsync was complied without support for IPv6, the bf(--ipv6) option
2645: will have no effect. The bf(--version) output will tell you if this
2646: is the case.
2647:
2648: dit(bf(-h, --help)) When specified after bf(--daemon), print a short help
2649: page describing the options available for starting an rsync daemon.
2650: enddit()
2651:
2652: manpagesection(FILTER RULES)
2653:
2654: The filter rules allow for flexible selection of which files to transfer
2655: (include) and which files to skip (exclude). The rules either directly
2656: specify include/exclude patterns or they specify a way to acquire more
2657: include/exclude patterns (e.g. to read them from a file).
2658:
2659: As the list of files/directories to transfer is built, rsync checks each
2660: name to be transferred against the list of include/exclude patterns in
2661: turn, and the first matching pattern is acted on: if it is an exclude
2662: pattern, then that file is skipped; if it is an include pattern then that
2663: filename is not skipped; if no matching pattern is found, then the
2664: filename is not skipped.
2665:
2666: Rsync builds an ordered list of filter rules as specified on the
2667: command-line. Filter rules have the following syntax:
2668:
2669: quote(
2670: tt(RULE [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2671: tt(RULE,MODIFIERS [PATTERN_OR_FILENAME])nl()
2672: )
2673:
2674: You have your choice of using either short or long RULE names, as described
2675: below. If you use a short-named rule, the ',' separating the RULE from the
2676: MODIFIERS is optional. The PATTERN or FILENAME that follows (when present)
2677: must come after either a single space or an underscore (_).
2678: Here are the available rule prefixes:
2679:
2680: quote(
2681: bf(exclude, -) specifies an exclude pattern. nl()
2682: bf(include, +) specifies an include pattern. nl()
2683: bf(merge, .) specifies a merge-file to read for more rules. nl()
2684: bf(dir-merge, :) specifies a per-directory merge-file. nl()
2685: bf(hide, H) specifies a pattern for hiding files from the transfer. nl()
2686: bf(show, S) files that match the pattern are not hidden. nl()
2687: bf(protect, P) specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion. nl()
2688: bf(risk, R) files that match the pattern are not protected. nl()
2689: bf(clear, !) clears the current include/exclude list (takes no arg) nl()
2690: )
2691:
2692: When rules are being read from a file, empty lines are ignored, as are
2693: comment lines that start with a "#".
2694:
2695: Note that the bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) command-line options do not allow the
2696: full range of rule parsing as described above -- they only allow the
2697: specification of include/exclude patterns plus a "!" token to clear the
2698: list (and the normal comment parsing when rules are read from a file).
2699: If a pattern
2700: does not begin with "- " (dash, space) or "+ " (plus, space), then the
2701: rule will be interpreted as if "+ " (for an include option) or "- " (for
2702: an exclude option) were prefixed to the string. A bf(--filter) option, on
2703: the other hand, must always contain either a short or long rule name at the
2704: start of the rule.
2705:
2706: Note also that the bf(--filter), bf(--include), and bf(--exclude) options take one
2707: rule/pattern each. To add multiple ones, you can repeat the options on
2708: the command-line, use the merge-file syntax of the bf(--filter) option, or
2709: the bf(--include-from)/bf(--exclude-from) options.
2710:
2711: manpagesection(INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES)
2712:
2713: You can include and exclude files by specifying patterns using the "+",
2714: "-", etc. filter rules (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above).
2715: The include/exclude rules each specify a pattern that is matched against
2716: the names of the files that are going to be transferred. These patterns
2717: can take several forms:
2718:
2719: itemization(
2720: it() if the pattern starts with a / then it is anchored to a
2721: particular spot in the hierarchy of files, otherwise it is matched
2722: against the end of the pathname. This is similar to a leading ^ in
2723: regular expressions.
2724: Thus "/foo" would match a name of "foo" at either the "root of the
2725: transfer" (for a global rule) or in the merge-file's directory (for a
2726: per-directory rule).
2727: An unqualified "foo" would match a name of "foo" anywhere in the
2728: tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from the
2729: top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
2730: end of the filename. Even the unanchored "sub/foo" would match at
2731: any point in the hierarchy where a "foo" was found within a directory
2732: named "sub". See the section on ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS for
2733: a full discussion of how to specify a pattern that matches at the root
2734: of the transfer.
2735: it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
2736: directory, not a regular file, symlink, or device.
2737: it() rsync chooses between doing a simple string match and wildcard
2738: matching by checking if the pattern contains one of these three wildcard
2739: characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
2740: it() a '*' matches any path component, but it stops at slashes.
2741: it() use '**' to match anything, including slashes.
2742: it() a '?' matches any character except a slash (/).
2743: it() a '[' introduces a character class, such as [a-z] or [[:alpha:]].
2744: it() in a wildcard pattern, a backslash can be used to escape a wildcard
2745: character, but it is matched literally when no wildcards are present.
2746: it() if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**",
2747: then it is matched against the full pathname, including any leading
2748: directories. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a "**", then it is
2749: matched only against the final component of the filename.
2750: (Remember that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename"
2751: can actually be any portion of a path from the starting directory on
2752: down.)
2753: it() a trailing "dir_name/***" will match both the directory (as if
2754: "dir_name/" had been specified) and everything in the directory
2755: (as if "dir_name/**" had been specified). This behavior was added in
2756: version 2.6.7.
2757: )
2758:
2759: Note that, when using the bf(--recursive) (bf(-r)) option (which is implied by
2760: bf(-a)), every subcomponent of every path is visited from the top down, so
2761: include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each subcomponent's
2762: full name (e.g. to include "/foo/bar/baz" the subcomponents "/foo" and
2763: "/foo/bar" must not be excluded).
2764: The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage
2765: when rsync finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular
2766: parent directory, it can render a deeper include pattern ineffectual
2767: because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the
2768: hierarchy. This is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule.
2769: For instance, this won't work:
2770:
2771: quote(
2772: tt(+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found)nl()
2773: tt(+ /file-is-included)nl()
2774: tt(- *)nl()
2775: )
2776:
2777: This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*'
2778: rule, so rsync never visits any of the files in the "some" or "some/path"
2779: directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in the hierarchy
2780: to be included by using a single rule: "+ */" (put it somewhere before the
2781: "- *" rule), and perhaps use the bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option. Another
2782: solution is to add specific include rules for all
2783: the parent dirs that need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules
2784: works fine:
2785:
2786: quote(
2787: tt(+ /some/)nl()
2788: tt(+ /some/path/)nl()
2789: tt(+ /some/path/this-file-is-found)nl()
2790: tt(+ /file-also-included)nl()
2791: tt(- *)nl()
2792: )
2793:
2794: Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
2795:
2796: itemization(
2797: it() "- *.o" would exclude all names matching *.o
2798: it() "- /foo" would exclude a file (or directory) named foo in the
2799: transfer-root directory
2800: it() "- foo/" would exclude any directory named foo
2801: it() "- /foo/*/bar" would exclude any file named bar which is at two
2802: levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2803: it() "- /foo/**/bar" would exclude any file named bar two
2804: or more levels below a directory named foo in the transfer-root directory
2805: it() The combination of "+ */", "+ *.c", and "- *" would include all
2806: directories and C source files but nothing else (see also the
2807: bf(--prune-empty-dirs) option)
2808: it() The combination of "+ foo/", "+ foo/bar.c", and "- *" would include
2809: only the foo directory and foo/bar.c (the foo directory must be
2810: explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
2811: )
2812:
2813: The following modifiers are accepted after a "+" or "-":
2814:
2815: itemization(
2816: it() A bf(/) specifies that the include/exclude rule should be matched
2817: against the absolute pathname of the current item. For example,
2818: "-/ /etc/passwd" would exclude the passwd file any time the transfer
2819: was sending files from the "/etc" directory, and "-/ subdir/foo"
2820: would always exclude "foo" when it is in a dir named "subdir", even
2821: if "foo" is at the root of the current transfer.
2822: it() A bf(!) specifies that the include/exclude should take effect if
2823: the pattern fails to match. For instance, "-! */" would exclude all
2824: non-directories.
2825: it() A bf(C) is used to indicate that all the global CVS-exclude rules
2826: should be inserted as excludes in place of the "-C". No arg should
2827: follow.
2828: it() An bf(s) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the sending
2829: side. When a rule affects the sending side, it prevents files from
2830: being transferred. The default is for a rule to affect both sides
2831: unless bf(--delete-excluded) was specified, in which case default rules
2832: become sender-side only. See also the hide (H) and show (S) rules,
2833: which are an alternate way to specify sending-side includes/excludes.
2834: it() An bf(r) is used to indicate that the rule applies to the receiving
2835: side. When a rule affects the receiving side, it prevents files from
2836: being deleted. See the bf(s) modifier for more info. See also the
2837: protect (P) and risk (R) rules, which are an alternate way to
2838: specify receiver-side includes/excludes.
2839: it() A bf(p) indicates that a rule is perishable, meaning that it is
2840: ignored in directories that are being deleted. For instance, the bf(-C)
2841: option's default rules that exclude things like "CVS" and "*.o" are
2842: marked as perishable, and will not prevent a directory that was removed
2843: on the source from being deleted on the destination.
2844: )
2845:
2846: manpagesection(MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES)
2847:
2848: You can merge whole files into your filter rules by specifying either a
2849: merge (.) or a dir-merge (:) filter rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES
2850: section above).
2851:
2852: There are two kinds of merged files -- single-instance ('.') and
2853: per-directory (':'). A single-instance merge file is read one time, and
2854: its rules are incorporated into the filter list in the place of the "."
2855: rule. For per-directory merge files, rsync will scan every directory that
2856: it traverses for the named file, merging its contents when the file exists
2857: into the current list of inherited rules. These per-directory rule files
2858: must be created on the sending side because it is the sending side that is
2859: being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may
2860: also need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to
2861: affect what files don't get deleted (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE
2862: below).
2863:
2864: Some examples:
2865:
2866: quote(
2867: tt(merge /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2868: tt(. /etc/rsync/default.rules)nl()
2869: tt(dir-merge .per-dir-filter)nl()
2870: tt(dir-merge,n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2871: tt(:n- .non-inherited-per-dir-excludes)nl()
2872: )
2873:
2874: The following modifiers are accepted after a merge or dir-merge rule:
2875:
2876: itemization(
2877: it() A bf(-) specifies that the file should consist of only exclude
2878: patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2879: it() A bf(+) specifies that the file should consist of only include
2880: patterns, with no other rule-parsing except for in-file comments.
2881: it() A bf(C) is a way to specify that the file should be read in a
2882: CVS-compatible manner. This turns on 'n', 'w', and '-', but also
2883: allows the list-clearing token (!) to be specified. If no filename is
2884: provided, ".cvsignore" is assumed.
2885: it() A bf(e) will exclude the merge-file name from the transfer; e.g.
2886: "dir-merge,e .rules" is like "dir-merge .rules" and "- .rules".
2887: it() An bf(n) specifies that the rules are not inherited by subdirectories.
2888: it() A bf(w) specifies that the rules are word-split on whitespace instead
2889: of the normal line-splitting. This also turns off comments. Note: the
2890: space that separates the prefix from the rule is treated specially, so
2891: "- foo + bar" is parsed as two rules (assuming that prefix-parsing wasn't
2892: also disabled).
2893: it() You may also specify any of the modifiers for the "+" or "-" rules
2894: (above) in order to have the rules that are read in from the file
2895: default to having that modifier set (except for the bf(!) modifier, which
2896: would not be useful). For instance, "merge,-/ .excl" would
2897: treat the contents of .excl as absolute-path excludes,
2898: while "dir-merge,s .filt" and ":sC" would each make all their
2899: per-directory rules apply only on the sending side. If the merge rule
2900: specifies sides to affect (via the bf(s) or bf(r) modifier or both),
2901: then the rules in the file must not specify sides (via a modifier or
2902: a rule prefix such as bf(hide)).
2903: )
2904:
2905: Per-directory rules are inherited in all subdirectories of the directory
2906: where the merge-file was found unless the 'n' modifier was used. Each
2907: subdirectory's rules are prefixed to the inherited per-directory rules
2908: from its parents, which gives the newest rules a higher priority than the
2909: inherited rules. The entire set of dir-merge rules are grouped together in
2910: the spot where the merge-file was specified, so it is possible to override
2911: dir-merge rules via a rule that got specified earlier in the list of global
2912: rules. When the list-clearing rule ("!") is read from a per-directory
2913: file, it only clears the inherited rules for the current merge file.
2914:
2915: Another way to prevent a single rule from a dir-merge file from being inherited is to
2916: anchor it with a leading slash. Anchored rules in a per-directory
2917: merge-file are relative to the merge-file's directory, so a pattern "/foo"
2918: would only match the file "foo" in the directory where the dir-merge filter
2919: file was found.
2920:
2921: Here's an example filter file which you'd specify via bf(--filter=". file":)
2922:
2923: quote(
2924: tt(merge /home/user/.global-filter)nl()
2925: tt(- *.gz)nl()
2926: tt(dir-merge .rules)nl()
2927: tt(+ *.[ch])nl()
2928: tt(- *.o)nl()
2929: )
2930:
2931: This will merge the contents of the /home/user/.global-filter file at the
2932: start of the list and also turns the ".rules" filename into a per-directory
2933: filter file. All rules read in prior to the start of the directory scan
2934: follow the global anchoring rules (i.e. a leading slash matches at the root
2935: of the transfer).
2936:
2937: If a per-directory merge-file is specified with a path that is a parent
2938: directory of the first transfer directory, rsync will scan all the parent
2939: dirs from that starting point to the transfer directory for the indicated
2940: per-directory file. For instance, here is a common filter (see bf(-F)):
2941:
2942: quote(tt(--filter=': /.rsync-filter'))
2943:
2944: That rule tells rsync to scan for the file .rsync-filter in all
2945: directories from the root down through the parent directory of the
2946: transfer prior to the start of the normal directory scan of the file in
2947: the directories that are sent as a part of the transfer. (Note: for an
2948: rsync daemon, the root is always the same as the module's "path".)
2949:
2950: Some examples of this pre-scanning for per-directory files:
2951:
2952: quote(
2953: tt(rsync -avF /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2954: tt(rsync -av --filter=': ../../.rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2955: tt(rsync -av --filter=': .rsync-filter' /src/path/ /dest/dir)nl()
2956: )
2957:
2958: The first two commands above will look for ".rsync-filter" in "/" and
2959: "/src" before the normal scan begins looking for the file in "/src/path"
2960: and its subdirectories. The last command avoids the parent-dir scan
2961: and only looks for the ".rsync-filter" files in each directory that is
2962: a part of the transfer.
2963:
2964: If you want to include the contents of a ".cvsignore" in your patterns,
2965: you should use the rule ":C", which creates a dir-merge of the .cvsignore
2966: file, but parsed in a CVS-compatible manner. You can
2967: use this to affect where the bf(--cvs-exclude) (bf(-C)) option's inclusion of the
2968: per-directory .cvsignore file gets placed into your rules by putting the
2969: ":C" wherever you like in your filter rules. Without this, rsync would
2970: add the dir-merge rule for the .cvsignore file at the end of all your other
2971: rules (giving it a lower priority than your command-line rules). For
2972: example:
2973:
2974: quote(
2975: tt(cat <<EOT | rsync -avC --filter='. -' a/ b)nl()
2976: tt(+ foo.o)nl()
2977: tt(:C)nl()
2978: tt(- *.old)nl()
2979: tt(EOT)nl()
2980: tt(rsync -avC --include=foo.o -f :C --exclude='*.old' a/ b)nl()
2981: )
2982:
2983: Both of the above rsync commands are identical. Each one will merge all
2984: the per-directory .cvsignore rules in the middle of the list rather than
2985: at the end. This allows their dir-specific rules to supersede the rules
2986: that follow the :C instead of being subservient to all your rules. To
2987: affect the other CVS exclude rules (i.e. the default list of exclusions,
2988: the contents of $HOME/.cvsignore, and the value of $CVSIGNORE) you should
2989: omit the bf(-C) command-line option and instead insert a "-C" rule into
2990: your filter rules; e.g. "bf(--filter=-C)".
2991:
2992: manpagesection(LIST-CLEARING FILTER RULE)
2993:
2994: You can clear the current include/exclude list by using the "!" filter
2995: rule (as introduced in the FILTER RULES section above). The "current"
2996: list is either the global list of rules (if the rule is encountered while
2997: parsing the filter options) or a set of per-directory rules (which are
2998: inherited in their own sub-list, so a subdirectory can use this to clear
2999: out the parent's rules).
3000:
3001: manpagesection(ANCHORING INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERNS)
3002:
3003: As mentioned earlier, global include/exclude patterns are anchored at the
3004: "root of the transfer" (as opposed to per-directory patterns, which are
3005: anchored at the merge-file's directory). If you think of the transfer as
3006: a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the
3007: transfer-root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination
3008: directory. This root governs where patterns that start with a / match.
3009:
3010: Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
3011: trailing slash on a source path or changing your use of the bf(--relative)
3012: option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
3013: changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
3014: host). The following examples demonstrate this.
3015:
3016: Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute
3017: path of "/home/me/foo/bar", and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz".
3018: Here is how the various command choices differ for a 2-source transfer:
3019:
3020: quote(
3021: Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest nl()
3022: +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar nl()
3023: +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz nl()
3024: Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3025: Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3026: )
3027:
3028: quote(
3029: Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest nl()
3030: +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me") nl()
3031: +/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you") nl()
3032: Target file: /dest/foo/bar nl()
3033: Target file: /dest/bar/baz nl()
3034: )
3035:
3036: quote(
3037: Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest nl()
3038: +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path) nl()
3039: +/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3040: Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar nl()
3041: Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz nl()
3042: )
3043:
3044: quote(
3045: Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest nl()
3046: +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path) nl()
3047: +/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto) nl()
3048: Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar nl()
3049: Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz nl()
3050: )
3051:
3052: The easiest way to see what name you should filter is to just
3053: look at the output when using bf(--verbose) and put a / in front of the name
3054: (use the bf(--dry-run) option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
3055:
3056: manpagesection(PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE)
3057:
3058: Without a delete option, per-directory rules are only relevant on the
3059: sending side, so you can feel free to exclude the merge files themselves
3060: without affecting the transfer. To make this easy, the 'e' modifier adds
3061: this exclude for you, as seen in these two equivalent commands:
3062:
3063: quote(
3064: tt(rsync -av --filter=': .excl' --exclude=.excl host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3065: tt(rsync -av --filter=':e .excl' host:src/dir /dest)nl()
3066: )
3067:
3068: However, if you want to do a delete on the receiving side AND you want some
3069: files to be excluded from being deleted, you'll need to be sure that the
3070: receiving side knows what files to exclude. The easiest way is to include
3071: the per-directory merge files in the transfer and use bf(--delete-after),
3072: because this ensures that the receiving side gets all the same exclude
3073: rules as the sending side before it tries to delete anything:
3074:
3075: quote(tt(rsync -avF --delete-after host:src/dir /dest))
3076:
3077: However, if the merge files are not a part of the transfer, you'll need to
3078: either specify some global exclude rules (i.e. specified on the command
3079: line), or you'll need to maintain your own per-directory merge files on
3080: the receiving side. An example of the first is this (assume that the
3081: remote .rules files exclude themselves):
3082:
3083: verb(rsync -av --filter=': .rules' --filter='. /my/extra.rules'
3084: --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3085:
3086: In the above example the extra.rules file can affect both sides of the
3087: transfer, but (on the sending side) the rules are subservient to the rules
3088: merged from the .rules files because they were specified after the
3089: per-directory merge rule.
3090:
3091: In one final example, the remote side is excluding the .rsync-filter
3092: files from the transfer, but we want to use our own .rsync-filter files
3093: to control what gets deleted on the receiving side. To do this we must
3094: specifically exclude the per-directory merge files (so that they don't get
3095: deleted) and then put rules into the local files to control what else
3096: should not get deleted. Like one of these commands:
3097:
3098: verb( rsync -av --filter=':e /.rsync-filter' --delete \
3099: host:src/dir /dest
3100: rsync -avFF --delete host:src/dir /dest)
3101:
3102: manpagesection(BATCH MODE)
3103:
3104: Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many
3105: identical systems. Suppose one has a tree which is replicated on a
3106: number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
3107: source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other
3108: hosts. In order to do this using batch mode, rsync is run with the
3109: write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to one
3110: of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync
3111: client to store in a "batch file" all the information needed to repeat
3112: this operation against other, identical destination trees.
3113:
3114: Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file
3115: status, checksum, and data block generation more than once when
3116: updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can
3117: be used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts
3118: at once, instead of sending the same data to every host individually.
3119:
3120: To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync
3121: with the read-batch option, specifying the name of the same batch
3122: file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination tree
3123: using the information stored in the batch file.
3124:
3125: For your convenience, a script file is also created when the write-batch
3126: option is used: it will be named the same as the batch file with ".sh"
3127: appended. This script file contains a command-line suitable for updating a
3128: destination tree using the associated batch file. It can be executed using
3129: a Bourne (or Bourne-like) shell, optionally passing in an alternate
3130: destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the original
3131: destination path. This is useful when the destination tree path on the
3132: current host differs from the one used to create the batch file.
3133:
3134: Examples:
3135:
3136: quote(
3137: tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3138: tt($ scp foo* remote:)nl()
3139: tt($ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/)nl()
3140: )
3141:
3142: quote(
3143: tt($ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/)nl()
3144: tt($ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo)nl()
3145: )
3146:
3147: In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/
3148: and the information to repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and
3149: "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the batched data going
3150: into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples
3151: reveals some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
3152:
3153: itemization(
3154: it() The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be
3155: local -- you can push or pull data to/from a remote host using either the
3156: remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as desired.
3157: it() The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right
3158: rsync options when running the read-batch command on the remote host.
3159: it() The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that
3160: the batch file doesn't need to be copied to the remote machine first.
3161: This example avoids the foo.sh script because it needed to use a modified
3162: bf(--read-batch) option, but you could edit the script file if you wished to
3163: make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use
3164: standard input, such as the "bf(--exclude-from=-)" option).
3165: )
3166:
3167: Caveats:
3168:
3169: The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating
3170: to be identical to the destination tree that was used to create the
3171: batch update fileset. When a difference between the destination trees
3172: is encountered the update might be discarded with a warning (if the file
3173: appears to be up-to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted
3174: and then, if the file fails to verify, the update discarded with an
3175: error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
3176: if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to
3177: always be attempted regardless of the file's size and date, use the bf(-I)
3178: option (when reading the batch).
3179: If an error occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a
3180: partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
3181: be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the
3182: destination tree.
3183:
3184: The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the
3185: one used to generate the batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the
3186: protocol version in the batch file is too new for the batch-reading rsync
3187: to handle. See also the bf(--protocol) option for a way to have the
3188: creating rsync generate a batch file that an older rsync can understand.
3189: (Note that batch files changed format in version 2.6.3, so mixing versions
3190: older than that with newer versions will not work.)
3191:
3192: When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options
3193: to match the data in the batch file if you didn't set them to the same
3194: as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and should) be changed.
3195: For instance bf(--write-batch) changes to bf(--read-batch),
3196: bf(--files-from) is dropped, and the
3197: bf(--filter)/bf(--include)/bf(--exclude) options are not needed unless
3198: one of the bf(--delete) options is specified.
3199:
3200: The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any filter/include/exclude
3201: options into a single list that is appended as a "here" document to the
3202: shell script file. An advanced user can use this to modify the exclude
3203: list if a change in what gets deleted by bf(--delete) is desired. A normal
3204: user can ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way
3205: to run the appropriate bf(--read-batch) command for the batched data.
3206:
3207: The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest
3208: version uses a new implementation.
3209:
3210: manpagesection(SYMBOLIC LINKS)
3211:
3212: Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic
3213: link in the source directory.
3214:
3215: By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message
3216: "skipping non-regular" file is emitted for any symlinks that exist.
3217:
3218: If bf(--links) is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same
3219: target on the destination. Note that bf(--archive) implies
3220: bf(--links).
3221:
3222: If bf(--copy-links) is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by
3223: copying their referent, rather than the symlink.
3224:
3225: Rsync can also distinguish "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An
3226: example where this might be used is a web site mirror that wishes to
3227: ensure that the rsync module that is copied does not include symbolic links to
3228: bf(/etc/passwd) in the public section of the site. Using
3229: bf(--copy-unsafe-links) will cause any links to be copied as the file
3230: they point to on the destination. Using bf(--safe-links) will cause
3231: unsafe links to be omitted altogether. (Note that you must specify
3232: bf(--links) for bf(--safe-links) to have any effect.)
3233:
3234: Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks
3235: (start with bf(/)), empty, or if they contain enough ".."
3236: components to ascend from the directory being copied.
3237:
3238: Here's a summary of how the symlink options are interpreted. The list is
3239: in order of precedence, so if your combination of options isn't mentioned,
3240: use the first line that is a complete subset of your options:
3241:
3242: dit(bf(--copy-links)) Turn all symlinks into normal files (leaving no
3243: symlinks for any other options to affect).
3244:
3245: dit(bf(--links --copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files
3246: and duplicate all safe symlinks.
3247:
3248: dit(bf(--copy-unsafe-links)) Turn all unsafe symlinks into files, noisily
3249: skip all safe symlinks.
3250:
3251: dit(bf(--links --safe-links)) Duplicate safe symlinks and skip unsafe
3252: ones.
3253:
3254: dit(bf(--links)) Duplicate all symlinks.
3255:
3256: manpagediagnostics()
3257:
3258: rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little
3259: cryptic. The one that seems to cause the most confusion is "protocol
3260: version mismatch -- is your shell clean?".
3261:
3262: This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell
3263: facility producing unwanted garbage on the stream that rsync is using
3264: for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to run your
3265: remote shell like this:
3266:
3267: quote(tt(ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat))
3268:
3269: then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat
3270: should be a zero length file. If you are getting the above error from
3271: rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some text or
3272: data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing
3273: it. The most common cause is incorrectly configured shell startup
3274: scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output statements
3275: for non-interactive logins.
3276:
3277: If you are having trouble debugging filter patterns, then
3278: try specifying the bf(-vv) option. At this level of verbosity rsync will
3279: show why each individual file is included or excluded.
3280:
3281: manpagesection(EXIT VALUES)
3282:
3283: startdit()
3284: dit(bf(0)) Success
3285: dit(bf(1)) Syntax or usage error
3286: dit(bf(2)) Protocol incompatibility
3287: dit(bf(3)) Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
3288: dit(bf(4)) Requested action not supported: an attempt
3289: was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform that cannot support
3290: them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and
3291: not by the server.
3292: dit(bf(5)) Error starting client-server protocol
3293: dit(bf(6)) Daemon unable to append to log-file
3294: dit(bf(10)) Error in socket I/O
3295: dit(bf(11)) Error in file I/O
3296: dit(bf(12)) Error in rsync protocol data stream
3297: dit(bf(13)) Errors with program diagnostics
3298: dit(bf(14)) Error in IPC code
3299: dit(bf(20)) Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
3300: dit(bf(21)) Some error returned by code(waitpid())
3301: dit(bf(22)) Error allocating core memory buffers
3302: dit(bf(23)) Partial transfer due to error
3303: dit(bf(24)) Partial transfer due to vanished source files
3304: dit(bf(25)) The --max-delete limit stopped deletions
3305: dit(bf(30)) Timeout in data send/receive
3306: dit(bf(35)) Timeout waiting for daemon connection
3307: enddit()
3308:
3309: manpagesection(ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES)
3310:
3311: startdit()
3312: dit(bf(CVSIGNORE)) The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any
3313: ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See the bf(--cvs-exclude) option for
3314: more details.
3315: dit(bf(RSYNC_ICONV)) Specify a default bf(--iconv) setting using this
3316: environment variable. (First supported in 3.0.0.)
3317: dit(bf(RSYNC_PROTECT_ARGS)) Specify a non-zero numeric value if you want the
3318: bf(--protect-args) option to be enabled by default, or a zero value to make
3319: sure that it is disabled by default. (First supported in 3.1.0.)
3320: dit(bf(RSYNC_RSH)) The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to
3321: override the default shell used as the transport for rsync. Command line
3322: options are permitted after the command name, just as in the bf(-e) option.
3323: dit(bf(RSYNC_PROXY)) The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to
3324: redirect your rsync client to use a web proxy when connecting to a
3325: rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
3326: dit(bf(RSYNC_PASSWORD)) Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required
3327: password allows you to run authenticated rsync connections to an rsync
3328: daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a
3329: password to a remote shell transport such as ssh; to learn how to do that,
3330: consult the remote shell's documentation.
3331: dit(bf(USER) or bf(LOGNAME)) The USER or LOGNAME environment variables
3332: are used to determine the default username sent to an rsync daemon.
3333: If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
3334: dit(bf(HOME)) The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's
3335: default .cvsignore file.
3336: enddit()
3337:
3338: manpagefiles()
3339:
3340: /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
3341:
3342: manpageseealso()
3343:
3344: bf(rsyncd.conf)(5)
3345:
3346: manpagebugs()
3347:
3348: times are transferred as *nix time_t values
3349:
3350: When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync
3351: unmodified files.
3352: See the comments on the bf(--modify-window) option.
3353:
3354: file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical
3355: values
3356:
3357: see also the comments on the bf(--delete) option
3358:
3359: Please report bugs! See the web site at
3360: url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/)
3361:
3362: manpagesection(VERSION)
3363:
3364: This man page is current for version 3.1.0 of rsync.
3365:
3366: manpagesection(INTERNAL OPTIONS)
3367:
3368: The options bf(--server) and bf(--sender) are used internally by rsync,
3369: and should never be typed by a user under normal circumstances. Some
3370: awareness of these options may be needed in certain scenarios, such as
3371: when setting up a login that can only run an rsync command. For instance,
3372: the support directory of the rsync distribution has an example script
3373: named rrsync (for restricted rsync) that can be used with a restricted
3374: ssh login.
3375:
3376: manpagesection(CREDITS)
3377:
3378: rsync is distributed under the GNU General Public License. See the file
3379: COPYING for details.
3380:
3381: A WEB site is available at
3382: url(http://rsync.samba.org/)(http://rsync.samba.org/). The site
3383: includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover questions unanswered by this
3384: manual page.
3385:
3386: The primary ftp site for rsync is
3387: url(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync)(ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync).
3388:
3389: We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
3390: Please contact the mailing-list at rsync@lists.samba.org.
3391:
3392: This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by
3393: Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
3394:
3395: manpagesection(THANKS)
3396:
3397: Special thanks go out to: John Van Essen, Matt McCutchen, Wesley W. Terpstra,
3398: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, and our
3399: gone-but-not-forgotten compadre, J.W. Schultz.
3400:
3401: Thanks also to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell
3402: and David Bell. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
3403:
3404: manpageauthor()
3405:
3406: rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.
3407: Many people have later contributed to it. It is currently maintained
3408: by Wayne Davison.
3409:
3410: Mailing lists for support and development are available at
3411: url(http://lists.samba.org)(lists.samba.org)
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