rsync(1) rsync(1)
NAME
rsync - faster, flexible replacement for rcp
SYNOPSIS
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC DEST
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
DESCRIPTION
rsync is a program that behaves in much the same way that rcp does, but has many more options and
uses the rsync remote-update protocol to greatly speed up file transfers when the destination file is
being updated.
The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the differences between two sets of
files across the network connection, using an efficient checksum-search algorithm described in the
technical report that accompanies this package.
Some of the additional features of rsync are:
o support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
o exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
o a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
o can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
o does not require root privileges
o pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
o support for anonymous or authenticated rsync servers (ideal for mirroring)
GENERAL
There are eight different ways of using rsync. They are:
o for copying local files. This is invoked when neither source nor destination path contains a :
separator
o for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a remote shell program as the
transport (such as ssh or rsh). This is invoked when the destination path contains a single :
separator.
o for copying from a remote machine to the local machine using a remote shell program. This is
invoked when the source contains a : separator.
o for copying from a remote rsync server to the local machine. This is invoked when the source
path contains a :: separator or an rsync:// URL.
o for copying from the local machine to a remote rsync server. This is invoked when the destina-tion destination
tion path contains a :: separator or an rsync:// URL.
o for copying from a remote machine using a remote shell program as the transport, using rsync
server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the source path contains a :: separator
and the --rsh=COMMAND (aka "-e COMMAND") option is also provided.
o for copying from the local machine to a remote machine using a remote shell program as the
transport, using rsync server on the remote machine. This is invoked when the destination
path contains a :: separator and the --rsh=COMMAND option is also provided.
o for listing files on a remote machine. This is done the same way as rsync transfers except
that you leave off the local destination.
Note that in all cases (other than listing) at least one of the source and destination paths must be
local.
SETUP
See the file README for installation instructions.
Once installed, you can use rsync to any machine that you can access via a remote shell (as well as
some that you can access using the rsync daemon-mode protocol). For remote transfers, a modern rsync
uses ssh for its communications, but it may have been configured to use a different remote shell by
default, such as rsh or remsh.
You can also specify any remote shell you like, either by using the -e command line option, or by
setting the RSYNC_RSH environment variable.
One common substitute is to use ssh, which offers a high degree of security.
Note that rsync must be installed on both the source and destination machines.
USAGE
You use rsync in the same way you use rcp. You must specify a source and a destination, one of which
may be remote.
Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is with some examples:
rsync -t *.c foo:src/
This would transfer all files matching the pattern *.c from the current directory to the directory
src on the machine foo. If any of the files already exist on the remote system then the rsync remote-update remoteupdate
update protocol is used to update the file by sending only the differences. See the tech report for
details.
rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp
This would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the
/data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine. The files are transferred in "archive" mode, which
ensures that symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the
transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the size of data portions of the trans-fer. transfer.
fer.
rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp
A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an additional directory level
at the destination. You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning "copy the contents of this
directory" as opposed to "copy the directory by name", but in both cases the attributes of the con-taining containing
taining directory are transferred to the containing directory on the destination. In other words,
each of the following commands copies the files in the same way, including their setting of the
attributes of /dest/foo:
rsync -av /src/foo /dest
rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo
You can also use rsync in local-only mode, where both the source and destination don't have a ':' in
the name. In this case it behaves like an improved copy command.
rsync somehost.mydomain.com::
This would list all the anonymous rsync modules available on the host somehost.mydomain.com. (See
the following section for more details.)
ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host involves using quoted spaces in the SRC.
Some examples:
rsync host::'modname/dir1/file1 modname/dir2/file2' /dest
This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest from an rsync daemon. Each additional arg must include
the same "modname/" prefix as the first one, and must be preceded by a single space. All other spa-ces spaces
ces are assumed to be a part of the filenames.
rsync -av host:'dir1/file1 dir2/file2' /dest
This would copy file1 and file2 into /dest using a remote shell. This word-splitting is done by the
remote shell, so if it doesn't work it means that the remote shell isn't configured to split its args
based on whitespace (a very rare setting, but not unknown). If you need to transfer a filename that
contains whitespace, you'll need to either escape the whitespace in a way that the remote shell will
understand, or use wildcards in place of the spaces. Two examples of this are:
rsync -av host:'file\ name\ with\ spaces' /dest
rsync -av host:file?name?with?spaces /dest
This latter example assumes that your shell passes through unmatched wildcards. If it complains
about "no match", put the name in quotes.
CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER
It is also possible to use rsync without a remote shell as the transport. In this case you will con-nect connect
nect to a remote rsync server running on TCP port 873.
You may establish the connection via a web proxy by setting the environment variable RSYNC_PROXY to a
hostname:port pair pointing to your web proxy. Note that your web proxy's configuration must support
proxy connections to port 873.
Using rsync in this way is the same as using it with a remote shell except that:
o you use a double colon :: instead of a single colon to separate the hostname from the path or
an rsync:// URL.
o the remote server may print a message of the day when you connect.
o if you specify no path name on the remote server then the list of accessible paths on the
server will be shown.
o if you specify no local destination then a listing of the specified files on the remote server
is provided.
Some paths on the remote server may require authentication. If so then you will receive a password
prompt when you connect. You can avoid the password prompt by setting the environment variable
RSYNC_PASSWORD to the password you want to use or using the --password-file option. This may be use-ful useful
ful when scripting rsync.
WARNING: On some systems environment variables are visible to all users. On those systems using
--password-file is recommended.
CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM
It is sometimes useful to be able to set up file transfers using rsync server capabilities on the
remote machine, while still using ssh or rsh for transport. This is especially useful when you want
to connect to a remote machine via ssh (for encryption or to get through a firewall), but you still
want to have access to the rsync server features (see RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL
PROGRAM, below).
From the user's perspective, using rsync in this way is the same as using it to connect to an rsync
server, except that you must explicitly set the remote shell program on the command line with
--rsh=COMMAND. (Setting RSYNC_RSH in the environment will not turn on this functionality.)
In order to distinguish between the remote-shell user and the rsync server user, you can use '-l
user' on your remote-shell command:
rsync -av --rsh="ssh -l ssh-user" rsync-user@host::module[/path] local-path
The "ssh-user" will be used at the ssh level; the "rsync-user" will be used to check against the
rsyncd.conf on the remote host.
RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER
An rsync server is configured using a configuration file. Please see the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for
more information. By default the configuration file is called /etc/rsyncd.conf, unless rsync is run-ning running
ning over a remote shell program and is not running as root; in that case, the default name is
rsyncd.conf in the current directory on the remote computer (typically $HOME).
RUNNING AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL PROGRAM
See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for full information on the rsync server configuration file.
Several configuration options will not be available unless the remote user is root (e.g. chroot,
setuid/setgid, etc.). There is no need to configure inetd or the services map to include the rsync
server port if you run an rsync server only via a remote shell program.
To run an rsync server out of a single-use ssh key, see this section in the rsyncd.conf(5) man page.
EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of how I use rsync.
To backup my wife's home directory, which consists of large MS Word files and mail folders, I use a
cron job that runs
rsync -Cavz . arvidsjaur:backup
each night over a PPP connection to a duplicate directory on my machine "arvidsjaur".
To synchronize my samba source trees I use the following Makefile targets:
get:
rsync -avuzb --exclude '*~' samba:samba/ .
put:
rsync -Cavuzb . samba:samba/
sync: get put
this allows me to sync with a CVS directory at the other end of the connection. I then do cvs opera-tions operations
tions on the remote machine, which saves a lot of time as the remote cvs protocol isn't very effi-cient. efficient.
cient.
I mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" ftp sites with the command
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nimbus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba"
this is launched from cron every few hours.
OPTIONS SUMMARY
Here is a short summary of the options available in rsync. Please refer to the detailed description
below for a complete description.
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet decrease verbosity
-c, --checksum always checksum
-a, --archive archive mode, equivalent to -rlptgoD
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-relative turn off --relative
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with -R
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir make backups into this directory
--suffix=SUFFIX backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update update only (don't overwrite newer files)
--inplace update the destination files inplace
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links copy the referent of all symlinks
--copy-unsafe-links copy the referent of "unsafe" symlinks
--safe-links ignore "unsafe" symlinks
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (root only)
-g, --group preserve group
-D, --devices preserve devices (root only)
-t, --times preserve times
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
-W, --whole-file copy whole files, no incremental checks
--no-whole-file turn off --whole-file
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell
--rsync-path=PATH specify path to rsync on the remote machine
--existing only update files that already exist
--ignore-existing ignore files that already exist on receiver
--delete delete files that don't exist on sender
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files on receiver
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--force force deletion of dirs even if not empty
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times turn off mod time & file size quick check
--size-only ignore mod time for quick check (use size)
--modify-window=NUM compare mod times with reduced accuracy
-T --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
--compare-dest=DIR also compare received files relative to DIR
--link-dest=DIR create hardlinks to DIR for unchanged files
-P equivalent to --partial --progress
-z, --compress compress file data
-C, --cvs-exclude auto ignore files in the same way CVS does
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE exclude patterns listed in FILE
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE don't exclude patterns listed in FILE
--files-from=FILE read FILE for list of source-file names
-0 --from0 all file lists are delimited by nulls
--version print version number
--daemon run as an rsync daemon
--no-detach do not detach from the parent
--address=ADDRESS bind to the specified address
--config=FILE specify alternate rsyncd.conf file
--port=PORT specify alternate rsyncd port number
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--no-blocking-io turn off --blocking-io
--stats give some file transfer stats
--progress show progress during transfer
--log-format=FORMAT log file transfers using specified format
--password-file=FILE get password from FILE
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth, KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batch to FILE
--read-batch=FILE read a batch from FILE
--checksum-seed=NUM set block/file checksum seed
-4 --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6 --ipv6 prefer IPv6
-E --extended-attributes copy extended attributes, resource forks
-h, --help show this help screen
OPTIONS
rsync uses the GNU long options package. Many of the command line options have two variants, one
short and one long. These are shown below, separated by commas. Some options only have a long vari-ant. variant.
ant. The '=' for options that take a parameter is optional; whitespace can be used instead.
-h, --help
Print a short help page describing the options available in rsync
--version
print the rsync version number and exit
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information you are given during the transfer. By
default, rsync works silently. A single -v will give you information about what files are
being transferred and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give you information on
what files are being skipped and slightly more information at the end. More than two -v flags
should only be used if you are debugging rsync.
-q, --quiet
This option decreases the amount of information you are given during the transfer, notably
suppressing information messages from the remote server. This flag is useful when invoking
rsync from cron.
-I, --ignore-times
Normally rsync will skip any files that are already the same size and have the same modifica-tion modification
tion time-stamp. This option turns off this "quick check" behavior.
--size-only
Normally rsync will not transfer any files that are already the same size and have the same
modification time-stamp. With the --size-only option, files will not be transferred if they
have the same size, regardless of timestamp. This is useful when starting to use rsync after
using another mirroring system which may not preserve timestamps exactly.
--modify-window
When comparing two timestamps rsync treats the timestamps as being equal if they are within
the value of modify_window. This is normally zero, but you may find it useful to set this to a
larger value in some situations. In particular, when transferring to Windows FAT filesystems
which cannot represent times with a 1 second resolution --modify-window=1 is useful.
-c, --checksum
This forces the sender to checksum all files using a 128-bit MD4 checksum before transfer. The
checksum is then explicitly checked on the receiver and any files of the same name which
already exist and have the same checksum and size on the receiver are not transferred. This
option can be quite slow.
-a, --archive
This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way of saying you want recursion and want to
preserve almost everything.
Note however that -a does not preserve hardlinks, because finding multiply-linked files is
expensive. You must separately specify -H.
-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. If you don't specify this then rsync won't
copy directories at all.
-R, --relative
Use relative paths. This means that the full path names specified on the command line are sent
to the server rather than just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful
when you want to send several different directories at the same time. For example, if you used
the command
rsync foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/
then this would create a file called foo.c in /tmp/ on the remote machine. If instead you used
rsync -R foo/bar/foo.c remote:/tmp/
then a file called /tmp/foo/bar/foo.c would be created on the remote machine -- the full path
name is preserved.
--no-relative
Turn off the --relative option. This is only needed if you want to use --files-from without
its implied --relative file processing.
--no-implied-dirs
When combined with the --relative option, the implied directories in each path are not explic-itly explicitly
itly duplicated as part of the transfer. This makes the transfer more optimal and also allows
the two sides to have non-matching symlinks in the implied part of the path. For instance, if
you transfer the file "/path/foo/file" with -R, the default is for rsync to ensure that
"/path" and "/path/foo" on the destination exactly match the directories/symlinks of the
source. Using the --no-implied-dirs option would omit both of these implied dirs, which means
that if "/path" was a real directory on one machine and a symlink of the other machine, rsync
would not try to change this.
-b, --backup
With this option, preexisting destination files are renamed as each file is transferred or
deleted. You can control where the backup file goes and what (if any) suffix gets appended
using the --backup-dir and --suffix options.
--backup-dir=DIR
In combination with the --backup option, this tells rsync to store all backups in the speci-fied specified
fied directory. This is very useful for incremental backups. You can additionally specify a
backup suffix using the --suffix option (otherwise the files backed up in the specified direc-tory directory
tory will keep their original filenames). If DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the
destination directory (which changes in a recursive transfer).
--suffix=SUFFIX
This option allows you to override the default backup suffix used with the --backup (-b)
option. The default suffix is a ~ if no --backup-dir was specified, otherwise it is an empty
string.
-u, --update
This forces rsync to skip any files for which the destination file already exists and has a
date later than the source file.
In the currently implementation, a difference of file format is always considered to be impor-tant important
tant enough for an update, no matter what date is on the objects. In other words, if the
source has a directory or a symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
regardless of the timestamps. This might change in the future (feel free to comment on this
on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
-K, --keep-dirlinks
On the receiving side, if a symlink is pointing to a directory, it will be treated as matching
a directory from the sender.
--inplace
This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file and then move it into place. Instead
rsync will overwrite the existing file, meaning that the rsync algorithm can't extract the
full amount of network reduction it might otherwise (since it does not yet try to sort data
matches -- a future version may improve this).
This option is useful for transfer of large files with block-based changes or appended data,
and also on systems that are disk bound, not network bound.
The option implies --partial (since an interrupted transfer does not delete the file), but
conflicts with --partial-dir, --compare-dest, and --link-dest (a future rsync version will
hopefully update the protocol to remove these restrictions).
WARNING: The file's data will be in an inconsistent state during the transfer (and possibly
afterward if the transfer gets interrupted), so you should not use this option to update files
that are in use. Also note that rsync will be unable to update a file inplace that is not
writable by the receiving user.
-l, --links
When symlinks are encountered, recreate the symlink on the destination.
-L, --copy-links
When symlinks are encountered, the file that they point to (the referent) is copied, rather
than the symlink. In older versions of rsync, this option also had the side-effect of telling
the receiving side to follow symlinks, such as symlinks to directories. In a modern rsync
such as this one, you'll need to specify --keep-dirlinks (-K) to get this extra behavior. The
only exception is when sending files to an rsync that is too old to understand -K -- in that
case, the -L option will still have the side-effect of -K on that older receiving rsync.
--copy-unsafe-links
This tells rsync to copy the referent of symbolic links that point outside the copied tree.
Absolute symlinks are also treated like ordinary files, and so are any symlinks in the source
path itself when --relative is used.
--safe-links
This tells rsync to ignore any symbolic links which point outside the copied tree. All abso-lute absolute
lute symlinks are also ignored. Using this option in conjunction with --relative may give
unexpected results.
-H, --hard-links
This tells rsync to recreate hard links on the remote system to be the same as the local
system. Without this option hard links are treated like regular files.
Note that rsync can only detect hard links if both parts of the link are in the list of files
being sent.
This option can be quite slow, so only use it if you need it.
-W, --whole-file
With this option the incremental rsync algorithm is not used and the whole file is sent as-is
instead. The transfer may be faster if this option is used when the bandwidth between the
source and destination machines is higher than the bandwidth to disk (especially when the
"disk" is actually a networked filesystem). This is the default when both the source and des-tination destination
tination are specified as local paths.
--no-whole-file
Turn off --whole-file, for use when it is the default.
-p, --perms
This option causes rsync to set the destination permissions to be the same as the source per-missions. permissions.
missions.
Without this option, each new file gets its permissions set based on the source file's permis-sions permissions
sions and the umask at the receiving end, while all other files (including updated files)
retain their existing permissions (which is the same behavior as other file-copy utilities,
such as cp).
-o, --owner
This option causes rsync to set the owner of the destination file to be the same as the source
file. On most systems, only the super-user can set file ownership. By default, the preserva-tion preservation
tion is done by name, but may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances. See the
--numeric-ids option for a full discussion.
-g, --group
This option causes rsync to set the group of the destination file to be the same as the source
file. If the receiving program is not running as the super-user, only groups that the
receiver is a member of will be preserved. By default, the preservation is done by name, but
may fall back to using the ID number in some circumstances. See the --numeric-ids option for
a full discussion.
-D, --devices
This option causes rsync to transfer character and block device information to the remote sys-tem system
tem to recreate these devices. This option is only available to the super-user.
-t, --times
This tells rsync to transfer modification times along with the files and update them on the
remote system. Note that if this option is not used, the optimization that excludes files
that have not been modified cannot be effective; in other words, a missing -t or -a will cause
the next transfer to behave as if it used -I, causing all files to be updated (though the
rsync algorithm will make the update fairly efficient if the files haven't actually changed,
you're much better off using -t).
-n, --dry-run
This tells rsync to not do any file transfers, instead it will just report the actions it
would have taken.
-S, --sparse
Try to handle sparse files efficiently so they take up less space on the destination.
NOTE: Don't use this option when the destination is a Solaris "tmpfs" filesystem. It doesn't
seem to handle seeks over null regions correctly and ends up corrupting the files.
-x, --one-file-system
This tells rsync not to cross filesystem boundaries when recursing. This is useful for
transferring the contents of only one filesystem.
--existing
This tells rsync not to create any new files - only update files that already exist on the
destination.
--ignore-existing
This tells rsync not to update files that already exist on the destination.
--max-delete=NUM
This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM files or directories. This is useful when mirror-ing mirroring
ing very large trees to prevent disasters.
--delete
This tells rsync to delete any files on the receiving side that aren't on the sending side.
Files that are excluded from transfer are excluded from being deleted unless you use --delete-excluded. --deleteexcluded.
excluded.
This option has no effect if directory recursion is not selected.
This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to run first using
the dry run option (-n) to see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't
listed.
If the sending side detects any I/O errors then the deletion of any files at the destination
will be automatically disabled. This is to prevent temporary filesystem failures (such as NFS
errors) on the sending side causing a massive deletion of files on the destination. You can
override this with the --ignore-errors option.
--delete-excluded
In addition to deleting the files on the receiving side that are not on the sending side, this
tells rsync to also delete any files on the receiving side that are excluded (see --exclude).
Implies --delete.
--delete-after
By default rsync does file deletions on the receiving side before transferring files to try to
ensure that there is sufficient space on the receiving filesystem. If you want to delete after
transferring, use the --delete-after switch. Implies --delete.
--ignore-errors
Tells --delete to go ahead and delete files even when there are I/O errors.
--force
This options tells rsync to delete directories even if they are not empty when they are to be
replaced by non-directories. This is only relevant without --delete because deletions are now
done depth-first. Requires the --recursive option (which is implied by -a) to have any
effect.
-B, --block-size=BLOCKSIZE
This forces the block size used in the rsync algorithm to a fixed value. It is normally
selected based on the size of each file being updated. See the technical report for details.
-e, --rsh=COMMAND
This option allows you to choose an alternative remote shell program to use for communication
between the local and remote copies of rsync. Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by
default, but you may prefer to use rsh on a local network.
If this option is used with [user@]host::module/path, then the remote shell COMMAND will be
used to run an rsync server on the remote host, and all data will be transmitted through that
remote shell connection, rather than through a direct socket connection to a running rsync
server on the remote host. See the section "CONNECTING TO AN RSYNC SERVER OVER A REMOTE SHELL
PROGRAM" above.
Command-line arguments are permitted in COMMAND provided that COMMAND is presented to rsync as
a single argument. For example:
-e "ssh -p 2234"
(Note that ssh users can alternately customize site-specific connect options in their
.ssh/config file.)
You can also choose the remote shell program using the RSYNC_RSH environment variable, which
accepts the same range of values as -e.
See also the --blocking-io option which is affected by this option.
--rsync-path=PATH
Use this to specify the path to the copy of rsync on the remote machine. Useful when it's not
in your path. Note that this is the full path to the binary, not just the directory that the
binary is in.
-C, --cvs-exclude
This is a useful shorthand for excluding a broad range of files that you often don't want to
transfer between systems. It uses the same algorithm that CVS uses to determine if a file
should be ignored.
The exclude list is initialized to:
RCS SCCS CVS CVS.adm RCSLOG cvslog.* tags TAGS .make.state .nse_depinfo *~ #* .#* ,* _$* *$
*.old *.bak *.BAK *.orig *.rej .del-* *.a *.olb *.o *.obj *.so *.exe *.Z *.elc *.ln core .svn/
then files listed in a $HOME/.cvsignore are added to the list and any files listed in the
CVSIGNORE environment variable (all cvsignore names are delimited by whitespace).
Finally, any file is ignored if it is in the same directory as a .cvsignore file and matches
one of the patterns listed therein. See the cvs(1) manual for more information.
--exclude=PATTERN
This option allows you to selectively exclude certain files from the list of files to be
transferred. This is most useful in combination with a recursive transfer.
You may use as many --exclude options on the command line as you like to build up the list of
files to exclude.
See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
--exclude-from=FILE
This option is similar to the --exclude option, but instead it adds all exclude patterns
listed in the file FILE to the exclude list. Blank lines in FILE and lines starting with ';'
or '#' are ignored. If FILE is - the list will be read from standard input.
--include=PATTERN
This option tells rsync to not exclude the specified pattern of filenames. This is useful as
it allows you to build up quite complex exclude/include rules.
See the EXCLUDE PATTERNS section for detailed information on this option.
--include-from=FILE
This specifies a list of include patterns from a file. If FILE is "-" the list will be read
from standard input.
--files-from=FILE
Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer (as read from the
specified FILE or "-" for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to
make transferring just the specified files and directories easier. For instance, the --rela-tive --relative
tive option is enabled by default when this option is used (use --no-relative if you want to
turn that off), all directories specified in the list are created on the destination (rather
than being noisily skipped without -r), and the -a (--archive) option's behavior does not
imply -r (--recursive) -- specify it explicitly, if you want it.
The file names that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading
slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For
example, take this command:
rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created
as /backup/bin on the remote host (but the contents of the /usr/bin dir would not be sent
unless you specified -r or the names were explicitly listed in /tmp/foo). Also keep in mind
that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path
info that is read from the file -- it does not force the duplication of the source-spec path
(/usr in this case).
In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host
if you specify a "host:" in front of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer).
As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the trans-fer". transfer".
fer". For example:
rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy
This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the
remote "src" host.
-0, --from0
This tells rsync that the filenames it reads from a file are terminated by a null ('\0') char-acter, character,
acter, not a NL, CR, or CR+LF. This affects --exclude-from, --include-from, and --files-from.
It does not affect --cvs-exclude (since all names read from a .cvsignore file are split on
whitespace).
-T, --temp-dir=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR as a scratch directory when creating temporary copies
of the files transferred on the receiving side. The default behavior is to create the tempo-rary temporary
rary files in the receiving directory.
--compare-dest=DIR
This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the destination machine as an additional directory
to compare destination files against when doing transfers if the files are missing in the des-tination destination
tination directory. This is useful for doing transfers to a new destination while leaving
existing files intact, and then doing a flash-cutover when all files have been successfully
transferred (for example by moving directories around and removing the old directory, although
this skips files that haven't changed; see also --link-dest). This option increases the use-fulness usefulness
fulness of --partial because partially transferred files will remain in the new temporary des-tination destination
tination until they have a chance to be completed. If DIR is a relative path, it is relative
to the destination directory.
--link-dest=DIR
This option behaves like --compare-dest but also will create hard links from DIR to the desti-nation destination
nation directory for unchanged files. Files with changed ownership or permissions will not be
linked. An example:
rsync -av --link-dest=$PWD/prior_dir host:src_dir/ new_dir/
Like --compare-dest if DIR is a relative path, it is relative to the destination directory.
Note that rsync versions prior to 2.6.1 had a bug that could prevent --link-dest from working
properly for a non-root user when -o was specified (or implied by -a). If the receiving rsync
is not new enough, you can work around this bug by avoiding the -o option.
-z, --compress
With this option, rsync compresses any data from the files that it sends to the destination
machine. This option is useful on slow connections. The compression method used is the same
method that gzip uses.
Note this this option typically achieves better compression ratios that can be achieved by
using a compressing remote shell, or a compressing transport, as it takes advantage of the
implicit information sent for matching data blocks.
--numeric-ids
With this option rsync will transfer numeric group and user IDs rather than using user and
group names and mapping them at both ends.
By default rsync will use the username and groupname to determine what ownership to give
files. The special uid 0 and the special group 0 are never mapped via user/group names even if
the --numeric-ids option is not specified.
If a user or group has no name on the source system or it has no match on the destination sys-tem, system,
tem, then the numeric ID from the source system is used instead. See also the comments on the
"use chroot" setting in the rsyncd.conf manpage for information on how the chroot setting
affects rsync's ability to look up the names of the users and groups and what you can do about
it.
--timeout=TIMEOUT
This option allows you to set a maximum I/O timeout in seconds. If no data is transferred for
the specified time then rsync will exit. The default is 0, which means no timeout.
--daemon
This tells rsync that it is to run as a daemon. The daemon may be accessed using the
host::module or rsync://host/module/ syntax.
If standard input is a socket then rsync will assume that it is being run via inetd, otherwise
it will detach from the current terminal and become a background daemon. The daemon will read
the config file (rsyncd.conf) on each connect made by a client and respond to requests accord-ingly. accordingly.
ingly. See the rsyncd.conf(5) man page for more details.
--no-detach
When running as a daemon, this option instructs rsync to not detach itself and become a back-ground background
ground process. This option is required when running as a service on Cygwin, and may also be
useful when rsync is supervised by a program such as daemontools or AIX's System Resource Con-troller. Controller.
troller. --no-detach is also recommended when rsync is run under a debugger. This option has
no effect if rsync is run from inetd or sshd.
--address
By default rsync will bind to the wildcard address when run as a daemon with the --daemon
option or when connecting to a rsync server. The --address option allows you to specify a spe-cific specific
cific IP address (or hostname) to bind to. This makes virtual hosting possible in conjunction
with the --config option.
--config=FILE
This specifies an alternate config file than the default. This is only relevant when --daemon
is specified. The default is /etc/rsyncd.conf unless the daemon is running over a remote
shell program and the remote user is not root; in that case the default is rsyncd.conf in the
current directory (typically $HOME).
--port=PORT
This specifies an alternate TCP port number to use rather than the default port 873.
--blocking-io
This tells rsync to use blocking I/O when launching a remote shell transport. If the remote
shell is either rsh or remsh, rsync defaults to using blocking I/O, otherwise it defaults to
using non-blocking I/O. (Note that ssh prefers non-blocking I/O.)
--no-blocking-io
Turn off --blocking-io, for use when it is the default.
--log-format=FORMAT
This allows you to specify exactly what the rsync client logs to stdout on a per-file basis.
The log format is specified using the same format conventions as the log format option in
rsyncd.conf.
--stats
This tells rsync to print a verbose set of statistics on the file transfer, allowing you to
tell how effective the rsync algorithm is for your data.
--partial
By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred file if the transfer is interrupted.
In some circumstances it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the
--partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent transfer
of the rest of the file much faster.
--partial-dir=DIR
Turns on --partial mode, but tells rsync to put a partially transferred file into DIR instead
of writing out the file to the destination dir. Rsync will also use a file found in this dir
as data to speed up the transfer (i.e. when you redo the send after rsync creates a partial
file) and delete such a file after it has served its purpose. Note that if --whole-file is
specified (or implied) that an existing partial-dir file will not be used to speedup the
transfer (since rsync is sending files without using the incremental rsync algorithm).
Rsync will create the dir if it is missing (just the last dir -- not the whole path). This
makes it easy to use a relative path (such as "--partial-dir=.rsync-partial") to have rsync
create the partial-directory in the destination file's directory (rsync will also try to
remove the DIR if a partial file was found to exist at the start of the transfer and the DIR
was specified as a relative path).
If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an --exclude of this
value at the end of all your existing excludes. This will prevent partial-dir files from
being transferred and also prevent the untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving
side. An example: the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
rule at the end of any other include/exclude rules. Note that if you are supplying your own
include/exclude rules, you may need to manually insert a rule for this directory exclusion
somewhere higher up in the list so that it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g.,
if your rules specify a trailing --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).
IMPORTANT: the --partial-dir should not be writable by other users or it is a security risk.
E.g. AVOID "/tmp".
You can also set the partial-dir value the RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR environment variable. Setting
this in the environment does not force --partial to be enabled, but rather it effects where
partial files go when --partial (or -P) is used. For instance, instead of specifying --par-tial-dir=.rsync-tmp --partial-dir=.rsync-tmp
tial-dir=.rsync-tmp along with --progress, you could set RSYNC_PARTIAL_DIR=.rsync-tmp in your
environment and then just use the -P option to turn on the use of the .rsync-tmp dir for par-tial partial
tial transfers. The only time the --partial option does not look for this environment value
is when --inplace was also specified (since --inplace conflicts with --partial-dir).
--progress
This option tells rsync to print information showing the progress of the transfer. This gives
a bored user something to watch. Implies --verbose without incrementing verbosity.
When the file is transferring, the data looks like this:
782448 63% 110.64kB/s 0:00:04
This tells you the current file size, the percentage of the transfer that is complete, the
current calculated file-completion rate (including both data over the wire and data being
matched locally), and the estimated time remaining in this transfer.
After the a file is complete, it the data looks like this:
1238099 100% 146.38kB/s 0:00:08 (5, 57.1% of 396)
This tells you the final file size, that it's 100% complete, the final transfer rate for the
file, the amount of elapsed time it took to transfer the file, and the addition of a total-transfer totaltransfer
transfer summary in parentheses. These additional numbers tell you how many files have been
updated, and what percent of the total number of files has been scanned.
-P The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its purpose is to make it much easier to
specify these two options for a long transfer that may be interrupted.
--password-file
This option allows you to provide a password in a file for accessing a remote rsync server.
Note that this option is only useful when accessing an rsync server using the built in trans-port, transport,
port, not when using a remote shell as the transport. The file must not be world readable. It
should contain just the password as a single line.
--bwlimit=KBPS
This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer rate in kilobytes per second. This option
is most effective when using rsync with large files (several megabytes and up). Due to the
nature of rsync transfers, blocks of data are sent, then if rsync determines the transfer was
too fast, it will wait before sending the next data block. The result is an average transfer
rate equaling the specified limit. A value of zero specifies no limit.
--write-batch=FILE
Record a file that can later be applied to another identical destination with --read-batch.
See the "BATCH MODE" section for details.
--read-batch=FILE
Apply all of the changes stored in FILE, a file previously generated by --write-batch. If
FILE is "-" the batch data will be read from standard input. See the "BATCH MODE" section for
details.
-4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6
Tells rsync to prefer IPv4/IPv6 when creating sockets. This only affects sockets that rsync
has direct control over, such as the outgoing socket when directly contacting an rsync daemon,
or the incoming sockets that an rsync daemon uses to listen for connections. One of these
options may be required in older versions of Linux to work around an IPv6 bug in the kernel
(if you see an "address already in use" error when nothing else is using the port, try speci-fying specifying
fying --ipv6 or --ipv4 when starting the daemon).
--checksum-seed=NUM
Set the MD4 checksum seed to the integer NUM. This 4 byte checksum seed is included in each
block and file MD4 checksum calculation. By default the checksum seed is generated by the
server and defaults to the current time(). This option is used to set a specific checksum
seed, which is useful for applications that want repeatable block and file checksums, or in
the case where the user wants a more random checksum seed. Note that setting NUM to 0 causes
rsync to use the default of time() for checksum seed.
-E, --extended-attributes
Apple specific option to copy extended attributes, resource forks, and ACLs. Requires at
least Mac OS X 10.4 or suitably patched rsync.
EXCLUDE PATTERNS
The exclude and include patterns specified to rsync allow for flexible selection of which files to
transfer and which files to skip.
Rsync builds an ordered list of include/exclude options as specified on the command line. Rsync
checks each file and directory name against each exclude/include pattern in turn. The first matching
pattern is acted on. If it is an exclude pattern, then that file is skipped. If it is an include pat-tern pattern
tern then that filename is not skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the
filename is not skipped.
The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative to the "root of the trans-fer". transfer".
fer". If you think of the transfer as a subtree of names that are being sent from sender to
receiver, the root is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory. This root
governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the trailing slash on a source path
or changing your use of the --relative option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in
addition to changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination system). The follow-ing following
ing examples demonstrate this.
Let's say that we want to match two source files, one with an absolute path of "/home/me/foo/bar",
and one with a path of "/home/you/bar/baz". Here is how the various command choices differ for a
2-source transfer:
Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /home/you /dest
+/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
+/- pattern: /you/bar/baz
Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /home/you/ /dest
+/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
+/- pattern: /bar/baz (note missing "you")
Target file: /dest/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/bar/baz
Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /home/you /dest
+/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
+/- pattern: /home/you/bar/baz (ditto)
Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/home/you/bar/baz
Example cmd: cd /home; rsync -a --relative me/foo you/ /dest
+/- pattern: /me/foo/bar (starts at specified path)
+/- pattern: /you/bar/baz (ditto)
Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
Target file: /dest/you/bar/baz
The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just look at the output when using
--verbose and put a / in front of the name (use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy
any files).
Note that, when using the --recursive (-r) option (which is implied by -a), every subcomponent of
every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get applied recursively to each
subcomponent. The exclude patterns actually short-circuit the directory traversal stage when rsync
finds the files to send. If a pattern excludes a particular parent directory, it can render a deeper
include pattern ineffectual because rsync did not descend through that excluded section of the hier-archy. hierarchy.
archy.
Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern each. To add multiple patterns
use the --include-from and --exclude-from options or multiple --include and --exclude options.
The patterns can take several forms. The rules are:
o if the pattern starts with a / then it is matched against the start of the filename, otherwise
it is matched against the end of the filename. This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regu-lar regular
lar expressions. Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root (see above
for how this is different from the filesystem-root). On the other hand, "foo" would match any
file called "foo" anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from top
down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the end of the file name.
o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a directory, not a file, link, or device.
o if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set *?[ then expression matching is
applied using the shell filename matching rules. Otherwise a simple string match is used.
o the double asterisk pattern "**" will match slashes while a single asterisk pattern "*" will
stop at slashes.
o if the pattern contains a / (not counting a trailing /) or a "**" then it is matched against
the full filename, including any leading directory. If the pattern doesn't contain a / or a
"**", then it is matched only against the final component of the filename. Again, remember
that the algorithm is applied recursively so "full filename" can actually be any portion of a
path below the starting directory.
o if the pattern starts with "+ " (a plus followed by a space) then it is always considered an
include pattern, even if specified as part of an exclude option. The prefix is discarded
before matching.
o if the pattern starts with "- " (a minus followed by a space) then it is always considered an
exclude pattern, even if specified as part of an include option. The prefix is discarded
before matching.
o if the pattern is a single exclamation mark ! then the current include/exclude list is reset,
removing all previously defined patterns.
The +/- rules are most useful in a list that was read from a file, allowing you to have a single
exclude list that contains both include and exclude options in the proper order.
Remember that the matching occurs at every step in the traversal of the directory hierarchy, so you
must be sure that all the parent directories of the files you want to include are not excluded. This
is particularly important when using a trailing '*' rule. For instance, this won't work:
+ /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found
+ /file-is-included
- *
This fails because the parent directory "some" is excluded by the '*' rule, so rsync never visits any
of the files in the "some" or "some/path" directories. One solution is to ask for all directories in
the hierarchy to be included by using a single rule: --include='*/' (put it somewhere before the
--exclude='*' rule). Another solution is to add specific include rules for all the parent dirs that
need to be visited. For instance, this set of rules works fine:
+ /some/
+ /some/path/
+ /some/path/this-file-is-found
+ /file-also-included
- *
Here are some examples of exclude/include matching:
o --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
o --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
o --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
o --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two levels below a directory called
foo in the transfer-root directory
o --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two or more levels below a directory
called foo in the transfer-root directory
o --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all directories and C source files
o --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include only foo/bar.c (the foo/
directory must be explicitly included or it would be excluded by the "*")
BATCH MODE
Note: Batch mode should be considered experimental in this version of rsync. The interface and behav-ior behavior
ior have now stabilized, though, so feel free to try this out.
Batch mode can be used to apply the same set of updates to many identical systems. Suppose one has a
tree which is replicated on a number of hosts. Now suppose some changes have been made to this
source tree and those changes need to be propagated to the other hosts. In order to do this using
batch mode, rsync is run with the write-batch option to apply the changes made to the source tree to
one of the destination trees. The write-batch option causes the rsync client to store in a "batch
file" all the information needed to repeat this operation against other, identical destination trees.
To apply the recorded changes to another destination tree, run rsync with the read-batch option,
specifying the name of the same batch file, and the destination tree. Rsync updates the destination
tree using the information stored in the batch file.
For convenience, one additional file is creating when the write-batch option is used. This file's
name is created by appending ".sh" to the batch filename. The .sh file contains a command-line suit-able suitable
able for updating a destination tree using that batch file. It can be executed using a Bourne(-like)
shell, optionally passing in an alternate destination tree pathname which is then used instead of the
original path. This is useful when the destination tree path differs from the original destination
tree path.
Generating the batch file once saves having to perform the file status, checksum, and data block gen-eration generation
eration more than once when updating multiple destination trees. Multicast transport protocols can be
used to transfer the batch update files in parallel to many hosts at once, instead of sending the
same data to every host individually.
Examples:
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a host:/source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ scp foo* remote:
$ ssh remote ./foo.sh /bdest/dir/
$ rsync --write-batch=foo -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
$ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=- -a /bdest/dir/ <foo
In these examples, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ from /source/dir/ and the information to
repeat this operation is stored in "foo" and "foo.sh". The host "remote" is then updated with the
batched data going into the directory /bdest/dir. The differences between the two examples reveals
some of the flexibility you have in how you deal with batches:
o The first example shows that the initial copy doesn't have to be local -- you can push or pull
data to/from a remote host using either the remote-shell syntax or rsync daemon syntax, as
desired.
o The first example uses the created "foo.sh" file to get the right rsync options when running
the read-batch command on the remote host.
o The second example reads the batch data via standard input so that the batch file doesn't need
to be copied to the remote machine first. This example avoids the foo.sh script because it
needed to use a modified --read-batch option, but you could edit the script file if you wished
to make use of it (just be sure that no other option is trying to use standard input, such as
the "--exclude-from=-" option).
Caveats:
The read-batch option expects the destination tree that it is updating to be identical to the desti-
nation tree that was used to create the batch update fileset. When a difference between the destina-tion destination
tion trees is encountered the update might be discarded with no error (if the file appears to be up-to-date upto-date
to-date already) or the file-update may be attempted and then, if the file fails to verify, the
update discarded with an error. This means that it should be safe to re-run a read-batch operation
if the command got interrupted. If you wish to force the batched-update to always be attempted
regardless of the file's size and date, use the -I option (when reading the batch). If an error
occurs, the destination tree will probably be in a partially updated state. In that case, rsync can
be used in its regular (non-batch) mode of operation to fix up the destination tree.
The rsync version used on all destinations must be at least as new as the one used to generate the
batch file. Rsync will die with an error if the protocol version in the batch file is too new for
the batch-reading rsync to handle.
The --dry-run (-n) option does not work in batch mode and yields a runtime error.
When reading a batch file, rsync will force the value of certain options to match the data in the
batch file if you didn't set them to the same as the batch-writing command. Other options can (and
should) be changed. For instance --write-batch changes to --read-batch, --files-from is dropped, and
the --include/--exclude options are not needed unless --delete is specified without --delete-excluded. --deleteexcluded.
excluded.
The code that creates the BATCH.sh file transforms any include/exclude options into a single list
that is appended as a "here" document to the shell script file. An advanced user can use this to
modify the exclude list if a change in what gets deleted by --delete is desired. A normal user can
ignore this detail and just use the shell script as an easy way to run the appropriate --read-batch
command for the batched data.
The original batch mode in rsync was based on "rsync+", but the latest version uses a new implementa-tion. implementation.
tion.
SYMBOLIC LINKS
Three basic behaviors are possible when rsync encounters a symbolic link in the source directory.
By default, symbolic links are not transferred at all. A message "skipping non-regular" file is
emitted for any symlinks that exist.
If --links is specified, then symlinks are recreated with the same target on the destination. Note
that --archive implies --links.
If --copy-links is specified, then symlinks are "collapsed" by copying their referent, rather than
the symlink.
rsync also distinguishes "safe" and "unsafe" symbolic links. An example where this might be used is
a web site mirror that wishes ensure the rsync module they copy does not include symbolic links to
/etc/passwd in the public section of the site. Using --copy-unsafe-links will cause any links to be
copied as the file they point to on the destination. Using --safe-links will cause unsafe links to
be omitted altogether.
Symbolic links are considered unsafe if they are absolute symlinks (start with /), empty, or if they
contain enough ".." components to ascend from the directory being copied.
DIAGNOSTICS
rsync occasionally produces error messages that may seem a little cryptic. The one that seems to
cause the most confusion is "protocol version mismatch - is your shell clean?".
This message is usually caused by your startup scripts or remote shell facility producing unwanted
garbage on the stream that rsync is using for its transport. The way to diagnose this problem is to
run your remote shell like this:
ssh remotehost /bin/true > out.dat
then look at out.dat. If everything is working correctly then out.dat should be a zero length file.
If you are getting the above error from rsync then you will probably find that out.dat contains some
text or data. Look at the contents and try to work out what is producing it. The most common cause is
incorrectly configured shell startup scripts (such as .cshrc or .profile) that contain output state-ments statements
ments for non-interactive logins.
If you are having trouble debugging include and exclude patterns, then try specifying the -vv option.
At this level of verbosity rsync will show why each individual file is included or excluded.
EXIT VALUES
0 Success
1 Syntax or usage error
2 Protocol incompatibility
3 Errors selecting input/output files, dirs
4 Requested action not supported: an attempt was made to manipulate 64-bit files on a platform
that cannot support them; or an option was specified that is supported by the client and not
by the server.
5 Error starting client-server protocol
10 Error in socket I/O
11 Error in file I/O
12 Error in rsync protocol data stream
13 Errors with program diagnostics
14 Error in IPC code
20 Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT
21 Some error returned by waitpid()
22 Error allocating core memory buffers
23 Partial transfer due to error
24 Partial transfer due to vanished source files
30 Timeout in data send/receive
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
CVSIGNORE
The CVSIGNORE environment variable supplements any ignore patterns in .cvsignore files. See
the --cvs-exclude option for more details.
RSYNC_RSH
The RSYNC_RSH environment variable allows you to override the default shell used as the trans-port transport
port for rsync. Command line options are permitted after the command name, just as in the -e
option.
RSYNC_PROXY
The RSYNC_PROXY environment variable allows you to redirect your rsync client to use a web
proxy when connecting to a rsync daemon. You should set RSYNC_PROXY to a hostname:port pair.
RSYNC_PASSWORD
Setting RSYNC_PASSWORD to the required password allows you to run authenticated rsync connec-tions connections
tions to an rsync daemon without user intervention. Note that this does not supply a password
to a shell transport such as ssh.
USER or LOGNAME
The USER or LOGNAME environment variables are used to determine the default username sent to
an rsync server. If neither is set, the username defaults to "nobody".
HOME The HOME environment variable is used to find the user's default .cvsignore file.
FILES
/etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
SEE ALSO
rsyncd.conf(5)
DIAGNOSTICS
BUGS
times are transferred as unix time_t values
When transferring to FAT filesystems rsync may re-sync unmodified files. See the comments on the
--modify-window option.
file permissions, devices, etc. are transferred as native numerical values
see also the comments on the --delete option
Please report bugs! See the website at http://rsync.samba.org/
CREDITS
rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file COPYING for details.
A WEB site is available at http://rsync.samba.org/ The site includes an FAQ-O-Matic which may cover
questions unanswered by this manual page.
The primary ftp site for rsync is ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync
We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
This program uses the excellent zlib compression library written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
THANKS
Thanks to Richard Brent, Brendan Mackay, Bill Waite, Stephen Rothwell and David Bell for helpful sug-
gestions, patches and testing of rsync. I've probably missed some people, my apologies if I have.
Especial thanks also to: David Dykstra, Jos Backus, Sebastian Krahmer, Martin Pool, Wayne Davison,
J.W. Schultz.
AUTHOR
rsync was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. Many people have later contrib-
uted to it.
Mailing lists for support and development are available at http://lists.samba.org
30 Sep 2004 rsync(1)
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