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rsync.md

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rsync

Very powerful and flexible file tool to synchronize directories.

Can:

  • work over networks. Both machines must have it installed.

    Capable of compressing before sending over the network, and decompressing on the other side.

    Sample usage:

    rsync -av 192.168.0.20:/some/path new/path

  • synchronize differentially: only copies files that are newer, skip already copied ones.

  • encrypt files sent

e

rsync can use many "remote shells" (what is that?), and ssh is one of them (the default?)

So in order to use rsync, first make sure that you can login into the computer with plain ssh.

Too many authentication failures for username

Sample usage at http://superuser.com/questions/187779/too-many-authentication-failures-for-username

rsync -av -e 'ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication=no' 'remote_user@host.com:~/remote/file' 'local/file'

Custom ssh port

rsync -av -e 'ssh -p 2222' 'remote_user@host.com:~/remote/file' 'local/file'

Useful options

-a: "archive mode". Sets all the most useful options:

rsync -a origin dest

Sets : -Dgloprt

Does what you want it to do, before you notice you need it:

  • -D: preserve special and device files. Requires sudo.
  • -g: preserve group. Requires sudo
  • -l: copy symlinks as symlinks
  • -o: preserve owner. Requires sudo
  • -p: preserve permissions
  • -r: recurse into directories
  • -t: preserve modification times
  • --exclude=: Exclude directories
  • -v: verbose
  • -z: compress files before transfer, decompress after.

Useful if transfer will be done over a network, so that smaller files can be transferred.

Combos

Back up everything except /media (where the backup will go to), and /home.

sudo rsync -av --exclude=home --exclude=media / /media/SOMETHING/bak

WARNING: your disk must be ext4, not NTFS, or permissions are impossible. In that case: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/11757/is-ntfs-under-linux-able-to-save-a-linux-file-with-its-chown-and-chmod-settings

Two remotes

Move files

TODO impossible? I wanted that to use nice things like --exclude as in:

rsync --remove-source-files --exclude .git * buildroot

but --remove-source-files does not prevent the copy with a mv, it only simply unlinks the original after it is copied.