Linux: rsync Tutorial
rsync
is a command line util that lets you do one-way copying/updating from one machine to another.
The remote machine must also have rsync installed. (it's installed by default in linux)
# copy the local dir # ~/web/ # to the remote dir # ~/ # on the machine with domain name “example.org”, using login joe # via the ssh protocol rsync -z -a -v -t --rsh="ssh -l joe" ~/web/ joe@example.org:~/
Rsync Options
Here's what the options mean:
-a
-
Archived mode, basically making the file's meta data (owner/perm/timestamp) same as the local file (when possible) and do recursive (i.e. Upload the whole dir).
Tip: use this ONLY between linux and Mac machines. Because Windows and unix have different file permission systems. [see Linux: File Permission System] If any machine is Microsoft Windows, use
-r
instead. -r
- “recursive”, all sub directories and files
-z
- Use compression for transmission. (compress files first, transmit, uncompress. This saves bandwidth.)
-v
- Verbose mode. Print out which files is being updated.
-t
-
Copy timestamp from source to destination. If you don't, rsync will basically update every file. Timestamp is used by rsync to check if file's been updated.
-a
implies-t
.
--exclude=glob_pattern
-
Ignore file names that matches glob_pattern in source directory. (i.e. If it matches, don't upload it, nor delete it on remote server) For example,
*.javac
means all files ending in.javac
--delete
- If a file/dir in destination is not in source directory, delete it.
rsync on windows path
on Microsoft Windows, the path with drive letter
c:/
should be replaced by
/cygdrive/c/
# rsync example. sync/upload my website on my local machine to my web server # but use --exclude to exclude some dir or files on source dir # use --delete to delete files on target that are not in source rsync -z -a -v -t --exclude="*~" --exclude=".DS_Store" --exclude=".bash_history" --exclude="*/_curves_robert_yates/*.png" --exclude="logs/*" --exclude="xlogs/*" --delete --rsh="ssh -l joe" ~/web/ joe@example.com:~/
# rsync from Windows to Mac # use -r instead -a rsync -z -r -v --delete --rsh="ssh -l xah" ~/web/ xah@169.254.125.147:~/web/
rsync remote to local
Here's a example of reverse direction.
rsync -z -a -v -t --rsh="ssh -l joe" joe@example.org:~/web/ ~/
This will get everything from the remote machine, to local machine.