Option available in `rsync` command in Linux
|
Options |
Description |
|---|---|
|
a, –archive |
This is equivalent to using -rlptgoD. Archive mode includes all the necessary options like copying files recursively, preserving almost everything (like symbolic links, file permissions, user & group ownership and timestamps). |
|
-v, –verbose |
By default, rsync operates silently. Using a single “-v” option provides information on transferred files and a summary at the end. Adding two “-v” options gives status updates on delta-transmission and skipped files, along with more information at the end. Multiple “-v” options are typically used for debugging rsync. |
|
-h, –human-readable format |
Outputs in a human readable format. |
|
-z, –compress |
Compress file data during the transfer |
rsync command in Linux with Examples
rsync or remote synchronization is a software utility for Unix-Like systems that efficiently sync files and directories between two hosts or machines. One is the source or the local-host from which the files will be synced, the other is the remote-host, on which synchronization will take place. There are basically two ways in which rsync can copy/sync data:
- Copying/syncing to/from another host over any remote shell like ssh, rsh.
- Copying/Syncing through rsync daemon using TCP.
Rsync is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm, in which it copies only the differences between the source files present in the local-host and the existing files in the destination or the remote host.
Example:
rsync local-file user@remote-host:remote-file
What Happens Here:
Rsync will first use SSH to connect as the user to remote-host and will ask for user's password. Once connected, it will invoke the remote host’s rsync, and then the two programs will determine what parts of the local-file need to be copied so that the remote file matches the local one. Please note the following behavior of rsync:
- Files that do not exist on the remote-host are copied.
- Files that have been updated will be synced, rsync will copy only the changed parts of files to the remote host.
- files that are exactly the same are not copied to the remote host.