Rsync
lastmod 2025-01-20created 2016-02-1912 edits
rsync is a utility for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files on computer systems, which it does by checking file timestamps and sizes. As a file sync and file transfer program, it is commonly found on Unix-like systems and functions. The rsync algorithm is a type of delta encoding and is used to minimize network usage. Zlib can be used for additional data compression, and SSH or stunnel can be used for data security.
Rsync is typically used to synchronize files and directories between two different systems.
For example, with rsync local-file user@remote-host:remote-file, rsync uses SSH to connect to remote-host as user.
Once connected, it invokes rsync on the remote host, and the two programs then determine which parts of the local file need to be transferred so that the remote file can match the local file.
Rsync can also run in daemon mode, serving and receiving files over the native rsync protocol. (using the rsync:// syntax).
Released under GNU GPLv3.
Flags
- a - Archive, which carries over permissions, owners, and even locations as-is
- v - Verbose, which shows detailed sync progress
- r - Recursive, which runs recursively through the subdirectories of the specified directory
- p - Perms, which preserves information such as the source file's modification time and permissions
- z - Compress, which compresses data for transfer; these are some of the options.
See also
- cron
- syncthing
- CDC File Transfer - A Windows-to-Linux file sync and streaming tool
- Jamsync - A version control system based on rsync
- ssh
- sftp
- OpenSSH
- scp
- rsync
- rclone
- Robocopy - Robust file copy for Windows