ref. http://blog.lxpages.com/ (gone)
Apr17
Fun With Rsync - Part I

April 17, 2008 | 15 Comments

If you’ve used rsync in the past, you know that it makes quite a few things much easier to manage.
For example, you can use rsync to backup files from one server to another, you can use it to
automate patch deployments, you can mirror entire websites and also have it function like a
semi-NFS client/server which can synchronize data between several servers by running it like a
watchdog so that as soon as a file gets updated on primary server, it instantly syncs up all
other servers.

What is Rsync?
rsync is a file transfer program for Unix systems. rsync uses the “rsync algorithm” which provides a
very fast method for bringing remote files into sync. It does this by sending just the differences in
the files across the link, without requiring that both sets of files are present at one of the ends of
the link beforehand. Some features of rsync include

   1. Can update whole directory trees and filesystems
   2. Optionally preserves symbolic links, hard links, file ownership, permissions, devices and times
   3. Requires no special privileges to install
   4. Internal pipelining reduces latency for multiple files
   5. Can use rsh, ssh or direct sockets as the transport
   6. Supports anonymous rsync which is ideal for mirroring

The Basics

If you don’t already have it installed, get it done this way on Debian systems:

    apt-get install rsync

On other Linux distributions you would use yum(Fedora/CentOS) or yast (SuSE) to install rsync.

The base requirement of the rsync system is that you install the rsync program on the source and
destination hosts. The easiest way to transfer files is to use a remote shell account.
To copy a group of files to your home directory on host, you can run this command:

    rsync file1 file2 … host:

Rsync defaults to rsh as the remote shell and that is not secure. Instead you can have rsync use
ssh by using the option –rsh or -e ssh option:

    rsync -e ssh file1 file2 … host:destination_dir

Copying one folder to another:

    rsync -r /home/lxpages/junk /home/backups/junk/

That will copy the folder with simple application, without that much are to preservation of
permissions/owners/etc. To make exact
duplicates, we can add the -a switch.

    rsync -av /home/lxpages/junk /home/backups/junk

The above retains ALL ownership/permission and rsync in verbose mode.

    rsync -av --delete /var/www/junk /home/lxpages/junk

The –delete keeps destination folder identical to source by removing any files that don’t match src
dir.

    rsync -av --delete -e ssh

    lxpages@remotehost.com:/home/lxpages/junk /home/lxpages/junk

Rsync everything from remote server and folder /home/lxpages/junk to local server and folder
/home/lxpages/junk.

There are many more examples which I will include later parts. For now just remember that man page is
your friend. Simply type ‘man rsync’ and read/view all the available options you can play around with.

References: http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/


rsync -av /media/cdrom/win_c /mnt/win_c