Rsync (Remote Sync): 11 Practical Examples of Rsync Command in Linux

What is Rsync?

Rsync or Remote Sync is a utility for Unix/Linux systems used to copy or synchronize the files and folders remotely or locally. This article contains rsync examples that will help you to understand how to mirror, copy or synchronize the data from one server to another server and even locally in Linux/Unix systems. Rsync was created as a replacement for rcp and scp.

Main Advantages

The main advantages of rsync are:
-Speed: Initially rsync replicates all content between source and destination (receiver). Further rsync only transmits the changed blocks or bits to the destination, which makes the synchronization really fast.
-Security: rsync includes data encryption for transfer using SSH protocol
-Small Load: rsync uses compression and decompression of data block by block on the transmitting and receiving sides, respectively. Therefore, the rsync bandwidth used is lower compared to other file transfer protocols.

Basic Syntax:-

rsync options source destination

The most useful rsync options are:

-v- detailed mode;
-r- copy data recursively (but without saving the information about the time of file changes and access rights);
-a- archiving mode, allows you to copy data recursively with saving symlinks, access rights to files/directories and other information);
-z- Compression data;
-h- output data in human-readable format.

Installing rsync

RedHat/CentOS :

yum -y install rsync

Debian/Ubuntu :

apt-get -y install rsync

1) Copying and synchronizing data locally

The following rsync example will copy or synchronize all files from one directory to another on the same host.

rsync -avh /root/firstdir /root/seconddir

view the content of a directory

ls -l /root/seconddir

2) Copy and synchronize data to or from a remote server

Copy local files to a remote host:

rsync -avzh /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

Both hosts must have rsync installed.

Copy from a remote host to a local host.

On the remote host, create the file:

touch firstdir/file2

Copy:

rsync -avzh [email protected]:/root/firstdir /root/

3) Using rsync on ssh

To specify rsyncwhich protocol to use – use the option -e:

rsync -avzhv -e ssh /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

4) the progress line of the data transfer

With the help of the option, –progress you can display more information about how the transfer occurs (speed, number of transmitted and remaining bytes, time):

rsync -avzh -e ssh --progress /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

5) The options -include and -exclude

With the help of -–include and -–exclude you can specify which files and/or directories to include in the transfer, and which ones to exclude.

For example – we will only give file1:

rsync -avzhe ssh --include 'file1' --exclude 'file2' /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

6) -delete option

–delete is used if there are files and/or directories in the destination directory that are not in the source, and they must be deleted.

For example, in the destination directory, create a file:

touch /root/firstdir/file3

Whereas in the source directory we will have:

ls -l /root/firstdir/

Now we are synchronizing with the option --delete:

rsync -avzhe ssh --delete /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

deleting firstdir/file3 – the file has been deleted:

ls -l /root/firstdir/

7) Maximum file size for transfer

rsync can take an option –max-size, with which you can specify the maximum file size that will be transferred.

For example, create a 100MB file:

dd of=bigfilefile bs=1 count=0 seek=100M

confirm content

ls -hl

And we will perform the transfer, limiting the file size to 50MB:

rsync -avzhe ssh --max-size='50M' /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

8) Delete original data after transmission

With the option, –remove-source-files you can delete data after performing a copy or synchronization.

For example – we have a directory:

ls -l /root/firstdir/

We are copying:

rsync -avzhe ssh --remove-source-files /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

And we check the source directory:

ls -l /root/firstdir/

9) Option Dry Run – “idle run”

With the option, –dry-run you can only verify how the task will be executed, but without real data transfer.

This can be useful, for example, to check the difference between a local and a remote copy of the data.

For example:

rsync -avzhe ssh --dry-run /root/firstdir [email protected]:/root/

And check the remote directory:

ls -l /root/firstdir/

10) Speed limitation I/O

To limit the transfer spoofing – you can use the option –bwlimit that sets the read speed limit from the disk (and, accordingly, the transfer) in kilobytes/second.

For example, create a file:

dd of=bigfilefile bs=1 count=0 seek=10M

And run the transfer:

rsync --bwlimit=100 --progress bigfilefile [email protected]:/root/

11) Full data copying

By default, rsync only copies changed data blocks.

To make a full copy – use the option -W:

rsync --progress bigfilefile [email protected]:/root/

Note the difference in the field sent between calls with and without an option -W.