Intro

rsync is still my current king, but still not quite what I wanted. It's not smart enough to see simple folder renames or moves.

Basic rsync folder synchronization

The first time I played with rsync it took me some time to figure out how to get it to work! To make the destination the same as the source, do:

rsync -av --delete --progress //path/to/source// //path/to/dest//

Yeah, that's a lot of options all rolled together. =/

-v --verbose increase verbosity

--delete delete files that don't exist on the sending side

This one was very confusing. It means "Delete files on the destination which don't exist on the source" or I suppose another phrase would be "replicate deletions".

--progress show progress

--bwlimit=KBPS Bandwidth limit -- fuzzy, most effective with large files.

-n --dry-run show what would have been transferred

--exclude exclude/omit files.

You can use this parameter multiple times.

nice -n 10 rsync --temp-dir=/mnt/sda9/rsync-temp/ --bwlimit=10000 --stats --sparse --delete-before --archive --hard-links --verbose --progress /mnt/source/ /mnt/dest/

rsync folder synchronization over SSH

What was recommended to me, but remains untested:

rsync -av -e ssh <username>@<target>:/path/to/source/ //path/to/dest//

• username = the user that exists on that remote machine
• target = either the IP or the web address of the remote machine.
  • If the remote machine has an IP address that changes, use no-ip.com or dyndns.org or some other similar service.

rsync folder synchronization over FTP

Rsync over FTP isn't possible. Why? I have no clue.. they decided to leave that part out..

Try lufs for mounting an FTP site, or LFTP and mirroring.

rsync - Detect renamed files and handle by renaming instead of delete/re-send

At first, [1] rsync v3 was supposed include filename charset-conversion support and renamed-file detection! But some time afterwards they removed any mention of it. There is also no mention of renaming in any changelog or news item. They simply purged this announcement entirely. =(

• bug 2294 Detect renamed files and handle by renaming instead of delete/re-send

Apparently this isn't actually possible. --fuzzy doesn't do it.

• [2] Don't write out an unchanged file if all the checksums matched
• [3] Option to recheck basis dirs for existing dest files
• [4] Optimization-only basis dirs that don't affect itemization
• [5] Allow mixing different kinds of basis dirs

[not working] Merging directories

NOTE! THIS DOES NOT SEEM TRUSTWORTHY!

It initially tested ok, but now it seems to destroy files!!

Finally, a decent replacement for mv!

rsync -av --progress --remove-source-files //source/* /dest//

rsyncmv() { rsync -av --progress --remove-source-files "$1" "$2" ; }

rsyncmv //path/to/source/* /path/to/dest//

possibly: rsync -a SOURCE/ DEST/ --remove-sent-files --ignore-existing --whole-file

rsync troubleshooting

sending incremental file list
test.html
rsync: rename "/mnt/mnt/httpdocs/.test.html.gpPO1R" -> "test.html": Operation not permitted (1)

# rsync -av . /dest/
sending incremental file list
path/to/file.ext
rsync: read errors mapping "/path/to/file.ext": Input/output error (5)
WARNING: path/to/file.ext failed verification -- update discarded (will try again).
path/to/file.ext
rsync: read errors mapping "/path/to/file.ext": Input/output error (5)
ERROR: path/to/file.ext failed verification -- update discarded.

sent 3578910 bytes  received 2128 bytes  246968.14 bytes/sec
total size is 79431643878  speedup is 22181.18
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at main.c(1031) [sender=3.0.2]

cp: reading `/path/to/file.ext': Input/output error