I would like to do a
rsync master slave
with the following restriction: The directory master/foo/xxx should be excluded from being copied, but the directory master/bar/xxx should be copied.
I can not write
rsync --exclude xxx master slave
because this would also exclude master/bar/xxx. To my surprise, I can also not use
rsync --exclude master/foo/xxx master slave
because it copies BOTH xxx directories (why?).
Of course I can revert to writing two rsync's:
rsync --exclude xxx master slave
rsync master/bar/xxx slave/bar/xxx
but I wonder whether this can't be done any simpler.
The correct command is this:
rsync --exclude /foo/xxx master slave
Include/exclude rules beginning with / are relative to the root of the transfer (not the root of the filesystem).
Rules starting with other characters are matched to the end of each filename, so foo/xxx would work also, but might match directories you weren't expecting if there is a foo somewhere else in the directory tree.
Your command did not work because "master" is outside the root of the transfer.
Related
I want to develop a Rsync script to recursively copy the list of files/folders that are created on one server to another server. I'm using the below command to copy a particular file. However whether we can include a list of files that should be ignored while copying the files from source to destination.
rsync -av --include /sourcepath/* --exclude filename user#destinationserver:/destinationpath
We can refer [1] [1]: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix_commands/rsync.html
rsync -lapv --include /sourcecpath/* --exclude-from exclude-list-one user#destinationserver:/destinationpath
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-p, --perms preserve permissions
--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
I want to copy a directory from remote machine to local using rsync, but without some inner folders.
I'm using this command:
rsync -rave --exclude 'js' --exclude 'css' --exclude 'fonts' root#{IP}:/rem_dir1/rem_dir2/public /local_dir1/local_dir2/public
But result of it is:
Unexpected remote arg: root#{IP}:/rem_dir1/rem_dir2/public
rsync error: syntax or usage error (code 1) at main.c(1361) [sender=3.1.2]
I'm sure remote root is correct. So the problem is in rsync command syntax.
What is the correct way to exclude several folders using rsync?
For example we have /public folder which contains dir1, dir2, dir3, dir4 and dir5. How to copy only dir1 and dir2 from /public?
As with your other question, the -rave makes no sense. You want just -av.
You can get fancy with include and exclude commands, but the easiest way to copy just two directories is just to list them:
rsync -av \
root#{IP}:/rem_dir1/rem_dir2/public/dir1 \
root#{IP}:/rem_dir1/rem_dir2/public/dir2 \
/local_dir1/local_dir2/public/
where \ is just line-continuation (so I can wrap the long line), and I deliberately only added / to the end of the destination path, not the source paths.
I'm using rsync to sync files from a source to a destination:
rsync -av --delete source destination
I have a single directory on the destination side which is not on the source side. I'd like to prevent rsync from deleting this directory. Is there an option I can pass to rsync to prevent this directory from being deleted upon sync?
You can exclude files/directories with --exclude. This will prevent the somedir directory from being synced/deleted:
rsync -avrc --delete --exclude somedir source destination
As mentioned in a similar question, this can be accomplished by using the --filter option with protect rule:
$ rsync ... --filter 'protect /remote-directory-to-keep/' ...
Unlike the currently accepted answer, using --filter is useful, for instance, if you also wish to use --exclude with --delete-excluded.
I've about 50 or so files in various sub-directories that I'd like to push to a remote server. I figured rsync would be able to do this for me using the --include-from option. Without the --exclude="*" option, all the files in the directory are being synced, with the option, no files are.
rsync -avP -e ssh --include-from=deploy/rsync_include.txt --exclude=* ./ root#0.0.0.0:/var/www/ --dry-run
I'm running it as dry initially and 0.0.0.0 is obviously replaced by the IP of the remote server. The contents of rsync_include.txt is a new line separated list of relative paths to the files I want to upload.
Is there a better way of doing this that is escaping me on a Monday morning?
There is a flag --files-from that does exactly what you want. From man rsync:
--files-from=FILE
Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or - for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make transferring just the specified files and directories easier:
The --relative (-R) option is implied, which preserves the path information that is specified for each item in the file (use --no-relative or --no-R if you want to turn that off).
The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will create directories specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping them (use --no-dirs or --no-d if you want to turn that off).
The --archive (-a) option’s behavior does not imply --recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.
These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of the --files-from option on the command-line has no bearing on how other options are parsed (e.g. -a works the same before or after --files-from, as does --no-R and all other options).
The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command:
rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both
cases, if the -r option was enabled, that dir’s entire hierarchy would also be transferred (keep in mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly with --files-from, since it is not implied by -a). Also note that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it
does not force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).
In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the transfer". For example:
rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy
This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the remote "src" host.
If the --iconv and --protect-args options are specified and the --files-from filenames are being sent from one host to another, the filenames will be translated from the sending host’s charset to the receiving host’s charset.
NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will eventually unduplicate them after
they get turned into file-list elements.
For the record, none of the answers above helped except for one. To summarize, you can do the backup operation using --files-from= by using either:
rsync -aSvuc `cat rsync-src-files` /mnt/d/rsync_test/
OR
rsync -aSvuc --recursive --files-from=rsync-src-files . /mnt/d/rsync_test/
The former command is self explanatory, beside the content of the file rsync-src-files which I will elaborate down below. Now, if you want to use the latter version, you need to keep in mind the following four remarks:
Notice one needs to specify both --files-from and the source directory
One needs to explicitely specify --recursive.
The file rsync-src-files is a user created file and it was placed within the src directory for this test
The rsyn-src-files contain the files and folders to copy and they are taken relative to the source directory. IMPORTANT: Make sure there is not trailing spaces or blank lines in the file. In the example below, there are only two lines, not three (Figure it out by chance). Content of rsynch-src-files is:
folderName1
folderName2
--files-from= parameter needs trailing slash if you want to keep the absolute path intact. So your command would become something like below:
rsync -av --files-from=/path/to/file / /tmp/
This could be done like there are a large number of files and you want to copy all files to x path. So you would find the files and throw output to a file like below:
find /var/* -name *.log > file
$ date
Wed 24 Apr 2019 09:54:53 AM PDT
$ rsync --version
rsync version 3.1.3 protocol version 31
...
Syntax: rsync <args> <file_and_or_folder_list> <source_dir> <destination_dir/>
Folder names - WITH a trailing /; e.g. Cancer - Evolution/ - are provided in a file (e.g. my_folder_list):
# comment: /mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list
# comment: 2019-04-24
some_file
another_file
Cancer/
Cancer - Evolution/
Cancer - Genomic Variants/
Cancer - Metastasis (EMT Transition ...)/
Cancer Pathways, Networks/
Catabolism - Autophagy; Phagosomes; Mitophagy/
so those are the "source" (files and/or) folders, to be rsync'd.
Note that if you don't include the trailing / shown above, rsync creates the target folders, but they are empty.
Those folder names provided in the <file_and_or_folder_list> are appended to the rest of their path: <src_dir> = /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS (here, on a different partition), thus providing the complete folder path to rsync; e.g.: ... /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS/Cancer - Evolution/ ...
[ I'm editing this answer some time later (2022-07), and I can't recall if the path provided to <src_dir> is /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS or /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS/ - providing the correct concatenated path. I believe it's the former; if it doesn't work, use the latter. ]
Note that you also need to use --files-from= ..., NOT --include-from= ...
Again the rsync syntax is:
rsync <args> <file_and_or_folder_list> <source_dir> <destination_dir/>
so,
rsync -aqP --delete --files-from=/mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list "/home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS" $DEST_DIR/
where
<args> is -aqP --delete
<file_and_or_folder_list> is --files-from=/mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list
<source_dir> is "/home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS"
<destination_dir/> is $DEST_DIR/ (note the trailing / added to the variable name)
In my BASH script, for coding flexibility I defined variable $DEST_DIR in two parts as follows.
BASEDIR="/mnt/Vancouver"
DEST_DIR=$BASEDIR/data
echo $DEST_DIR ## /mnt/Vancouver/data
## To clarify, here is $DEST_DIR with / appended to the variable name:
echo $DEST_DIR/ ## /mnt/Vancouver/data/
echo $DEST_DIR/apple/banana ## /mnt/Vancouver/data/apple/banana
However, you can more simply specify the destination path:
via a BASH variable: $DEST_DIR=/mnt/Vancouver/data
note that in the rsync expression above, / is appended to $DEST_DIR (i.e. $DEST_DIR/ is actually $DEST_DIR + /), giving the destination directory path /mnt/Vancouver/data/
explicitly state the destination path: /mnt/Vancouver/data/
rsync options used: ## man rsync or rsync -h
-a : archive: equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
-r : recursive
-l : copy symlinks as symlinks
-p : preserve permissions
-t : preserve modification times
-g : preserve group
-o : preserve owner (super-user only)
-D : same as --devices --specials
-P : same as --partial --progress
-q : quiet (https://serverfault.com/questions/547106/run-totally-silent-rsync)
--delete
This tells rsync to delete extraneous files from the RECEIVING SIDE (ones
that AREN’T ON THE SENDING SIDE), but only for the directories that are
being synchronized. You must have asked rsync to send the whole directory
(e.g. "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard for the directory’s contents
(e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded by the shell and rsync thus
gets a request to transfer individual files, not the files’ parent directory.
Files that are excluded from the transfer are also excluded from being
deleted unless you use the --delete-excluded option or mark the rules as
only matching on the sending side (see the include/exclude modifiers in the
FILTER RULES section). ...
Edit: atp's answer below is better. Please use that one!
You might have an easier time, if you're looking for a specific list of files, putting them directly on the command line instead:
# rsync -avP -e ssh `cat deploy/rsync_include.txt` root#0.0.0.0:/var/www/
This is assuming, however, that your list isn't so long that the command line length will be a problem and that the rsync_include.txt file contains just real paths (i.e. no comments, and no regexps).
None of these answers worked for me, when all I had was a list of directories. Then I stumbled upon the solution! You have to add -r to --files-from because -a will not be recursive in this scenario (who knew?!).
rsync -aruRP --files-from=directory.list . ../new/location
I got similar task: to rsync all files modified after given date, but excluding some directories. It was difficult to build one liner all-in-one style, so I dived problem into smaller pieces.
Final solution:
find ~/sourceDIR -type f -newermt "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS" | egrep -v "/\..|Downloads|FOO" > FileList.txt
rsync -v --files-from=FileList.txt ~/sourceDIR /Destination
First I use find -L ~/sourceDIR -type f -newermt "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS". I tried to add regex to find line to exclude name patterns, however my flavor of Linux (Mint) seams not to understand negate regex in find. Tried number of regex flavors - non work as desired.
So I end up with egrep -v - option that excludes pattern easy way. My rsync is not copying directories like /.cache or /.config plus some other I explicitly named.
This answer is not the direct answer for the question.
But it should help you figure out which solution fits best for your problem.
When analysing the problem you should activate the debug option -vv
Then rsync will output which files are included or excluded by which pattern:
building file list ...
[sender] hiding file FILE1 because of pattern FILE1*
[sender] showing file FILE2 because of pattern *
I would like to rsync from local computer to server. On a directory that does not exist, and I want rsync to create that directory on the server first.
How can I do that?
If you have more than the last leaf directory to be created, you can either run a separate ssh ... mkdir -p first, or use the --rsync-path trick as explained here :
rsync -a --rsync-path="mkdir -p /tmp/x/y/z/ && rsync" $source user#remote:/tmp/x/y/z/
Or use the --relative option as suggested by Tony. In that case, you only specify the root of the destination, which must exist, and not the directory structure of the source, which will be created:
rsync -a --relative /new/x/y/z/ user#remote:/pre_existing/dir/
This way, you will end up with /pre_existing/dir/new/x/y/z/
And if you want to have "y/z/" created, but not inside "new/x/", you can add ./ where you want --relativeto begin:
rsync -a --relative /new/x/./y/z/ user#remote:/pre_existing/dir/
would create /pre_existing/dir/y/z/.
From the rsync manual page (man rsync):
--mkpath create the destination's path component
--mkpath was added in rsync 3.2.3 (6 Aug 2020).
Assuming you are using ssh to connect rsync, what about to send a ssh command before:
ssh user#server mkdir -p existingdir/newdir
if it already exists, nothing happens
The -R, --relative option will do this.
For example: if you want to backup /var/named/chroot and create the same directory structure on the remote server then -R will do just that.
this worked for me:
rsync /dev/null node:existing-dir/new-dir/
I do get this message :
skipping non-regular file "null"
but I don't have to worry about having an empty directory hanging around.
I don't think you can do it with one rsync command, but you can 'pre-create' the extra directory first like this:
rsync --recursive emptydir/ destination/newdir
where 'emptydir' is a local empty directory (which you might have to create as a temporary directory first).
It's a bit of a hack, but it works for me.
cheers
Chris
This answer uses bits of other answers, but hopefully it'll be a bit clearer as to the circumstances. You never specified what you were rsyncing - a single directory entry or multiple files.
So let's assume you are moving a source directory entry across, and not just moving the files contained in it.
Let's say you have a directory locally called data/myappdata/ and you have a load of subdirectories underneath this.
You have data/ on your target machine but no data/myappdata/ - this is easy enough:
rsync -rvv /path/to/data/myappdata/ user#host:/remote/path/to/data/myappdata
You can even use a different name for the remote directory:
rsync -rvv --recursive /path/to/data/myappdata user#host:/remote/path/to/data/newdirname
If you're just moving some files and not moving the directory entry that contains them then you would do:
rsync -rvv /path/to/data/myappdata/*.txt user#host:/remote/path/to/data/myappdata/
and it will create the myappdata directory for you on the remote machine to place your files in. Again, the data/ directory must exist on the remote machine.
Incidentally, my use of -rvv flag is to get doubly verbose output so it is clear about what it does, as well as the necessary recursive behaviour.
Just to show you what I get when using rsync (3.0.9 on Ubuntu 12.04)
$ rsync -rvv *.txt user#remote.machine:/tmp/newdir/
opening connection using: ssh -l user remote.machine rsync --server -vvre.iLsf . /tmp/newdir/
user#remote.machine's password:
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/newdir
delta-transmission enabled
bar.txt
foo.txt
total: matches=0 hash_hits=0 false_alarms=0 data=0
Hope this clears this up a little bit.
eg:
from: /xxx/a/b/c/d/e/1.html
to: user#remote:/pre_existing/dir/b/c/d/e/1.html
rsync:
cd /xxx/a/ && rsync -auvR b/c/d/e/ user#remote:/pre_existing/dir/
rsync source.pdf user1#192.168.56.100:~/not-created/target.pdf
If the target file is fully specified, the directory ~/not-created is not created.
rsync source.pdf user1#192.168.56.100:~/will-be-created/
But the target is specified with only a directory, the directory ~/will-be-created is created. / must be followed to let rsync know will-be-created is a directory.
use rsync twice~
1: tranfer a temp file, make sure remote relative directories has been created.
tempfile=/Users/temp/Dir0/Dir1/Dir2/temp.txt
# Dir0/Dir1/Dir2/ is directory that wanted.
rsync -aq /Users/temp/ rsync://remote
2: then you can specify the remote directory for transfer files/directory
tempfile|dir=/Users/XX/data|/Users/XX/data/
rsync -avc /Users/XX/data rsync://remote/Dir0/Dir1/Dir2
# Tips: [SRC] with/without '/' is different
This creates the dir tree /usr/local/bin in the destination and then syncs all containing files and folders recursively:
rsync --archive --include="/usr" --include="/usr/local" --include="/usr/local/bin" --include="/usr/local/bin/**" --exclude="*" user#remote:/ /home/user
Compared to mkdir -p, the dir tree even has the same perms as the source.
If you are using a version or rsync that doesn't have 'mkpath', then --files-from can help. Suppose you need to create 'mysubdir' in the target directory
Create 'filelist.txt' to contain
mysubdir/dummy
mkdir -p source_dir/mysubdir/
touch source_dir/mysubdir/dummy
rsync --files-from='filelist.txt' source_dir target_dir
rsync will copy mysubdir/dummy to target_dir, creating mysubdir in the process. Tested with rsync 3.1.3 on Raspberry Pi OS (debian).