rsync

Links

rsync over ssh Configuration in debian
rsync page
rsync Tips & Tricks
A Tutorial on Using rsync
Get to Know rsync
http://www.nongnu.org/duplicity/ Encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup using the rsync algorithm.
http://duplicity.nongnu.org/ Encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup using the rsync algorithm.

Install

apt-get install rsync

Setup

Edit:

/etc/default/rsync

and change RSYNC_ENABLE=false to:

RSYNC_ENABLE=true

Re-start the daemon:

/etc/init.d/rsync restart

ssh

Create a key for the user who will be doing the backup on the source machine:

ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/patrickk/.ssh/id_rsa):
Created directory '/home/patrickk/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/patrickk/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/patrickk/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
d0:37:a0:3b:11:a2:27:0c:f9:9a:b9:6d:e8:c4:71:c6 patrickk@server

Note:

when asked where to store it, put it in the default (i.e. /home/patrickk/.ssh/id_rsa)
when asked for a password, just press enter (ie, no password). Note, this is a security hole.
Make sure that no unauthorized user can read the private key file (the one without the .pub extension).
This key serves no purpose until we copy the public portion into the authorized_keys file on the remote host.

Now we have a key with no password in the two files mentioned above.

Now, go into /home/patrickk/.ssh/ and copy the file id_rsa.pub to the target machine. Copy the key into the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys (create it if necessary).

Update the permissions on the folder (and file) if required:

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

You should now be able to scp files to the target machine without entering a password.

Sample

Here are a some sample rsync command lines:

rsync --recursive --rsh=ssh --size-only --verbose \
  /home/patrick/projects \
  patrick@weezy:/home/patrick/temp/

rsync -av --exclude=.svn --exclude=health --exclude=satchmo.log ./ db1:/srv/django/ -n | grep -v .pyc

/usr/bin/rsync --compress --verbose --rsh=ssh --times --owner --group --ignore-times --links  --perms \
    --recursive --size-only --delete --force --numeric-ids \
    /home/patrick/projects/lucene-test/ \
    patrick@weezy:/home/patrickk/temp/lucene-test

rsync --checksum --delete --recursive --rsh=ssh --size-only --verbose \
  /home/patrick/projects \
  patrick@weezy:/home/patrick/temp/

Warning

The checksum option will forces rsync to calculate a checksum for all files. It might take a very long time sending incremental file list.

Command

rsync man page::

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST

You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning “copy the contents of this directory” as opposed to “copy the directory by name”…

Options

`compress`	compress the file data as it is sent to the destination machine
`delete`	delete extraneous files from dest dirs
`force`	force deletion of dirs even if not empty
`group`	preserve group
`ignore-times`	don’t skip files that match size and time
`links`	copy symlinks as symlinks
`numeric-ids`	don’t map uid/gid values by user/group name
`owner`	preserve owner (super-user only)
`perms`	destination permissions to be the same as the source permissions
`recursive`	recurse into directories
`rsh=ssh`	specify the remote shell to use
`size-only`	skip files that match in size
`times`	transfer modification times along with the files and update them on the remote system.
`verbose`	increase verbosity

Windows

See cygwin packages.

Note: If you are transferring files from the Windows workstation to the Linux box you will need to generate the key in cygwin and copy the public key to the Linux box.