How To Install Rsync

Run the command according to your Linux Distro

Ubuntu or Debian:

apt-get install rsync

CentOS, Fedora or Redhat

yum install rsync

How to Use Rsync?

Syntax to use rsync is like the following:

rsync -options <source> <destination>

Some of the options that are used commonly in the rsync command:

• -v, –verbose                    Verbose output
• -q, –quiet                                 To suppress output message
• -a, –archive                          archive while synchronizing ( -a equal to following options -rlptgoD)
• -r,  –recursive                           To sync recursively
• -b, –backup                             To take the backup during sync
• -u, –update                          To update the files only
• -l,  –links                                  To copy symlinks as is
• -n, –dry-run                             To perform a dry run without actual sync
• -e, –rsh=COMMAND             Mention the remote shell to use in rsync
• -z, –compress                          To compress data during sync
• -h, –human-readable               To Display the output in a read-able format
• –progress                                 To Show the syncing progress during transfer

Here is the example command to sync files from source server to destination server. In this example, we will be running a command on the destination server:

rsync -avz -e “ssh -p 2222” –exclude public_html/wp-content/cache/ source.hostname.com:/home/username/public_html/wordpress/ /home/backups/username/wordpress/

• Options from the above list
• Defining a different SSH Port
• Excluding a folder from sync (You can use multiple exclude in one command)
• Exclude folder path
• Source server hostname
• Source Server directory Path from where to sync files
• Destination Server Path to where sync the files.