Installing RSYNC

Instructions for installing and configuring Remote Synchronization (RSYNC) for data synchronization

rsync (Remote Synchronization) is a cross-platform command-line utility for synchronizing data with minimal bandwidth usage. It is widely used for backups, migrations, and mirroring data between servers.

For example, with rsync you can move projects from shared hosting to a VPS, synchronize directories between multiple dedicated servers, or keep up-to-date copies of files across your infrastructure.

Installing rsync

For CentOS:

yum -y install rsync

For Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo aptitude install rsync

rsync usage examples

Local synchronization

sudo rsync -avh --delete /var/www/ /root/backup/www/

This command syncs the contents of /var/www/ with /root/backup/www/, removing files that no longer exist in the source.

Syncing to a remote server

sudo rsync -avh --delete /var/www/ root@192.168.1.50:/root/backup/www/

Files will be copied to another server over SSH.

Note

For synchronization to work, rsync must be installed on both servers.

Syncing from a remote server to local

sudo rsync -avh root@192.168.1.50:/var/www/ /root/backup/www/

Syncing over SSH with a custom port

sudo rsync -avh -e "ssh -p 1111" root@192.168.1.50:/var/www/ /root/backup/www/

Excluding directories

sudo rsync -avh --exclude='dir/' --exclude='dir/tmp/' /var/www/ /root/backup/www/

This lets you exclude unnecessary subdirectories from synchronization.

Moving files from a remote server (removing source files)

sudo rsync -avh --remove-source-files root@192.168.1.50:/var/www/ /var/www/

Copying MySQL data to another disk

rsync -vrplogDtH --progress /var/lib/mysql/ /newhdd/var/lib/mysql/

Useful rsync options

-v — verbose mode
-r — recursive copy
-a — archive mode (preserves permissions, symlinks, and structure)
-b — create backups
-c — compare files by checksum
--delete — remove files not present in the source
-h — human-readable output
-n — dry run (test without making changes)
-p — preserve permissions
-z — compress data during transfer
-H — preserve hard links
-x — stay on one file system

The full list of options is available in the manual:

man rsync