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Rsync (Remote Sync) is the most commonly used command for copying and synchronizing files and directories remotely as well as locally in Linux/Unix systems.

With the help of the rsync command, you can copy and synchronize your data remotely and locally across directories, disks, and networks, perform data backups, and mirror between two Linux machines.

This article explains 10 basic and advanced usage of the rsync command to transfer your files remotely and locally in Linux-based machines. You don’t need to be a root user to run the rsync command.

Some Advantages and Features of Rsync Command

• It efficiently copies and sync files to or from a remote system.
• Supports copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions.
• It’s faster than scp (Secure Copy) because rsync uses a remote-update protocol which allows transferring just the differences between two sets of files. The first time, it copies the whole content of a file or a directory from source to destination but from next time, it copies only the changed blocks and bytes to the destination.
• Rsync consumes less bandwidth utilization as it uses compression and decompression method while sending and receiving data on both ends.

The basic syntax of the rsync command

# rsync options source destination

Some common options used with rsync commands

• -v : verbose
• -r : copies data recursively (but don’t preserve timestamps and permission while transferring data.
• -a : archive mode, which allows copying files recursively and it also preserves symbolic links, file permissions, user & group ownerships, and timestamps.
• -z : compress file data.
• -h : human-readable, output numbers in a human-readable format.

Install Rsync in Linux System

We can install the rsync package with the help of the following command in your Linux distribution.

$ sudo apt-get install rsync   [On Debian/Ubuntu & Mint] 
$ pacman -S rsync              [On Arch Linux]
$ emerge sys-apps/rsync        [On Gentoo]
$ sudo dnf install rsync       [On Fedora/CentOS/RHEL and Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo zypper install rsync    [On openSUSE]

Copy/Sync a File on a Local Computer

The following command will sync a single file on a local machine from one location to another location. Here in this example, a file name backup.tar needs to be copied or synced to /tmp/backups/ folder.

[root@sisrv]# rsync -zvh backup.tar.gz /tmp/backups/

created directory /tmp/backups
backup.tar.gz

sent 224.54K bytes  received 70 bytes  449.21K bytes/sec
total size is 224.40K  speedup is 1.00

Copy/Sync a Directory on Local Computer

The following command will transfer or sync all the files from one directory to a different directory in the same machine. Here in this example, /root/rpmpkgs contains some rpm package files and you want that directory to be copied inside /tmp/backups/ folder.

[root@sisrv]# rsync -avzh /root/rpmpkgs /tmp/backups/

sending incremental file list
rpmpkgs/
rpmpkgs/httpd-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-4.4.6-4.el8.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-2.3.3-5.el8.x86_64.rpm

sent 3.47M bytes  received 96 bytes  2.32M bytes/sec
total size is 3.74M  speedup is 1.08

Copy a Directory from Local Server to a Remote Server

This command will sync a directory from a local machine to a remote machine. For example, there is a folder in your local computer “rpmpkgs” that contains some RPM packages and you want that local directory’s content sends to a remote server, you can use the following command.

[root@sisrv:~]# rsync -avzh /root/rpmpkgs root@192.168.0.141:/root/

The authenticity of host '192.168.0.141 (192.168.0.141)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:bH2tiWQn4S5o6qmZhmtXcBROV5TU5H4t2C42QDEMx1c.
This key is not known by any other names
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.0.141' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
root@192.168.0.141's password: 
sending incremental file list
rpmpkgs/
rpmpkgs/httpd-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-4.4.6-4.el8.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-2.3.3-5.el8.x86_64.rpm

sent 3.74M bytes  received 96 bytes  439.88K bytes/sec
total size is 3.74M  speedup is 1.00

Copy/Sync a Remote Directory to a Local Machine

This command will help you sync a remote directory to a local directory. Here in this example, a directory /root/rpmpkgs which is on a remote server is being copied in your local computer in /tmp/myrpms.

[root@sisrv:~]# rsync -avzh root@192.168.0.141:/root/rpmpkgs /tmp/myrpms

root@192.168.0.141's password: 
receiving incremental file list
created directory /tmp/myrpms
rpmpkgs/
rpmpkgs/httpd-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.4.37-40.module_el8.5.0+852+0aafc63b.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-4.4.6-4.el8.x86_64.rpm
rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-2.3.3-5.el8.x86_64.rpm

sent 104 bytes  received 3.49M bytes  997.68K bytes/sec
total size is 3.74M  speedup is 1.07

Rsync Over SSH

With rsync, we can use SSH (Secure Shell) for data transfer, using SSH protocol while transferring our data you can be ensured that your data is being transferred in a secured connection with encryption so that nobody can read your data while it is being transferred over the wire on the internet.

Also when we use rsync we need to provide the user/root password to accomplish that particular task, so using the SSH option will send your logins in an encrypted manner so that your password will be safe.

Copy a File from a Remote Server to a Local Server with SSH

To specify a protocol with rsync you need to give the “-e” option with the protocol name you want to use. Here in this example, We will be using the “ssh” with the “-e” option and perform data transfer.

[root@sisrv:~]# rsync -avzhe ssh root@192.168.0.141:/root/anaconda-ks.cfg /tmp

root@192.168.0.141's password: 
receiving incremental file list
anaconda-ks.cfg

sent 43 bytes  received 1.10K bytes  325.43 bytes/sec
total size is 1.90K  speedup is 1.67

Copy a File from a Local Server to a Remote Server with SSH

[root@sisrv:~]# rsync -avzhe ssh backup.tar.gz root@192.168.0.141:/backups/

root@192.168.0.141's password: 
sending incremental file list
created directory /backups
backup.tar.gz

sent 224.59K bytes  received 66 bytes  64.19K bytes/sec
total size is 224.40K  speedup is 1.00