Re: rsync question -
On 11/15/2013 09:17 AM, Bob Goodwin - Zuni, Virginia, USA issued this
missive:
Is rsync not supposed to append to the existing files or just copy over
them?
I would like to update /home/bobg/.thunderbird but the following simply
overwrites everything:
[root@box10 bobg]# rsync -avz /mnt/HOME1/bob/TBdBx07/
/home/bobg/.thunderbird/
In this case I have rsynced .thunderbird from box7 to an nfs server file
TBdBx07 and am in turn applying that to box10. I also want to do the
same with F20-Beta in Vmware Workstion which is how I got off on this ...
Do I misunderstand or am I simply doing it wrong?
No, you're not misunderstanding it. rsync looks at the source and
target and if there are differences, it copies from the source to the
target. In your case, you told rsync to copy everything inside the
/mnt/HOME1/bob/TBdBx07 directory (the source) to the
/home/bobg/.thunderbird directory (the target). If there are differences
between those two directories, rsync will try to make the target look
like the source as much as possible. Unless you add the "-u" option,
rsync will even overwrite files on the target that are "newer" than
those on the source.
The "-a" option to rsync tells it to try to do an archive (keep all
attributes, recurse down directories, etc.) and the "-z" means
"compress data during the transfer" (sorta silly when everything's on
the same LAN...it's more intended for WAN use). You probably wanted
"-avu --ignore-existing" to keep rsync from overwriting existing files
on the target (rsync will only copy over files that do NOT exist on the
target).
rsync is a very powerful tool, but as with all powerful tools, one
can easily injure oneself. Use adequate safety equipment and read the
manual! :-)
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks(a)alldigital.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 -
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