[ILUG] Copying directory trees

[Rick Moen]

Quoting kevin lyda (kevin+dated+1075720340.909fca at ie.suberic.net):

> yes, rsync is a nice way to add "continue where you left off" on large
> copies via ssh.  my only complaint about rsync is i don't use it enough
> to remember the flags.  but that's my problem, not rsync's.

It's enough to remember this recipe:

# rsync -avz source destination
         |||
         ||- gZipped
         |- verbose
         - archive (preserve all possible attributes)

(You would omit that "z" when doing intra-host copying.)

Additional flag "-x" means the same is for GNU cp:  Don't cross
filesystem boundaries, e.g., don't accidentally copy /proc when you're
copying at the root directory level.

The nice thing is that if you're in the habit of typing "cp -ax", the
same flags apply for rsync.

The syntax generalises further, using SSH-like username and hostname
specifiers to embrace inter-host copying, e.g., 
# rsync -avz olddirectory username at newhost:newdirectory , but that
needn't be committed to memory.  (If you're going to do that with any
frequency, you might as well add "RSYNC_RSH=/usr/bin/ssh" to your shell
startup, since otherwise rsync will use rsh for network transport.)

-- 
Cheers,                   The cynics among us might say:   "We laugh, 
Rick Moen                 monkeyboys -- Linux IS the mainstream UNIX now!
rick at linuxmafia.com       MuaHaHaHa!" but that would be rude. -- Jim Dennis