rsync vs. async Uni-directional Example

Typical rsync usage examples for uni-directional replication and async functional equivalent commands.

This section includes typical rsync usage examples for uni-directional replication, as well as the functionally equivalent async command.

Warning:

If you do not include a drive letter in your path when syncing with a Windows machine, async will report the following error message: "Failed. Peer error: Remote directory is not absolute." Thus, remember to always include a drive letter in your Windows paths.

Note:

You can synchronize between a Windows endpoint and a Windows server, as well as between a Windows endpoint and a Linux server. In async, the path separator "/" works equally well on Windows and other platforms. The path separator "\" is platform-agnostic only for the options -d/r/L/R/B/b and --keep-dir-local/remote. In filtering rules, however, "\" is exclusively a quoting operator and "/" is the only path separator recognized. The examples below use "/" uniformly.

Example 1

Requirements:

Recursively synchronize the contents of a directory to the remote system
Preserve access and modification time stamps on files
Preserve the owner and group ID
No encryption
Transfer policy = fair
Target rate = 100,000 Kbps (100 Mbps)
One time transfer (not continuous)

rsync command:

> rsync --stats -v -r -u -l -t -o -g -p c:\media\ editor@docserver:d:\backups\media

async equivalent:

> async -N Oneway -u -t -j -d c:/media/ -r editor@docserver:d:/backups/media -l 100M -w d0c5 -K push -c none

Example 2

Requirements:

Recursively synchronize the contents of the directory c:\media\wmv\
Exclude "." files within the directory
Exclude all other directories
Preserve the owner and group ID
Preserve access and modification time stamps on files
No encryption
Transfer policy = fair
Target rate = 100,000 Kbps (100 Mbps)
One time transfer (not continuous)

rsync command:

> rsync --stats -v -r -u -l -t -o -g -p c:\media\ --include="\media" --include="\media\wmv\" --exclude="\media\.*" editor@docserver:d:\backups\media

async equivalent:

> async -N Oneway -u -t -j -d c:/media/ --include="/media" --include="/media/wmv" --exclude="/media/.*" -r editor@docserver:d:/backups/media -w d0c5 -K push -c none

Options Comparison Table

rsync Option	async Option	Description
--stats	Enabled, by default (i.e., not quiet)	File transfer stats
-v, --verbose	Enabled, by default	Increase verbosity
-q, --quiet	-q, --quiet	Disable progress display
-r, --recursive	Enabled, by default	Recurse into directories
-u, --update	If a file exists at the destination with the same name, then async's default behavior is to do nothing if the files are the same (size and checksum), and overwrite if the file is different.	Skip files that are newer on the receiver
-l, --links	-n COPY, --symbolic-links=COPY (default)	Copy symlinks as symlinks
-t, --times	-t, --preserve-time (must have ES, CS or P2P 3.1+ installed)	Preserve modification times
-o, --owner	-u, --preserve-uid	Preserve owner
-g, --group	-j, --preserve-gid	Preserve group
-p, --perms	With regard to directory attributes, if the source mode doesn't have sufficient owner permissions, then the destination will add: owner rwx.	Preserve permissions
--version	-A, --version	Print version number
-h, --help	-h, --help	Show help
--include-from=FILE	-I, --include-from=FILE	Include filter (text file with paths for inclusion). See Include/Exclude Filtering Rules.
--exclude-from=FILE	-E,--exclude-from=FILE	Exclude filter (text file with paths for exclusions). See Include/Exclude Filtering Rules.
--include=PATTERN	--include=PATTERN	Include paths that match PATTERN. See Include/Exclude Filtering Rules.
--exclude=PATTERN	--exclude=PATTERN	Skip paths that match PATTERN. See Include/Exclude Filtering Rules.
	-c none	rsync, as a protocol, does not encrypt on its own; however, rsync can enable/disable the SSH encryption protocol (using option -e ssh).