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Using RSYNC to synchronize web sites

Satheesh Babu
2001/02/01

rsync is a UNIX/Linux utility that was written initially by the creator of Samba. It is a great tool to synchronise folder trees.

Go to rsync website and get the software. It has tons of options and features. Personally, the best feature I like is the ability to use other programs like SSH or RSH to copy content.

I develop my web site in a folder called zsoft, on my home PC. Here's the rsync command I use to sync it up to my site at vsbabu.org: 

    rsync --verbose --progress --stats --compress \
     --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --recursive --times --perms \
     --links --delete --exclude "counter.file"  \
     --exclude "URLFILE.file" zsoft/* \
     vsbabu.csoft.net:www/

I don't want to upload my counter file or a file that lists all the url's in my site!

Update on 2001.04.21: You can use --rsync-path=/remote/path/to/rsync, if the remote installation of rsync is not in SSH's path.

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