Prevent rsync from deleting excluded directories

ansibledeploymentrsyncunix

I'm using rsync through Ansible's synchronize-module with the following task definition:

synchronize: src='{{ local_app_path }}/.' dest='{{ remote_app_path }}/' perms=no owner=yes rsync_opts=--delete-after

Running this task generates the following command:

rsync --delay-updates -FF --compress --archive --no-perms --rsh 'ssh  -S none -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no' --rsync-path="sudo rsync" --delete-after --out-format='<<CHANGED>>%i %n%L' "../src/." "vagrant@192.168.55.55:/var/www/app/"

My directory layout goes like this:

src/
    # ...
    app/
    test/
    node_modules/
    package.json
provisioning/
    # ...
    playbook.yml
.rsync-filter

This is my .rsync-filter:

exclude /src/.env
exclude /src/node_modules

Now I am expecting to run my synchronize-task and have the resulting directory-structure on the server look like this (notice the missing node_modules folder):

app/
test/
package.json

This works. However, once I create a node_modules folder on the server…

app/
test/
node_modules/
package.json

…and run the sync again, the node_modules-folder is deleted from the server again (even though I had excluded it in my .rsync-filter):

app/
test/
package.json

I am expecting the node_modules-folder to be kept on the server, because I have it listed in my .rsync-filter and am not using the --delete-excluded option.

How can I prevent my excluded files/directories from being deleted with rsync?

Thanks a lot for your help! 🙂

Best Answer

It's the -FF that is causing your problem. That stops the -rsync-filter file being copied across and as the rsync man page says ...

MERGE-FILE FILTER RULES
       ...
       These per-directory rule files must be created on the sending side because it is the
       sending side that is being scanned for the available files to transfer. These rule files may also
       need to be transferred to the receiving side if you want them to affect what files don’t get deleted
       (see PER-DIRECTORY RULES AND DELETE below).

Important bit is the last sentence in that quoted section. Changing -FF to -F gives desired behaviour.

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