Rsync is just hanging, building file list

rsync

[root@centos /]# rsync -av --exclude thumbs /storage root@xx.27.1.xx:/storage
root@xx.27.1.xx's password: 
building file list ...

I've been sitting for about an hour… it's 135GB of images and folders

/storage is a mounted ext3 scsi drive.

Is it normal for rsync to be sitting this long calculating the files/directories?

Best Answer

rsync 2.x does build a full file list up front.

Add the -P option and you'll see a progress indicator.

If you think it really is hanging, in another terminal find the pid of rsync and then

Run strace -p PID and see what it's doing. (Hit ^C to stop.)
Run ps -o wchan PID to see where it is in the kernel.

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How to Use Rsync Over FTP

You don't. rsync can't do that for you, it is a protocol of its own and doesn't work over FTP.

You might, however, want to try csync. IIRC it provides rsync-like behaviour over HTTP. I can't comment on whether it works over FTP, you'll have to try it.

Linux – Copying a large directory tree locally? cp or rsync

I would use rsync as it means that if it is interrupted for any reason, then you can restart it easily with very little cost. And being rsync, it can even restart part way through a large file. As others mention, it can exclude files easily. The simplest way to preserve most things is to use the -a flag – ‘archive.’ So:

rsync -a source dest

Although UID/GID and symlinks are preserved by -a (see -lpgo), your question implies you might want a full copy of the filesystem information; and -a doesn't include hard-links, extended attributes, or ACLs (on Linux) or the above nor resource forks (on OS X.) Thus, for a robust copy of a filesystem, you'll need to include those flags:

rsync -aHAX source dest # Linux
rsync -aHE source dest  # OS X

The default cp will start again, though the -u flag will "copy only when the SOURCE file is newer than the destination file or when the destination file is missing". And the -a (archive) flag will be recursive, not recopy files if you have to restart and preserve permissions. So:

cp -au source dest

Best Answer

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