How to rsync only a specific list of files

rsync

I've about 50 or so files in various sub-directories that I'd like to push to a remote server. I figured rsync would be able to do this for me using the –include-from option. Without the –exclude="*" option, all the files in the directory are being synced, with the option, no files are.

rsync -avP -e ssh --include-from=deploy/rsync_include.txt --exclude=* ./ root@0.0.0.0:/var/www/ --dry-run

I'm running it as dry initially and 0.0.0.0 is obviously replaced by the IP of the remote server. The contents of rsync_include.txt is a new line separated list of relative paths to the files I want to upload.

Is there a better way of doing this that is escaping me on a Monday morning?

Best Answer

There is a flag --files-from that does exactly what you want. From man rsync:

--files-from=FILE

Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or - for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make transferring just the specified files and directories easier:

  • The --relative (-R) option is implied, which preserves the path information that is specified for each item in the file (use --no-relative or --no-R if you want to turn that off).

  • The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will create directories specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping them (use --no-dirs or --no-d if you want to turn that off).

  • The --archive (-a) option’s behavior does not imply --recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.

  • These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of the --files-from option on the command-line has no bearing on how other options are parsed (e.g. -a works the same before or after --files-from, as does --no-R and all other options).

The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command:

rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup

If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the -r option was enabled, that dir’s entire hierarchy would also be transferred (keep in mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly with --files-from, since it is not implied by -a). Also note that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).

In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the transfer". For example:

rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy

This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the remote "src" host.

If the --iconv and --protect-args options are specified and the --files-from filenames are being sent from one host to another, the filenames will be translated from the sending host’s charset to the receiving host’s charset.

NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.

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