Linux – rsync on Windows + non-ASCII file names

linuxrsyncunicodewindows

Is there a version of rsync that runs on current Windows versions and can handle non-ASCII file names? Every version I checked (including cwRsync and rsync.net client) fail miserably on files with Unicode characters in names.

If such version of rsync does not exist, what other tool might I use for bandwidth-efficient synchronization of files between Windows and Linux?

I'm synchronizing large, rarely changing file trees over a relatively slow link. The difference between the rsync-style synchronization and full-copy approaches is significant.

Best Answer

rsync offers an --iconv option for filename character encoding conversion. It accepts arguments for fine-grained control over source and target encoding.

From the rsync man page:

[...] you can fully specify what conversion to do by giving a 
local and a remote charset separated by a comma in the 
order --iconv=LOCAL,REMOTE, e.g.  --iconv=utf8,iso88591.

Related Solutions

Windows – Managing File Permissions with rsync on Windows

(from http://www.samba.org/ftp/rsync/rsync.html)

In summary: to give destination files (both old and new) the source permissions, use --perms.

To give new files the destination-default permissions (while leaving existing files unchanged), make sure that the --perms option is off and use --chmod=ugo=rwX (which ensures that all non-masked bits get enabled).

If you'd care to make this latter behavior easier to type, you could define a popt alias for it, such as putting this line in the file ~/.popt (the following defines the -Z option, and includes --no-g to use the default group of the destination dir):

    rsync alias -Z --no-p --no-g --chmod=ugo=rwX

Rsync copying directory contents non-recursively

rsync allows you to specify patterns that trigger the inclusion or exclusion of files and directories. I think you want to use something like this:

rsync -a -f '- /*/*/' /dirA/ host:/dirB/

Explanation:

-a triggers the archive mode that activates both recursion and preservation of "symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc.", according to man rsync.
-f is short for --filter=, which adds a file-filtering rule.
- The pattern is inside single quotes so that the shell does not expand wildcards; double quotes would work equally well in this case.
- - means this is an exclude pattern.
- The leading / means the pattern must start at dirA/ (the rsync "transfer-root").
- The */* part of the pattern refers to anything inside of a subdirectory.
- The trailing / limits the exclusion to directories. Files inside a subdirectory of dirA/ are not affected.

So in the end, rsync copies nothing more than one level down (and also does not create second-level directories).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Managing File Permissions with rsync on Windows

Rsync copying directory contents non-recursively

Related Question