Rsync Synchronization – How to Achieve Bi-Directional Sync with Rsync

rsyncsynchronization

I am trying to setup bi-direction or two way sync with rsync. In my case I only need to delete the files when syncing from B to A. So, I was thinking of running rsync twice as follow :

rsync -rtuv ./A/ ./B/
rsync -rtuv --delete ./B/ ./A/

This problem with this solution is that when I run rsync (B->A) which would be right after running the rsync (A-B), Any new file that get created in between the sync will also get removed.

Is there a way I can specify a time stamp as condition that it only delete the file if it created before this date/time.

Updated:

I understand there is a unison solution but the problem with unison is required to install on both ends. I am syncing with a remote server and I can not install unison on the remote end.

Best Answer

You could try osync which is designed for exactly this task. I once set up a complex sequence of rsync commands to do the job, but I now use osync.

https://github.com/deajan/osync

It uses rsync internally, so it should be suitable for any situation where you could use rsync.

Related Solutions

Rsync — Itemized List of Changes

from the man page of rsync:

-F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter' repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'

        --exclude=PATTERN       exclude files matching PATTERN
        --exclude-from=FILE     read exclude patterns from FILE
        --include=PATTERN       don't exclude files matching PATTERN
        --include-from=FILE     read include patterns from FILE
        --files-from=FILE       read list of source-file names from FILE

so run rsync -i first and output it to a file and use --files-from option or you can use find utility for finding the last modified file and then rsync them. see https://serverfault.com/questions/115945/synchronizing-very-large-folder-structures

Linux – Rsync that handles moves sensibly

You should take a look at rdiff-backup it does rsync underneath, but with the additional intelligence that you require (and it makes incremental backups capable of rolling back, but you can configure to switch that off).

The latest release is old (2009), but that is a sign of stability.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Rsync — Itemized List of Changes

Linux – Rsync that handles moves sensibly

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