Rsync maintain folder structure given point

rsync

I'm trying to develop a file updater for my remote server. So each time I modify some code files on my workstation, I would run rsync and it would modify the code files on the remote server.

So imagine if I modify the file /home/myuser/workspaces/project/folder/file.txt I would want to sync it to user@remote.server:/work/folder/file.txt. As you can see, the server maintains the folder structure, although it skips the irrelevant part /home/myuser/workspaces/project/

If I execute the rsync from /home/myuser/workspaces/project/ it's easy to solve, since I just have to add the -R option:

$ cd /home/myuser/workspaces/project/
$ rsync -aR folder/file.txt user@remote.server:/work

This would do the trick. The problem is that I don't know where the command will be executed from, so I have to add the whole path /home/.../file.txt, and using the shown command would save everything into: user@remote.server:/work/home/myuser/workspaces/project/folder/file.txt.

Is there any solution to what I want to implement?

By the way, at the moment of the rsync, it could be possible that /work/, at the remote host, is an empty folder.

Thanks!

Best Answer

Just for the future, I found the quickest solution which involves the -R parameter and adding a /./ before the folder you want to start creating from.

For example:

 $ rsync -aR /home/myuser/workspaces/project/./folder/file.txt user@remote.server:/work

will create the folder /work/folder/file.txt in the remote server.

Just leaving this answer for future use and for other people to see, since it was really hard to find it on other websites.

Related Solutions

Ssh – Give user permissions to all files and folders

Just adding the user backups to the user group sudo does not automatically give the account access to all files on the system. It gives the user the permission to run the sudo command.

Since you are using public key authentication (presumably without a passphrase), I would approach this with security and ease of implementation in mind. Using ssh allows you to restrict the user to execute only very specific commands. In this case, you can allow the user backups to execute rsync with superuser permissions.

You have already performed the key exchange and verified authentication is successful. In the authorized_keys file on the remote host that you are backing the /home directory from, you can add a command= directive to the key that is used by the user backups. This directive will only allow that command to be run when that key is used for authentication. So the first field of the key would look similar to this:

command="/path/to/sudo /path/to/rsync -az /home /local/folder" ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yblahblahblah

You can go even further and add more options to the key, such as from=myhost,no-pty,no-X11-forwarding.

This should give you decent security and not require you to modify the underlying file system permissions. You will probably need to play with the command that you place in the authorized_keys file until it works like you expect; it may take a bit to wrap your brain around it. The command specified in the authorized_keys will basically override the rsync options you will pass from the connecting host.

Lots of good information in man sshd. You want to specifically read the AUTHORIZED_KEYS FORMAT section.

Ssh – Rsync over ssh tunnel – using gateway server

I usually use ssh's ability to use a config file. You can store this file here:

$HOME/.ssh/config

In this file you can add stanzas like this:

Host cluster
    ProxyCommand ssh usear@gateway nc cluster %p

This will then allow you to use tools such as ssh and rsync and target a user on the cluster system from the workstation.

$ ssh user@cluster

-or-

$ rsync somefile user@cluster:~

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ssh – Give user permissions to all files and folders

Ssh – Rsync over ssh tunnel – using gateway server

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