Given the comments and questions I've received since last week's column on using rsync to move a file system from one disk to another, I thought we might run through some simple exercises to gain more insight into how rsync works. Two of the problems that I have seen people running into when using rsync to copy collections of files from one place to another are 1) failing to retain symbolic and hard links and 2) misaligning the source and destination directories such that the copies don't look as intended. Here we'll create a directory with a number of files, copy the directory with an assortment of rsync (and other) commands, take a closer look at some of rsync's command options and then use rsync to verify that our replicated directory is intact.

First, to create a sample directory to be copied, we're going to use a smattering of common Unix commands, taking care to include a variety of file types.

testDir=" rsyncTest"
mkdir $testDir
touch $testDir/emptyfile
cp /etc/motd $testDir/textfile
mkdir $testDir/dir
mknod $testDir/devfile c 11 11
ln -s /etc/hosts $testDir/symlink
ln $testDir/textfile $testDir/link2textfile

In the commands above, we've created a small directory containing some regular files (one empty, one containing text), a directory, a special device file, a symbolic link and a hard link. A long listing displays the directory's contents. Notice that I've included the -i option so that I can see the inode used for each of the files.

> ls -li $testDir
total 8
   7865105 crw-r--r--   1 root     other     11, 11 Jan 22 12:01 devfile
   7865103 drwxr-xr-x   2 root     other        512 Jan 22 12:01 dir
   7865089 -rw-r--r--   1 root     other          0 Jan 22 12:01 emptyfile
   7865090 -rw-r--r--   2 root     other        233 Jan 22 12:01 link2textfile
   7865107 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     other         10 Jan 22 12:01 symlink -> /etc/hosts
   7865090 -rw-r--r--   2 root     other        233 Jan 22 12:01 textfile

Now, let's copy this directory to another location using an rsync command. Notice we are using the -av options. The -a indicates that we want archive (use recursion) mode and the -v is verbose. I'm omitting the -z (compress) option in this case since this isn't going to add value when copying simple directory. In fact, compression will probably only slow down local copies and is likely only of value when a lot of data will be sent over a network. In some tests I ran, the copy took approximately five times longer when the -z option was used for a local copy.

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