rsync question

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On 2021-03-09 21:29, Bruce Labitt wrote:

> A maybe not so smart rsync question...
> 
> If one uses rsync -avz src/bar  /disk2    will that copy over 
> everything from src/bar and create a directory bar on disk2?  What if 
> src/bar has other users or root?  In other words, does the -a mean that 
> it will preserve ownership and links and copy to /disk2?  Just don't 
> know if I need sudo or not.
> 
> I dumbly did a copy.  Well, that didn't preserve permissions or 
> attributes.  So deleting that...  Since I'm trying to back up 100's of 
> GB, thought I'd ask.  This is taking a long time, even with USB3 drives 
> and nvme.

The '-a' flag is one of the few flags that actually means the same thing 
for both rsync and cp -- and does much the same thing, too.  You should 
be able to use cp -av /src/bar /disk2 and have it copy 
attributes/permissions.  You need the "sudo" in there to preserve 
ownership, as non-root can't assign other users' ownerships to the 
files.  The main reason I might recommend "cp" over "rsync" is simply 
because I find "cp" a little less confusing -- what "rsync" does can 
vary depending on whether or not there are trailing slashes and so 
forth, and I never quite remember which is which.  But the best thing 
about rsync is that if it barfs in the middle, you just up-arrow, and it 
starts over from where you left off.  As with "cp", if you want the 
ownerships preserved, don't forget the "sudo".  Note that unless you're 
transiting a network, I'd leave the "-z" off, because it'll just slow 
you down (substantially).

-Ken
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