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ensnare
Asked: 2011-03-11 08:14:16 +0800 CST

Perform rsync while following sym links

  • 772

I have a directory that contains symbolic links to other directories located on different media on my system:

/opt/lun1/2011
/opt/lun1/2010
/opt/lun2/2009
/opt/lun2/2008
/opt/lun3/2007

But the symbolic links show up as:

/files/2011
/files/2010
/files/2009
/files/2008
/files/2007

How can I perform an rsync that follows the symbolic links?

e.g.:

rsync -XXX /files/ user@server:/files/

linux files rsync symbolic-link

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The -L flag to rsync will sync the contents of files or directories linked to, rather than the symbolic link.

    • 131

  2. You need both -L and -K if you have symlinks on both sides, e.g. you already had your 1st rsync done and want to update the backup using rsync.

        -L, --copy-links            transform symlink into referent file/dir
    -K, --keep-dirlinks         treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir

    In such cases, if you use only -L, the symlinks on the receiver side will be wiped out and new real dir will be made.

    • 24

  3. Just ran into this problem. And if you want rsync to treat symlinked directories as directories, you want the K option

    rsync -K /files/ user@server:/files/

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