Customizing rsync commands with expert options
If you are familiar with using Terminal and writing UNIX commands, or if you want to learn, you can enter your own rsync options in the text field provided. Use caution since these options can be powerful and have unexpected results if you make a slight error. First you should read the man page for rsync 3.
Expert options
Unless you check the expert options check box, backupList+ uses the default rsync options which it determines based on your system and destination volume type. If you check expert options and enter anything in the text field, it will replace all rsync options so be careful to enter the correct options.
BackupList+ supplies the beginning path to rsync and the source and destination paths. All other options are entered in the expert options text field.
So the following rsync options are handled by backupList+. DO NOT include these options in the expert options string. Options below followed by parentheses can be chosen via the normal settings panel.
Options handled by backupList+
beginning path to rsync
source paths
destination path
--progress
--delete (delete option in settings)
Options handled by you in the settings panel
(you can override these by leaving them unchecked in Settings and adding them manually to the expert options string.)
--link-dest (incremental option in settings)
--backup and --backup-dir (backup or Archive options in settings)
--exclude-from --delete-excluded (exclude list in settings)
Options that can be included in expert options text field.
See the complete list of rsync options on the rsync man page.
Also note that you always need a space between each option in the string.
Default options for OS X Systems backing up to a Mac formatted disk should always include:
"-aHAXN --fileflags --stats -v"
The standard options used by backupList:
"-aHAXN ---fileflags --force-change --protect-decmpfs --numeric-id --protect-args --stats -v"
-a (preserves most file attributes, resource forks an other things)
-H (preserves hard links)
-A (preserves Acl's" or access control lists)
-X (preserves "Xattr's" or extended attributes)
-N (also called --crtimes) (preserves creation dates)
--fileflags (preserves file flags and locked files etc.)
--force-change (needed to preserve immutable flags- see man page for more options)
--protect-decmpfs (needed to preserve the new file compression on OS 10.6 Snow Leopard)
--stats (gives a stats report at the end of files transferred etc...)
-v ( adds more progress information to the output- -vvv will give verbose logging information for debugging)
you can customize the options by writing your own.
" -aAX -v " for instance, would just save Acl's and Xattr's but not creation dates and hard links. This might increase speed of transfer but sacrifice those aspects.
If you wish to customize one of the built in options such as the exclude option, you must leave the exlcude list unchecked in Settings Panel and add it your self to the options string.
" -aHAXN --fileflags --protect-decmpfs --exclude=/path/to/files/to/be/excluded/*"
this would add an exclude pattern which would exclude files matching the pattern (or path) indicated. To use this option you must read and be familiar with "Exclude patterns" in the rsync man pages.
Rysnc is extremely versatile and can be confiigured for almost anything you want. it can also transfer files between different types of operating systems.
Include paths
If you check this box, you must supply the full range of options as well as the paths for source and destination. This is useful if you are doing more complicated rsync mirroring on a remote machine for example, or some network situations.
backuplist+ will supply the initial rsync path and the output path- you must supply the rest of the command line. Again, only try this with a good understanding of rsync command line usage.
A typical rsync command would look like this:
/path/to/rsync -aHAXN --fileflags -v --progress /path/to/source/folder /path/to/destination/folder &> path/to/output file
So you would write in the text field:
-aHAXN --fileflags -v --progress /yourpath/to/source/folder /yourpath/to/destination/folder