Hi,
I will explain What is Rsync ( Remote Sync ) as nd How To Use Rsync to Sync Local and Remote Directories in this article.
Rsync
Rsync ( Remote Sync )
Rsync is my favorite command that being developed by Wayne Davison and an open source utility that performs incremental file transfer. Latest Rsync version 3.1.3 is released.
Rsync (Remote Sync) is used for copying and synchronizing files and directories remotely and locally in Linux/Unix systems.
You can copy and synchronize your files remotely and locally across directories, across disks and networks, perform data backups and mirroring between two Linux/Unix machines.
Rsync is faster than scp ( secure copy ) because rsync provides incremental file transfer using remote-update protocol which allows to transfer just the changed blocks.
You can transfer and syncronized backup files to the Remote server for disaster purpose using rsync.
For example, execute following command to transfer all contents of /u01/backup to the 192.168.63.63 server for the first time.
rsync -av --delete --inplace /u01/backup/* 192.168.63.63:/u01/backup/ --rsync-path=/usr/bin/rsync > /tmp/rsync.log
If it is completed, then you can use it twice to syncronized two server with changed blocks.
rsync -av --delete --inplace /u01/backup/* 192.168.63.63:/u01/backup/ --rsync-path=/usr/bin/rsync > /tmp/rsync.log
Rsync is very practical and powerful during database and application migration. Because transfer all data for the first time, then if you run it again, it will transfer only changed data or differences.