1rsyncd.conf(5) rsyncd.conf(5)
2
3
4
6 rsyncd.conf — configuration file for rsync in daemon mode
7
9 rsyncd.conf
10
12 The rsyncd.conf file is the runtime configuration file for rsync when
13 run as an rsync daemon.
14
15 The rsyncd.conf file controls authentication, access, logging and
16 available modules.
17
19 The file consists of modules and parameters. A module begins with the
20 name of the module in square brackets and continues until the next mod‐
21 ule begins. Modules contain parameters of the form "name = value".
22
23 The file is line-based -- that is, each newline-terminated line repre‐
24 sents either a comment, a module name or a parameter.
25
26 Only the first equals sign in a parameter is significant. Whitespace
27 before or after the first equals sign is discarded. Leading, trailing
28 and internal whitespace in module and parameter names is irrelevant.
29 Leading and trailing whitespace in a parameter value is discarded.
30 Internal whitespace within a parameter value is retained verbatim.
31
32 Any line beginning with a hash (#) is ignored, as are lines containing
33 only whitespace.
34
35 Any line ending in a \ is "continued" on the next line in the customary
36 UNIX fashion.
37
38 The values following the equals sign in parameters are all either a
39 string (no quotes needed) or a boolean, which may be given as yes/no,
40 0/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, but is
41 preserved in string values.
42
44 The rsync daemon is launched by specifying the --daemon option to
45 rsync.
46
47 The daemon must run with root privileges if you wish to use chroot, to
48 bind to a port numbered under 1024 (as is the default 873), or to set
49 file ownership. Otherwise, it must just have permission to read and
50 write the appropriate data, log, and lock files.
51
52 You can launch it either via inetd, as a stand-alone daemon, or from an
53 rsync client via a remote shell. If run as a stand-alone daemon then
54 just run the command "rsync --daemon" from a suitable startup script.
55
56 When run via inetd you should add a line like this to /etc/services:
57
58 rsync 873/tcp
59
60
61 and a single line something like this to /etc/inetd.conf:
62
63 rsync stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/rsync rsyncd --daemon
64
65
66 Replace "/usr/bin/rsync" with the path to where you have rsync
67 installed on your system. You will then need to send inetd a HUP sig‐
68 nal to tell it to reread its config file.
69
70 Note that you should not send the rsync daemon a HUP signal to force it
71 to reread the rsyncd.conf file. The file is re-read on each client con‐
72 nection.
73
75 The first parameters in the file (before a [module] header) are the
76 global parameters.
77
78 You may also include any module parameters in the global part of the
79 config file in which case the supplied value will override the default
80 for that parameter.
81
82 motd file
83 This parameter allows you to specify a "message of the day" to
84 display to clients on each connect. This usually contains site
85 information and any legal notices. The default is no motd file.
86
87 pid file
88 This parameter tells the rsync daemon to write its process ID to
89 that file. If the file already exists, the rsync daemon will
90 abort rather than overwrite the file.
91
92 port You can override the default port the daemon will listen on by
93 specifying this value (defaults to 873). This is ignored if the
94 daemon is being run by inetd, and is superseded by the --port
95 command-line option.
96
97 address
98 You can override the default IP address the daemon will listen
99 on by specifying this value. This is ignored if the daemon is
100 being run by inetd, and is superseded by the --address com‐
101 mand-line option.
102
103 socket options
104 This parameter can provide endless fun for people who like to
105 tune their systems to the utmost degree. You can set all sorts
106 of socket options which may make transfers faster (or slower!).
107 Read the man page for the setsockopt() system call for details
108 on some of the options you may be able to set. By default no
109 special socket options are set. These settings can also be
110 specified via the --sockopts command-line option.
111
113 After the global parameters you should define a number of modules, each
114 module exports a directory tree as a symbolic name. Modules are
115 exported by specifying a module name in square brackets [module] fol‐
116 lowed by the parameters for that module. The module name cannot con‐
117 tain a slash or a closing square bracket. If the name contains white‐
118 space, each internal sequence of whitespace will be changed into a sin‐
119 gle space, while leading or trailing whitespace will be discarded.
120
121 comment
122 This parameter specifies a description string that is displayed
123 next to the module name when clients obtain a list of available
124 modules. The default is no comment.
125
126 path This parameter specifies the directory in the daemon’s filesys‐
127 tem to make available in this module. You must specify this
128 parameter for each module in rsyncd.conf.
129
130 use chroot
131 If "use chroot" is true, the rsync daemon will chroot to the
132 "path" before starting the file transfer with the client. This
133 has the advantage of extra protection against possible implemen‐
134 tation security holes, but it has the disadvantages of requiring
135 super-user privileges, of not being able to follow symbolic
136 links that are either absolute or outside of the new root path,
137 and of complicating the preservation of users and groups by name
138 (see below).
139
140 As an additional safety feature, you can specify a dot-dir in
141 the module’s "path" to indicate the point where the chroot
142 should occur. This allows rsync to run in a chroot with a
143 non-"/" path for the top of the transfer hierarchy. Doing this
144 guards against unintended library loading (since those absolute
145 paths will not be inside the transfer hierarchy unless you have
146 used an unwise pathname), and lets you setup libraries for the
147 chroot that are outside of the transfer. For example, specify‐
148 ing "/var/rsync/./module1" will chroot to the "/var/rsync"
149 directory and set the inside-chroot path to "/module1". If you
150 had omitted the dot-dir, the chroot would have used the whole
151 path, and the inside-chroot path would have been "/".
152
153 When "use chroot" is false or the inside-chroot path is not "/",
154 rsync will: (1) munge symlinks by default for security reasons
155 (see "munge symlinks" for a way to turn this off, but only if
156 you trust your users), (2) substitute leading slashes in abso‐
157 lute paths with the module’s path (so that options such as
158 --backup-dir, --compare-dest, etc. interpret an absolute path as
159 rooted in the module’s "path" dir), and (3) trim ".." path ele‐
160 ments from args if rsync believes they would escape the module
161 hierarchy. The default for "use chroot" is true, and is the
162 safer choice (especially if the module is not read-only).
163
164 When this parameter is enabled, rsync will not attempt to map
165 users and groups by name (by default), but instead copy IDs as
166 though --numeric-ids had been specified. In order to enable
167 name-mapping, rsync needs to be able to use the standard library
168 functions for looking up names and IDs (i.e. getpwuid() , get‐
169 grgid() , getpwname() , and getgrnam() ). This means the rsync
170 process in the chroot hierarchy will need to have access to the
171 resources used by these library functions (traditionally
172 /etc/passwd and /etc/group, but perhaps additional dynamic
173 libraries as well).
174
175 If you copy the necessary resources into the module’s chroot
176 area, you should protect them through your OS’s normal
177 user/group or ACL settings (to prevent the rsync module’s user
178 from being able to change them), and then hide them from the
179 user’s view via "exclude" (see how in the discussion of that
180 parameter). At that point it will be safe to enable the mapping
181 of users and groups by name using the "numeric ids" daemon
182 parameter (see below).
183
184 Note also that you are free to setup custom user/group informa‐
185 tion in the chroot area that is different from your normal sys‐
186 tem. For example, you could abbreviate the list of users and
187 groups.
188
189 numeric ids
190 Enabling this parameter disables the mapping of users and groups
191 by name for the current daemon module. This prevents the daemon
192 from trying to load any user/group-related files or libraries.
193 This enabling makes the transfer behave as if the client had
194 passed the --numeric-ids command-line option. By default, this
195 parameter is enabled for chroot modules and disabled for
196 non-chroot modules.
197
198 A chroot-enabled module should not have this parameter enabled
199 unless you’ve taken steps to ensure that the module has the nec‐
200 essary resources it needs to translate names, and that it is not
201 possible for a user to change those resources.
202
203 munge symlinks
204 This parameter tells rsync to modify all incoming symlinks in a
205 way that makes them unusable but recoverable (see below). This
206 should help protect your files from user trickery when your dae‐
207 mon module is writable. The default is disabled when "use
208 chroot" is on and the inside-chroot path is "/", otherwise it is
209 enabled.
210
211 If you disable this parameter on a daemon that is not read-only,
212 there are tricks that a user can play with uploaded symlinks to
213 access daemon-excluded items (if your module has any), and, if
214 "use chroot" is off, rsync can even be tricked into showing or
215 changing data that is outside the module’s path (as access-per‐
216 missions allow).
217
218 The way rsync disables the use of symlinks is to prefix each one
219 with the string "/rsyncd-munged/". This prevents the links from
220 being used as long as that directory does not exist. When this
221 parameter is enabled, rsync will refuse to run if that path is a
222 directory or a symlink to a directory. When using the "munge
223 symlinks" parameter in a chroot area that has an inside-chroot
224 path of "/", you should add "/rsyncd-munged/" to the exclude
225 setting for the module so that a user can’t try to create it.
226
227 Note: rsync makes no attempt to verify that any pre-existing
228 symlinks in the module’s hierarchy are as safe as you want them
229 to be (unless, of course, it just copied in the whole hierar‐
230 chy). If you setup an rsync daemon on a new area or locally add
231 symlinks, you can manually protect your symlinks from being
232 abused by prefixing "/rsyncd-munged/" to the start of every sym‐
233 link’s value. There is a perl script in the support directory
234 of the source code named "munge-symlinks" that can be used to
235 add or remove this prefix from your symlinks.
236
237 When this parameter is disabled on a writable module and "use
238 chroot" is off (or the inside-chroot path is not "/"), incoming
239 symlinks will be modified to drop a leading slash and to remove
240 ".." path elements that rsync believes will allow a symlink to
241 escape the module’s hierarchy. There are tricky ways to work
242 around this, though, so you had better trust your users if you
243 choose this combination of parameters.
244
245 charset
246 This specifies the name of the character set in which the mod‐
247 ule’s filenames are stored. If the client uses an --iconv
248 option, the daemon will use the value of the "charset" parameter
249 regardless of the character set the client actually passed.
250 This allows the daemon to support charset conversion in a chroot
251 module without extra files in the chroot area, and also ensures
252 that name-translation is done in a consistent manner. If the
253 "charset" parameter is not set, the --iconv option is refused,
254 just as if "iconv" had been specified via "refuse options".
255
256 If you wish to force users to always use --iconv for a particu‐
257 lar module, add "no-iconv" to the "refuse options" parameter.
258 Keep in mind that this will restrict access to your module to
259 very new rsync clients.
260
261 max connections
262 This parameter allows you to specify the maximum number of
263 simultaneous connections you will allow. Any clients connecting
264 when the maximum has been reached will receive a message telling
265 them to try later. The default is 0, which means no limit. A
266 negative value disables the module. See also the "lock file"
267 parameter.
268
269 log file
270 When the "log file" parameter is set to a non-empty string, the
271 rsync daemon will log messages to the indicated file rather than
272 using syslog. This is particularly useful on systems (such as
273 AIX) where syslog() doesn’t work for chrooted programs. The
274 file is opened before chroot() is called, allowing it to be
275 placed outside the transfer. If this value is set on a per-mod‐
276 ule basis instead of globally, the global log will still contain
277 any authorization failures or config-file error messages.
278
279 If the daemon fails to open the specified file, it will fall
280 back to using syslog and output an error about the failure.
281 (Note that the failure to open the specified log file used to be
282 a fatal error.)
283
284 syslog facility
285 This parameter allows you to specify the syslog facility name to
286 use when logging messages from the rsync daemon. You may use any
287 standard syslog facility name which is defined on your system.
288 Common names are auth, authpriv, cron, daemon, ftp, kern, lpr,
289 mail, news, security, syslog, user, uucp, local0, local1,
290 local2, local3, local4, local5, local6 and local7. The default
291 is daemon. This setting has no effect if the "log file" setting
292 is a non-empty string (either set in the per-modules settings,
293 or inherited from the global settings).
294
295 max verbosity
296 This parameter allows you to control the maximum amount of ver‐
297 bose information that you’ll allow the daemon to generate (since
298 the information goes into the log file). The default is 1, which
299 allows the client to request one level of verbosity.
300
301 lock file
302 This parameter specifies the file to use to support the "max
303 connections" parameter. The rsync daemon uses record locking on
304 this file to ensure that the max connections limit is not
305 exceeded for the modules sharing the lock file. The default is
306 /var/run/rsyncd.lock.
307
308 read only
309 This parameter determines whether clients will be able to upload
310 files or not. If "read only" is true then any attempted uploads
311 will fail. If "read only" is false then uploads will be possible
312 if file permissions on the daemon side allow them. The default
313 is for all modules to be read only.
314
315 write only
316 This parameter determines whether clients will be able to down‐
317 load files or not. If "write only" is true then any attempted
318 downloads will fail. If "write only" is false then downloads
319 will be possible if file permissions on the daemon side allow
320 them. The default is for this parameter to be disabled.
321
322 list This parameter determines if this module should be listed when
323 the client asks for a listing of available modules. By setting
324 this to false you can create hidden modules. The default is for
325 modules to be listable.
326
327 uid This parameter specifies the user name or user ID that file
328 transfers to and from that module should take place as when the
329 daemon was run as root. In combination with the "gid" parameter
330 this determines what file permissions are available. The default
331 is uid -2, which is normally the user "nobody".
332
333 gid This parameter specifies the group name or group ID that file
334 transfers to and from that module should take place as when the
335 daemon was run as root. This complements the "uid" parameter.
336 The default is gid -2, which is normally the group "nobody".
337
338 fake super
339 Setting "fake super = yes" for a module causes the daemon side
340 to behave as if the --fake-super command-line option had been
341 specified. This allows the full attributes of a file to be
342 stored without having to have the daemon actually running as
343 root.
344
345 filter The daemon has its own filter chain that determines what files
346 it will let the client access. This chain is not sent to the
347 client and is independent of any filters the client may have
348 specified. Files excluded by the daemon filter chain (dae‐
349 mon-excluded files) are treated as non-existent if the client
350 tries to pull them, are skipped with an error message if the
351 client tries to push them (triggering exit code 23), and are
352 never deleted from the module. You can use daemon filters to
353 prevent clients from downloading or tampering with private
354 administrative files, such as files you may add to support
355 uid/gid name translations.
356
357 The daemon filter chain is built from the "filter", "include
358 from", "include", "exclude from", and "exclude" parameters, in
359 that order of priority. Anchored patterns are anchored at the
360 root of the module. To prevent access to an entire subtree, for
361 example, "/secret", you must exclude everything in the subtree;
362 the easiest way to do this is with a triple-star pattern like
363 "/secret/***".
364
365 The "filter" parameter takes a space-separated list of daemon
366 filter rules, though it is smart enough to know not to split a
367 token at an internal space in a rule (e.g. "- /foo — /bar" is
368 parsed as two rules). You may specify one or more merge-file
369 rules using the normal syntax. Only one "filter" parameter can
370 apply to a given module in the config file, so put all the rules
371 you want in a single parameter. Note that per-directory
372 merge-file rules do not provide as much protection as global
373 rules, but they can be used to make --delete work better during
374 a client download operation if the per-dir merge files are
375 included in the transfer and the client requests that they be
376 used.
377
378 exclude
379 This parameter takes a space-separated list of daemon exclude
380 patterns. As with the client --exclude option, patterns can be
381 qualified with "- " or "+ " to explicitly indicate
382 exclude/include. Only one "exclude" parameter can apply to a
383 given module. See the "filter" parameter for a description of
384 how excluded files affect the daemon.
385
386 include
387 Use an "include" to override the effects of the "exclude" param‐
388 eter. Only one "include" parameter can apply to a given module.
389 See the "filter" parameter for a description of how excluded
390 files affect the daemon.
391
392 exclude from
393 This parameter specifies the name of a file on the daemon that
394 contains daemon exclude patterns, one per line. Only one
395 "exclude from" parameter can apply to a given module; if you
396 have multiple exclude-from files, you can specify them as a
397 merge file in the "filter" parameter. See the "filter" parame‐
398 ter for a description of how excluded files affect the daemon.
399
400 include from
401 Analogue of "exclude from" for a file of daemon include pat‐
402 terns. Only one "include from" parameter can apply to a given
403 module. See the "filter" parameter for a description of how
404 excluded files affect the daemon.
405
406 incoming chmod
407 This parameter allows you to specify a set of comma-separated
408 chmod strings that will affect the permissions of all incoming
409 files (files that are being received by the daemon). These
410 changes happen after all other permission calculations, and this
411 will even override destination-default and/or existing permis‐
412 sions when the client does not specify --perms. See the
413 description of the --chmod rsync option and the chmod(1) manpage
414 for information on the format of this string.
415
416 outgoing chmod
417 This parameter allows you to specify a set of comma-separated
418 chmod strings that will affect the permissions of all outgoing
419 files (files that are being sent out from the daemon). These
420 changes happen first, making the sent permissions appear to be
421 different than those stored in the filesystem itself. For
422 instance, you could disable group write permissions on the
423 server while having it appear to be on to the clients. See the
424 description of the --chmod rsync option and the chmod(1) manpage
425 for information on the format of this string.
426
427 auth users
428 This parameter specifies a comma and space-separated list of
429 usernames that will be allowed to connect to this module. The
430 usernames do not need to exist on the local system. The user‐
431 names may also contain shell wildcard characters. If "auth
432 users" is set then the client will be challenged to supply a
433 username and password to connect to the module. A challenge
434 response authentication protocol is used for this exchange. The
435 plain text usernames and passwords are stored in the file speci‐
436 fied by the "secrets file" parameter. The default is for all
437 users to be able to connect without a password (this is called
438 "anonymous rsync").
439
440 See also the section entitled "USING RSYNC-DAEMON FEATURES VIA A
441 REMOTE SHELL CONNECTION" in rsync(1) for information on how han‐
442 dle an rsyncd.conf-level username that differs from the
443 remote-shell-level username when using a remote shell to connect
444 to an rsync daemon.
445
446 secrets file
447 This parameter specifies the name of a file that contains the
448 username:password pairs used for authenticating this module.
449 This file is only consulted if the "auth users" parameter is
450 specified. The file is line based and contains username:password
451 pairs separated by a single colon. Any line starting with a hash
452 (#) is considered a comment and is skipped. The passwords can
453 contain any characters but be warned that many operating systems
454 limit the length of passwords that can be typed at the client
455 end, so you may find that passwords longer than 8 characters
456 don’t work.
457
458 There is no default for the "secrets file" parameter, you must
459 choose a name (such as /etc/rsyncd.secrets). The file must nor‐
460 mally not be readable by "other"; see "strict modes".
461
462 strict modes
463 This parameter determines whether or not the permissions on the
464 secrets file will be checked. If "strict modes" is true, then
465 the secrets file must not be readable by any user ID other than
466 the one that the rsync daemon is running under. If "strict
467 modes" is false, the check is not performed. The default is
468 true. This parameter was added to accommodate rsync running on
469 the Windows operating system.
470
471 hosts allow
472 This parameter allows you to specify a list of patterns that are
473 matched against a connecting clients hostname and IP address. If
474 none of the patterns match then the connection is rejected.
475
476 Each pattern can be in one of five forms:
477
478 o a dotted decimal IPv4 address of the form a.b.c.d, or an
479 IPv6 address of the form a:b:c::d:e:f. In this case the
480 incoming machine’s IP address must match exactly.
481
482 o an address/mask in the form ipaddr/n where ipaddr is the
483 IP address and n is the number of one bits in the net‐
484 mask. All IP addresses which match the masked IP address
485 will be allowed in.
486
487 o an address/mask in the form ipaddr/maskaddr where ipaddr
488 is the IP address and maskaddr is the netmask in dotted
489 decimal notation for IPv4, or similar for IPv6, e.g.
490 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:: instead of /64. All IP addresses
491 which match the masked IP address will be allowed in.
492
493 o a hostname. The hostname as determined by a reverse
494 lookup will be matched (case insensitive) against the
495 pattern. Only an exact match is allowed in.
496
497 o a hostname pattern using wildcards. These are matched
498 using the same rules as normal unix filename matching. If
499 the pattern matches then the client is allowed in.
500
501
502 Note IPv6 link-local addresses can have a scope in the address
503 specification:
504
505 fe80::1%link1
506 fe80::%link1/64
507 fe80::%link1/ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::
508
509
510 You can also combine "hosts allow" with a separate "hosts deny"
511 parameter. If both parameters are specified then the "hosts
512 allow" parameter is checked first and a match results in the
513 client being able to connect. The "hosts deny" parameter is then
514 checked and a match means that the host is rejected. If the host
515 does not match either the "hosts allow" or the "hosts deny" pat‐
516 terns then it is allowed to connect.
517
518 The default is no "hosts allow" parameter, which means all hosts
519 can connect.
520
521 hosts deny
522 This parameter allows you to specify a list of patterns that are
523 matched against a connecting clients hostname and IP address. If
524 the pattern matches then the connection is rejected. See the
525 "hosts allow" parameter for more information.
526
527 The default is no "hosts deny" parameter, which means all hosts
528 can connect.
529
530 ignore errors
531 This parameter tells rsyncd to ignore I/O errors on the daemon
532 when deciding whether to run the delete phase of the transfer.
533 Normally rsync skips the --delete step if any I/O errors have
534 occurred in order to prevent disastrous deletion due to a tempo‐
535 rary resource shortage or other I/O error. In some cases this
536 test is counter productive so you can use this parameter to turn
537 off this behavior.
538
539 ignore nonreadable
540 This tells the rsync daemon to completely ignore files that are
541 not readable by the user. This is useful for public archives
542 that may have some non-readable files among the directories, and
543 the sysadmin doesn’t want those files to be seen at all.
544
545 transfer logging
546 This parameter enables per-file logging of downloads and uploads
547 in a format somewhat similar to that used by ftp daemons. The
548 daemon always logs the transfer at the end, so if a transfer is
549 aborted, no mention will be made in the log file.
550
551 If you want to customize the log lines, see the "log format"
552 parameter.
553
554 log format
555 This parameter allows you to specify the format used for logging
556 file transfers when transfer logging is enabled. The format is
557 a text string containing embedded single-character escape
558 sequences prefixed with a percent (%) character. An optional
559 numeric field width may also be specified between the percent
560 and the escape letter (e.g. "%-50n %8l %07p").
561
562 The default log format is "%o %h [%a] %m (%u) %f %l", and a "%t
563 [%p] " is always prefixed when using the "log file" parameter.
564 (A perl script that will summarize this default log format is
565 included in the rsync source code distribution in the "support"
566 subdirectory: rsyncstats.)
567
568 The single-character escapes that are understood are as follows:
569
570 o %a the remote IP address
571
572 o %b the number of bytes actually transferred
573
574 o %B the permission bits of the file (e.g. rwxrwxrwt)
575
576 o %c the total size of the block checksums received for the
577 basis file (only when sending)
578
579 o %f the filename (long form on sender; no trailing "/")
580
581 o %G the gid of the file (decimal) or "DEFAULT"
582
583 o %h the remote host name
584
585 o %i an itemized list of what is being updated
586
587 o %l the length of the file in bytes
588
589 o %L the string " -> SYMLINK", " => HARDLINK", or "" (where
590 SYMLINK or HARDLINK is a filename)
591
592 o %m the module name
593
594 o %M the last-modified time of the file
595
596 o %n the filename (short form; trailing "/" on dir)
597
598 o %o the operation, which is "send", "recv", or "del." (the
599 latter includes the trailing period)
600
601 o %p the process ID of this rsync session
602
603 o %P the module path
604
605 o %t the current date time
606
607 o %u the authenticated username or an empty string
608
609 o %U the uid of the file (decimal)
610
611
612 For a list of what the characters mean that are output by "%i",
613 see the --itemize-changes option in the rsync manpage.
614
615 Note that some of the logged output changes when talking with
616 older rsync versions. For instance, deleted files were only
617 output as verbose messages prior to rsync 2.6.4.
618
619 timeout
620 This parameter allows you to override the clients choice for I/O
621 timeout for this module. Using this parameter you can ensure
622 that rsync won’t wait on a dead client forever. The timeout is
623 specified in seconds. A value of zero means no timeout and is
624 the default. A good choice for anonymous rsync daemons may be
625 600 (giving a 10 minute timeout).
626
627 refuse options
628 This parameter allows you to specify a space-separated list of
629 rsync command line options that will be refused by your rsync
630 daemon. You may specify the full option name, its one-letter
631 abbreviation, or a wild-card string that matches multiple
632 options. For example, this would refuse --checksum (-c) and all
633 the various delete options:
634
635 refuse options = c delete
636
637
638 The reason the above refuses all delete options is that the
639 options imply --delete, and implied options are refused just
640 like explicit options. As an additional safety feature, the
641 refusal of "delete" also refuses remove-source-files when the
642 daemon is the sender; if you want the latter without the former,
643 instead refuse "delete-*" -- that refuses all the delete modes
644 without affecting --remove-source-files.
645
646 When an option is refused, the daemon prints an error message
647 and exits. To prevent all compression when serving files, you
648 can use "dont compress = *" (see below) instead of "refuse
649 options = compress" to avoid returning an error to a client that
650 requests compression.
651
652 dont compress
653 This parameter allows you to select filenames based on wildcard
654 patterns that should not be compressed when pulling files from
655 the daemon (no analogous parameter exists to govern the pushing
656 of files to a daemon). Compression is expensive in terms of CPU
657 usage, so it is usually good to not try to compress files that
658 won’t compress well, such as already compressed files.
659
660 The "dont compress" parameter takes a space-separated list of
661 case-insensitive wildcard patterns. Any source filename matching
662 one of the patterns will not be compressed during transfer.
663
664 See the --skip-compress parameter in the rsync(1) manpage for
665 the list of file suffixes that are not compressed by default.
666 Specifying a value for the "dont compress" parameter changes the
667 default when the daemon is the sender.
668
669 pre-xfer exec, post-xfer exec
670 You may specify a command to be run before and/or after the
671 transfer. If the pre-xfer exec command fails, the transfer is
672 aborted before it begins.
673
674 The following environment variables will be set, though some are
675 specific to the pre-xfer or the post-xfer environment:
676
677 o RSYNC_MODULE_NAME: The name of the module being accessed.
678
679 o RSYNC_MODULE_PATH: The path configured for the module.
680
681 o RSYNC_HOST_ADDR: The accessing host’s IP address.
682
683 o RSYNC_HOST_NAME: The accessing host’s name.
684
685 o RSYNC_USER_NAME: The accessing user’s name (empty if no
686 user).
687
688 o RSYNC_PID: A unique number for this transfer.
689
690 o RSYNC_REQUEST: (pre-xfer only) The module/path info spec‐
691 ified by the user (note that the user can specify multi‐
692 ple source files, so the request can be something like
693 "mod/path1 mod/path2", etc.).
694
695 o RSYNC_ARG#: (pre-xfer only) The pre-request arguments are
696 set in these numbered values. RSYNC_ARG0 is always
697 "rsyncd", and the last value contains a single period.
698
699 o RSYNC_EXIT_STATUS: (post-xfer only) the server side’s
700 exit value. This will be 0 for a successful run, a posi‐
701 tive value for an error that the server generated, or a
702 -1 if rsync failed to exit properly. Note that an error
703 that occurs on the client side does not currently get
704 sent to the server side, so this is not the final exit
705 status for the whole transfer.
706
707 o RSYNC_RAW_STATUS: (post-xfer only) the raw exit value
708 from waitpid() .
709
710
711 Even though the commands can be associated with a particular
712 module, they are run using the permissions of the user that
713 started the daemon (not the module’s uid/gid setting) without
714 any chroot restrictions.
715
717 The authentication protocol used in rsync is a 128 bit MD4 based chal‐
718 lenge response system. This is fairly weak protection, though (with at
719 least one brute-force hash-finding algorithm publicly available), so if
720 you want really top-quality security, then I recommend that you run
721 rsync over ssh. (Yes, a future version of rsync will switch over to a
722 stronger hashing method.)
723
724 Also note that the rsync daemon protocol does not currently provide any
725 encryption of the data that is transferred over the connection. Only
726 authentication is provided. Use ssh as the transport if you want
727 encryption.
728
729 Future versions of rsync may support SSL for better authentication and
730 encryption, but that is still being investigated.
731
733 A simple rsyncd.conf file that allow anonymous rsync to a ftp area at
734 /home/ftp would be:
735
736 [ftp]
737 path = /home/ftp
738 comment = ftp export area
739
740
741
742 A more sophisticated example would be:
743
744 uid = nobody
745 gid = nobody
746 use chroot = yes
747 max connections = 4
748 syslog facility = local5
749 pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
750
751 [ftp]
752 path = /var/ftp/./pub
753 comment = whole ftp area (approx 6.1 GB)
754
755 [sambaftp]
756 path = /var/ftp/./pub/samba
757 comment = Samba ftp area (approx 300 MB)
758
759 [rsyncftp]
760 path = /var/ftp/./pub/rsync
761 comment = rsync ftp area (approx 6 MB)
762
763 [sambawww]
764 path = /public_html/samba
765 comment = Samba WWW pages (approx 240 MB)
766
767 [cvs]
768 path = /data/cvs
769 comment = CVS repository (requires authentication)
770 auth users = tridge, susan
771 secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets
772
773
774
775 The /etc/rsyncd.secrets file would look something like this:
776
777 tridge:mypass
778 susan:herpass
779
780
782 /etc/rsyncd.conf or rsyncd.conf
783
785 rsync(1)
786
789 Please report bugs! The rsync bug tracking system is online at
790 http://rsync.samba.org/
791
793 This man page is current for version 3.0.8 of rsync.
794
796 rsync is distributed under the GNU public license. See the file COPY‐
797 ING for details.
798
799 The primary ftp site for rsync is ftp://rsync.samba.org/pub/rsync.
800
801 A WEB site is available at http://rsync.samba.org/
802
803 We would be delighted to hear from you if you like this program.
804
805 This program uses the zlib compression library written by Jean-loup
806 Gailly and Mark Adler.
807
809 Thanks to Warren Stanley for his original idea and patch for the rsync
810 daemon. Thanks to Karsten Thygesen for his many suggestions and docu‐
811 mentation!
812
814 rsync was written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. Many people
815 have later contributed to it.
816
817 Mailing lists for support and development are available at
818 http://lists.samba.org
819
820
821
822 26 Mar 2011 rsyncd.conf(5)