A fun optimization trick from rsync

Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by Jedd on Sunday October 28, 2018 @11:57PM (#18324948)

rsync is an amazing tool, full of delightful secrets.

One thing it doesn't have natively (unless it's really well hidden) is the ability to look at two directory structures, and generate a delta of the two out to a separate location (say a USB stick).

A very useful feature for backups where you've got good enough (to run an rsync --dry-run) network connectivity, but not good enough to actually do the transfer.

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Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by rstuart4133 on Monday October 29, 2018 @03:44AM (#18325654)

Unless you actually want whole files stored in a directory tree on your USB, --only-write-batch does exactly that. From the man page:

   you can feel free to write the batch directly to some portable media

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Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by Jedd on Monday October 29, 2018 @06:37AM (#18326334)

Wow .. how long has that been there?

(Sadly it's clear it was in fact there long before I wrote a workaround in response to not finding it.)

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Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by lazylizard on Monday October 29, 2018 @12:56AM (#18325173)

can rsync --dry-run and | output to a file?

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Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by Jedd on Monday October 29, 2018 @02:55AM (#18325511)

Yup, that's what I ended up doing [1] - but was mildly surprised it wasn't built in, and very surprised that I couldn't find anyone else's solution.

[1] https://jeddi.org/b/2016/05/28/rsync-from-a-to-b-via-usb/

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Re:A fun optimization trick from rsync by akvadrako on Monday October 29, 2018 @02:34AM (#18325454)

I think he means a diff that includes the differences in content.

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