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rsync

rsync: how to copy several subdirectories in just one calling

How to join this rules:

rsync -av --delete --progress ./directory/subdirectory1 /remote
rsync -av --delete --progress ./directory/subdirectory2 /remote

to just one line.

This does not work:

rsync -av --delete --progress ./directory/subdirectory1 ./directory/subdirectory2 /remote

because it copies the files in subdirectories subdirectory1 and subdirectory2 and not the subdirectories itselves.

The desired output would be:

ls /remote/
subdirectory1
subdirectory2

copying subdirectories as a whole.

Solution

  • You can include the --relative (-R) flag to specify that source paths should be remembered in the destination. The optional /./ part in the source path marks the point from which the path should be remembered.

    rsync -avR --delete --progress directory/./subdirectory1 directory/./subdirectory2 /remote

    Worked example

    # Set up the scenario
mkdir /tmp/62569606
cd /tmp/62569606

mkdir -p src/sub1 src/sub2 dst
touch src/sub1/file1 src/sub2/file{1,2}

ls -R src

# Run the rsync command
rsync -av src/./sub1 src/./sub2 dst/

    Here's the output

    sending incremental file list
sub1/
sub1/file1
sub2/
sub2/file1
sub2/file2

sent 272 bytes  received 81 bytes  706.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

    And the evidence (ls -R dst)

    dst:
sub1  sub2

dst/sub1:
file1

dst/sub2:
file1  file2