HELP: need better understanding of "--delete" flag

[Alan Chandler]

On Wednesday 23 Nov 2005 04:08, Jeff Martin wrote:
> Need to understand exactly what the "--delete" flag
> does when rsync runs.
>
> Here is my understanding... If a file is created on
> the source machine on monday, then rsync'd to the
> rsync server on monday night, then deleted on the
> source machine tuesday, then it will be deleted from
> the rsync server on tuesday night when the cron job
> runs again.
> But, would rsync under any circumstances, ever delete
> files on the source machine?

I don't think so.  I use --delete all the time on my backups to make the 
backup directory match exactly the source directory.

If I want to save any files on the backup directory that will get deleted by 
such an operation I also add --backup --backup-dir=XXXX

(where XXXX is somewhere useful)


>
> My log showed a bunch of these statements, and to be
> quite honest, scared the living daylights out of me.
>
> (from LOG)
> deleting peachbackups/peachw/Peachtree Archive Data
> Files/archivec/W200001.FRM
> deleting peachbackups/peachw/Peachtree Archive Data
> Files/archivec/W200000.FRM
> .........

Thats deleteing data from the backup directory - so that it matches what's in 
your source directory.  Isn't that what you want?

>
>
> I am using the script from rsync.org the for 7-day
> incremental backups written by tridge.
>
> Here is the part I am not sure what it does...
> # the following line clears the last weeks incremental
> directory
> [ -d $HOME/emptydir ] || mkdir $HOME/emptydir
> rsync --delete -a $HOME/emptydir/
> $BSERVER::$USER/$BACKUPDIR/
> rmdir $HOME/emptydir
>

That is just a technique for clearing out a directory on a machine that you 
connect to via rysncd.   Create an empty directory on you local machine, and 
then rsync --delete this directory to the remote machine, and it makes the 
remote directoy empty.



-- 
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk
Open Source. It's the difference between trust and antitrust.