Quick notes on using rsync.

Please see the “SSH Tunnelling” section on running rsync via ssh. This section discusses running the rsync daemon. For the daemon process you need to have a properly configured /etc/rsyncd.conf file. Once you have configured the file correctly, you can start the daemon process. Any changes to the config file will require a restart of the daemon process.

motd file = /etc/rsyncd.motd
log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
read only = yes
list = yes
uid = nobody
gid = nobody
syslog facility = daemon
use chroot = no
max connections = 4
lock file = /var/run/rsyncd.lock
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets

[public]
comment = public rsync share
path = /home/user1/pub

[private]
comment = private rsync share
path = /home/user1/az
auth users = user1, user5
hosts allow = 1.2.3.4, some.host.com
hosts deny = *
list = false

The file above has references to other files like /etc/rsyncd.motd and /etc/rsyncd.secrets.

• /etc/rsyncd.motd (message of the day) simply prints a banner to the client.
• /etc/rsyncd.secrets conatins some username:password tuples for authentication against the share. The usernames in this file need not exist as real users on either the client or the server. This file must be chmod 640! An example of this file is shown below:

user1:pass1
user5:passxx

rsync can be run as a daemon in two ways:
From the command line:

> rsync --daemon

From inetd/xinetd. Setting up inetd/xinetd is beyond the scope of these notes.
Be sure that you have opened up port 873 on your firewall for the rsync daemon to be available to rsync clients.

The client side is comparatively easy. The command below will sync up the contents of the “public” share defined in the /etc/rsyncd.conf file above on host.xx.com to /local/path/to/dir

> rsync -avz host.xx.com::public /local/path/to/dir

If the share is private we will need to supply a username and password. This is done by:

> rsync -avz [email protected]::private /local/path/to/dir --password-file=/path/to/password/file

/path/to/password/file above should be chmod 640 and should contain just the password on a single line.

will write this later