rsync not synchronizing .htaccess file

Question

I am trying to rsync directory A of server1 with directory B of server2.

Sitting in the directory A of server1, I ran the following commands.

rsync -av * server2::sharename/B 

but the interesting thing is, it synchronizes all files and directories except .htaccess or any hidden file in the directory A. Any hidden files within subdirectories get synchronized.

I also tried the following command:

rsync -av --include=".htaccess" * server2::sharename/B 

but the results are the same.

Any ideas why hidden files of A directory are not getting synchronized and how to fix it. I am running as root user.

thanks

Answer 1

This is due to the fact that * is by default expanded to all files in the current working directory except the files whose name starts with a dot. Thus, rsync never receives these files as arguments.

You can pass . denoting current working directory to rsync:

rsync -av . server2::sharename/B 

This way rsync will look for files to transfer in the current working directory as opposed to looking for them in what * expands to.

Alternatively, you can use the following command to make * expand to all files including those which start with a dot:

shopt -s dotglob 

See also shopt manpage.

Answer 2

For anyone who's just trying to sync directories between servers (including all hidden files) -- e.g., syncing somedirA on source-server to somedirB on a destination server -- try this:

rsync -avz -e ssh --progress user@source-server:/somedirA/ somedirB/ 

Note the slashes at the end of both paths. Any other syntax may lead to unexpected results!

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Also, for me its easiest to perform rsync commands from the destination server, because it's easier to make sure I've got proper write access (i.e., I might need to add sudo to the command above).

Probably goes without saying, but obviously your remote user also needs read access to somedirA on your source server. :)