Resume transfer of a single file by rsync

Question

In Ubuntu, I want to copy a big file from my hard drive to a removable drive by rsync. For some other reason, the operation cannot complete in a single run. So I am trying to figure out how to use rsync to resume copying the file from where it left off last time.

I have tried to use the option --partial or --inplace, but together with --progress, I found rsync with --partial or --inplace actually starts from the beginning instead of from what was left last time. Mannually stopping rsync early and checking the size of the received file also confirmed what I found.

But with --append, rsync starts from what was left last time.

I am confused as I saw on the manpage --partial, --inplace, and --append seem to relate to resuming copying from what was left last time. Is someone able to explain the difference? Why don't --partial or --inplace work for resuming copying? Is it true that for resuming copying, rsync has to work with the --append option?

Also, if a partial file was left by mv or cp, not by rsync, will rsync --append correctly resume copying the file?

Thanks and regards!

Answer 1

To resume an interrupted copy, you should use rsync --append. From the man page's explanation of --append:

This causes rsync to update a file by appending data onto the end of the file, which presumes that the data that already exists on the receiving side is identical with the start of the file on the sending side. [...] Implies --inplace, [...]

Option --inplace makes rsync (over)write the destination file contents directly; without --inplace, rsync would:

1. create a new file with a temporary name,
2. copy updated content into it,
3. swap it with the destination file, and finally
4. delete the old copy of the destination file.

The normal mode of operation mainly prevents conflicts with applications that might have the destination file open, and a few other mishaps which are duly listed in the rsync manpage.

Note that, if a copy/update operation fails in steps 1.-3. above, rsync will delete the temporary destination file; the --partial option disables this behavior and rsync will leave partially-transferred temporary files on the destination filesystem. Thus, resuming an a single file copy operation will not gain much unless you called the first rsync with --partial or --partial-dir (same effect as --partial, in addition instructs rsync to create all temporary files in a specific directory).

Answer 2

You were doing it right --partial does what you want. It appears to be starting from the beginning because it always starts at the beginning of the list of file data chunks it needs to copy. The --append option is dangerous and will result in a corrupt file if the data does not match for some reason.

Answer 3

David Schwartz is correct, --partial (or better, -P) does do what you want. I verified this on a 37G file that was stopped ~8g into it, over a network. rsync quickly scanned the first parts of the partial (showing progress as it was going thanks to -P), and then resumed the transfer to the end of the partial file.