Asking rsync to delete files on the receiving side that don't exist on the sending side, with exceptions on the receiving side

Question

I have read these threads:

• rsync --delete --files-from=list / dest/ does not delete unwanted files
• Delete extraneous files from dest dir via rsync?

But, as far as I can tell (maybe I am missing something), they don't cover the following question:

How do you ask rsync to copy files and delete those on the receiving side that do not exist on the sending side, with exceptions? (e.g. don't remove a mercurial repository .hg on the receiving side, even if there is no repository on the sending side).

One possibility?

Borrowing from @Richard Holloway's answer below. Say I have the following line:

rsync -av --exclude=dont_delete_me --delete /sending/path /receiving/path

As far as I understand, this line would make rsync delete everything on the receiving path that does not exist on the sending path, except those things matched by dont_delete_me. My question now is: Would rsync keep files on the receiving side that are matched by dont_delete_me even if nothing on the sending side matches dont_delete_me?

Answer 1

If you use --delete and --exclude together what is in the excluded location won't get deleted even if the source files are removed.

But that raises the issue that the folder won't be rsync'd at all. So you will need another rsync job to sync that folder.

Eg.

rsync -nav /home/richardjh/keepall/ /home/backup/richardjh/keepall/
rsync -nav --exclude=keepall --delete /home/richardjh /home/backup/richardjh

You could run these the other way around, but then it would delete all removed files and then replace them, which is not as efficient.

You can't do it as a one liner.

Answer 2

I found that the following solution works for my purposes:

rsync -r --exclude-from=do_not_send_to_dest --delete --exclude-from=do_not_modify_in_dest src/ dest

(Note: Add the -n option to do a dry-run, and do not change --delete to --delete-excluded!)

Running the command causes the following properties:

• The source src directory remains unmodified

• The destination dest folder matches the source folder except that:

  • items on the do_not_send_to_dest list are not sent to the destination, and
  • items on the do_not_modify_in_dest list are left unmodified in the destination.
• (Note: It's no problem for non-existent items to be listed in either of the "do_not_" files.)

Explanation

I guess as rsync reads the command line arguments from left to right, the --delete argument seems to cause rsync to internally "switch modes" (in a sense), allowing the second use of the --exclude-from option again but with a different meaning.

Caveat:

• If an item on the do_not_send_to_dest list already exists in the destination, then:

  • this command doesn't remove that item from the destination (unless the item is first removed from the source directory)
  • Caution: changing --delete to --delete-excluded will delete everything in the destination that is listed on either of your two lists. xD (Perhaps rsync was writen to be open / flexible, but has some with nuances?)

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Lightly usage tested.

I am using "rsync version 3.0.9 protocol version 30".