Transfer files between Unix machines with rsync

Transfer files from local to remote

Syntax (explainshell):

rsync -LPa <local_path> <remote_path>

• -L, --copy-links: when encountering symlinks, copy the actual directories / files instead of the symlink.
• -P, --progress: show progress info.
• -a, --archive: recursively copy files.

1. Configure SSH aliases

Configure SSH aliases to make file transfers easier. If you don’t, you’ll have to type the full IP address instead of an alias (e.g., sajad@172.12.34.56:some-path instead of just prod:some-path).

2. Create test files and directories

Let’s test the rsync setup by first transferring a test file. Create local file:

# Local machine
mkdir /tmp/rsync-local
echo 'Test file' > /tmp/rsync-local/file.txt

Open a new terminal tab, SSH into remote machine, and create remote directory:

# Remote machine
mkdir /tmp/rsync-remote
cd /tmp/rsync-remote

3. Make a test transfer

Run:

# Local machine
rsync -LPa /tmp/rsync-local/file.txt <ssh-alias>:/tmp/rsync-remot

Now, jump into your remote machine and you should see the file has been transferred:

# Remote machine
cat /tmp/rsync-remote/file.txt

Transfer files from remote to local

Transferring from remote to local is the same process, except you specify the remote path first. So, something like this:

rsync -LPa <remote_path> <local_path>

Bonus: use bash alias

Add this alias to whatever file you use for aliases (e.g., .zshrc, bashrc):

alias transfer="rsync -LPa"

Now, you can do something like this:

transfer /tmp/foo.txt prod:/tmp/