Usually, you need to perform folder synchronizations on different computers. In Linux, this task is fully accomplished by the rsync command. Rsync is present in the official repositories of many Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, and others.
Also, the Linux rsync command has many different options that allow you to modify the way synchronizations are performed. These synchronizations are copies of directories or files, but they are done in an advanced way.
So, with some examples, we will explain how this command works.
Install rsync on Linux
rsync is usually installed on most popular Linux distributions. However, if for some reason it is not there you can install it very easily.
So, open a terminal and execute some of these commands according to the distribution you use.
For distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives like Linux Mint, Pop!_OS or ElementaryOS:
:~$ sudo apt install rsync
In the case of CentOS or Fedora:
:~$ sudo dnf install rsync
So, for Arch Linux and derivatives:
:~$ sudo pacman -S rsync
And if you use OpenSUSE 15.1 or Tumbleweed, just run this command:
:~$ sudo zypper in rsync
In the end, you can check the installed version with the following command. I am using Debian 10 Buster and this is the screen output:
:~$ rsync – version
rsync version 3.1.3 protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2018 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: http://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, prealloc
rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.
What Next?
rsync is not successfully installed on your Linux Distribution. Now, you can read this article to understand how to use it.