DropSync and rsync

DropSync uses a powerful and stable unix tool called rsync to perform all it's syncing under the hood. Learning more about how rsync works will help you use DropSync effectively. In particular it is important to know that when rsync communicates between two computers it requires a compatible version of rsync on the synced place.

Rsync accepts a large number of options, which can be configured for each synced place. Although DropSync comes with a sensible set of defaults, there are circumstances where options should be chosen to reflect a particular setup, and in these cases the right options to choose will depend on the version of rsync.

Common scenarios where customised options should be used are:

• You want to sync files with extended attributes

  When syncing between two macs this can be achieved by using the rsync provide by apple (default) and selecting the -E option. If syncing to non-mac based remote hosts, extended attributes can be synced if the server has a version of rsync installed that supports the -X option, and if the rsync executable for the synced place is set to the DropSync built-in rsync 3.0.6

• You want to exclude files matching a pattern from the sync

  This can be achieved using the --exclude option

Certain combinations of rsync options will conflict with the way DropSync works and should be avoided. In particular DropSync always adds the following options to every rsync task

-i -r --stats --relative --progress