I have setup 2 servers with the rsync # /etc/services rsync 6873/tcp # Rsync Server # /etc/inetd.conf rsync stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/bin/rsync rsyncd --daemon Looks like they work internally but not remotely. Please read below the 2 examples This works: bash-2.05$ /usr/local/bin/rsync -avz -e ssh /tmp/5.0 /tmp/5.0 building file list ... done wrote 83428 bytes read 20 bytes 33379.20 bytes/sec total size is 85086768 speedup is 1019.64 ERROR: bash-2.05$ /usr/local/bin/rsync -avz -e ssh /tmp/5.0 rajeevj@sun1:/tmp/5.0 rajeevj@sun1's password: rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes read so far) rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(165) Could you guys please suggest what this error means? Raj