rsync - Nov 2003 - ssh & keep absolute local paths from --include-from=file remotely

Hi!

I am trying to do a IMHO rather trivial thing with rsync via ssh:

I have some files under /etc and some under /home/thomas, I want to 
rsync just these to a remote PC with a similar setup where they should 
end up in the same dirs, and this with a single rsync call. Bascially 
'tar --files-from FILE -cf - | netcat' and 'cd /; netcat | tar -xf
-'
with the optimisation rsync and the security ssh provides.

I went up to doing fancy stuff like

rsync -av -e ssh --include  '*/' --exclude '*'
--include-from=file /
thomas@10.10.164.170:/

(file containing \n seperated /etc/bash.bashrc /etc/profile 
/home/thomas/testfile)

..yet no success. rsync ends up either stating all files recursivly so i 
^C or it just tries to dump them all into / (where I don't have write 
access).

So all I want is rsyncing files while preserving their _absolute_ paths 
on the target machine which doesn't seem possible. Can someone point me 
to a patch or so? If not consider this as a feature request :)

TIA

    -Thomas


P.S.: Please no "hacks" like hardlinking the /etc/ files to a subdir
and
just rsyncing this subtree or a 'for i in `cat Datei`
do rsync $i foo@bar:${i%\/*} ... ', since this is via ssh and even with 
a keyfile the connection would have to be re-established everytime.

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 01:58:07AM +0100, Thomas Otto
wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I am trying to do a IMHO rather trivial thing with rsync via ssh:
> 
> I have some files under /etc and some under /home/thomas, I want to 
> rsync just these to a remote PC with a similar setup where they should 
> end up in the same dirs, and this with a single rsync call. Bascially 
> 'tar --files-from FILE -cf - | netcat' and 'cd /; netcat | tar
-xf -'
> with the optimisation rsync and the security ssh provides.
> 
> I went up to doing fancy stuff like
> 
> rsync -av -e ssh --include  '*/' --exclude '*'
--include-from=file /
> thomas@10.10.164.170:/
> 
> (file containing \n seperated /etc/bash.bashrc /etc/profile 
> /home/thomas/testfile)
It would be much simpler to just put all your patterns in
the --include-from file.  _Read_ the "EXCLUDE PATTERNS"
section of the manpage.
> 
> ..yet no success. rsync ends up either stating all files recursivly so i 
> ^C or it just tries to dump them all into / (where I don't have write 
> access).
> 
> So all I want is rsyncing files while preserving their _absolute_ paths 
> on the target machine which doesn't seem possible. Can someone point me
> to a patch or so? If not consider this as a feature request :)
Doing this is a snap, you just need to understand the
implications of the pattern matching.

-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw@pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 01:58:07AM +0100, Thomas Otto
wrote:
> So all I want is rsyncing files while preserving their _absolute_ paths 
> on the target machine which doesn't seem possible.
Check out the --relative (-R) option in the man page.  That would let
you do something like this:

rsync -avR `cat /path/file-list` dest:/

Or, the CVS version of rsync which has the --files-from option:

rsync -av --files-from=/path/file-list / dest:/

(Note that the --files-from option implies --relative.)

..wayne..