rsync - Mar 2007 - Newbie question.

I'm just starting to learn about rsync.  My use is to backup one hard
drive to another (newer) hard drive.  I've read through the man file,
the rsync site, several googled posts, and have read this forum for a
few days, and I still have some questions.

The initial copy over was simply 'cp $SOURCE $DESTINATION &'.  Then
I
figured out that rsync was what I needed to update the backups.  What
with the '-n' switch, I could experiment as I liked.  Eventually, I came
up with: 

'rsync -n -r -t -v -l --relative --size-only /{source directory}/
/{destination}'.

where -n is don't do it just tell; -r is go through all directories; -t
is add time stamps; -l is don't copy the links themselves; --relative
is use full path names; --size-only is don't look at the time stamps,
just at file size.

I interpret this to require that rsync just test, recurse through
directories, add time stamps to fix the original 'cp' process, tell as
much information as I need, don't copy links, use full path names, and
update on a size only basis.

I got it that adding the forward slash to the $SOURCE eliminates the
source directory problem.  I got it that the original copy over most
likely didn't add time stamps, which meant that the first use of rsync
would duplicate the entire copy over process.  I got it that adding the
time stamps and selecting files to copy over by size only would make the
first update process behave as it should.

And I got it that I could remove -t and --size-only from subsequent
backup runs.

What did I get wrong there?

And what I don't seem to be able to figure out is how to get rsync to
give me a list of the files it updates or backs up.  I thought a single
-v would do that, but apparently not.

I'd surely appreciate what help you fellows might offer!

Thanks,

Bill Tallman

On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 01:29:45PM -0800, William D. Tallman
wrote:
> And I got it that I could remove -t and --size-only from subsequent
> backup runs.
No, you don't want to eliminate -t, as preserving timestamps is the only
way rsync has to quickly decide if a file is changed or not (if you had
used -p with the initial cp command, you couldn't have needed to use
--size-only).  I'd also suggest adding -p (--perms), if needed.  See
also -g (--group) and -o (--owner), which might be needed.
> And what I don't seem to be able to figure out is how to get rsync to
> give me a list of the files it updates or backs up.  I thought a single
> -v would do that, but apparently not.
Yes, that's what happens.  Perhaps you left off -t from one copy, and
noticed that rsync re-copied the older files (due to them not having
their timestamp preserved).  You can use -i (--itemize-changes) to see
an itemized list of what rsync is changing, and what caused a transfer
to happen.

..wayne..