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I have a directory that contains symbolic links to other directories located on different media on my system:
/opt/lun1/2011
/opt/lun1/2010
/opt/lun2/2009
/opt/lun2/2008
/opt/lun3/2007
But the symbolic links show up as:
/files/2011
/files/2010
/files/2009
/files/2008
/files/2007
How can I perform an rsync that follows the symbolic links?
e.g.:
rsync -XXX /files/ user@server:/files/
The -L flag to rsync will sync the contents of files or directories linked to, rather than the symbolic link.
-LK if you want to follow both symlinked files and directories
-L itself will remove all symlinks on your receiver side!
Jul 5, 2019 at 10:16
You need both -L and -K if you have symlinks on both sides, e.g. you already had your 1st rsync done and want to update the backup using rsync.
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
In such cases, if you use only -L, the symlinks on the receiver side will be wiped out and new real dir will be made.
Just ran into this problem. And if you want rsync to treat symlinked directories as directories, you want the K option
rsync -K /files/ user@server:/files/
