Rsync create symbolic links only

user_983223 0
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I currently have rsync working well. It copies all my files from one directory to another directory. The only thing is it is physically copying the files.

I have a lot of large files that I don't want to have a duplicate of all the files. I just want to create a symbolic link in the new directory so that I can serve the data on a webpage. The source directory has some scripts and files I don't want the public to see. I'm moving the safe data to the web root (destination).

What I would like rsync to do is any new files in the source directory would create links into the destination. That way I am not using up my hard drive space like I currently am doing. What I have works perfect except for doing the symbolic link aspect to it. Is there a way to have rsync track and create symbolic links?

rsync -aP --exclude="file.sql" --exclude="*~" --exclude=".*" --exclude="*.sh" . ${destination}
rsync shell unix
4 Answers

It's not a symlink, but you might be able to work with --link-dest=DIR. It creates a hard link which will create a new name for the same file. This will behave similarly to a softlink as long as:

  • Both files are on the same filesystem
  • You don't plan to delete the original and not the copy (the symlink would break but a hard-link won't)
  • You don't have anything explicitly checking to see if it's a softlink
user_27526350

You could use cp -aR -s (Linux or FreeBSD) or cp --archive --recursive --symbolic-link (Linux) to create symbolic links to the source files in the destination directory instead of copies. Note that -s is non-standard.

user_1071580

I think master_delivery is probably the best tool for this. With the already introduced --link-dest option of rsync, files which are not the same will be copied. If you don't mind the situation where copies and hardlinks are mixed, you can use rsync, but if you want to eliminate duplicates completely, use master_delivery.

Usage is:

gem install master_delivery
master_delivery -m <path_to_master> -d <path_to_delivery_root>
user_26666570
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