rsync not synchronizing .htaccess file

I am trying to rsync directory A of server1 with directory B of server2.

Sitting in the directory A of server1, I ran the following commands.

rsync -av * server2::sharename/B

but the interesting thing is, it synchronizes all files and directories except .htaccess or any hidden file in the directory A. Any hidden files within subdirectories get synchronized.

I also tried the following command:

rsync -av --include=".htaccess" * server2::sharename/B

but the results are the same.

Any ideas why hidden files of A directory are not getting synchronized and how to fix it. I am running as root user.

thanks

This is due to the fact that * is by default expanded to all files in the current working directory except the files whose name starts with a dot. Thus, rsync never receives these files as arguments.

You can pass . denoting current working directory to rsync:

rsync -av . server2::sharename/B

This way rsync will look for files to transfer in the current working directory as opposed to looking for them in what * expands to.

Alternatively, you can use the following command to make * expand to all files including those which start with a dot:

shopt -s dotglob

See also shopt manpage.

For anyone who's just trying to sync directories between servers (including all hidden files) -- e.g., syncing somedirA on source-server to somedirB on a destination server -- try this:

rsync -avz -e ssh --progress user@source-server:/somedirA/ somedirB/

Note the slashes at the end of both paths. Any other syntax may lead to unexpected results!

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Also, for me its easiest to perform rsync commands from the destination server, because it's easier to make sure I've got proper write access (i.e., I might need to add sudo to the command above).

Probably goes without saying, but obviously your remote user also needs read access to somedirA on your source server. :)

I had the same issue.

For me when I did the following command the hidden files did not get rsync'ed

rsync -av /home/user1 server02:/home/user1

But when I added the slashes at the end of the paths, the hidden files were rsync'ed.

rsync -av /home/user1/ server02:/home/user1/

Note the slashes at the end of the paths, as Brian Lacy said the slashes are the key. I don't have the reputation to comment on his post or I would have done that.

I think the problem is due to shell wildcard expansion. Use . instead of star.

Consider the following example directory content

$ ls -a .
. .. .htaccess a.html z.js

The shell's wildcard expansion translates the argument list that the rsync program gets from

-av * server2::sharename/B

into

-av a.html z.js server2::sharename/B

before the command starts getting executed.

The * tell to rsynch to not synch hidden files. You should not omit it.