Rsync (Remote Sync) is a most commonly used command for copying and synchronizing files and directories remotely as well as locally in Linux/Unix systems. With the help of rsync command you can copy and synchronize your data remotely and locally across directories, across disks and networks, perform data backups and mirroring between two Linux machines.
This article explains 10 basic and advanced usage of the rsync command to transfer your files remotely and locally in Linux based machines. You don’t need to be root user to run rsync command.
Some advantages and features of Rsync command
It efficiently copies and sync files to or from a remote system.
Supports copying links, devices, owners, groups and permissions.
It’s faster than scp (Secure Copy) because rsync uses remote-update protocol which allows to transfer just the differences between two sets of files. First time, it copies the whole content of a file or a directory from source to destination but from next time, it copies only the changed blocks and bytes to the destination.
Rsync consumes less bandwidth as it uses compression and decompression method while sending and receiving data both ends.
Ever want to list all the Linux commands (including bash shell aliases and functions) you could run on the server / workstation? Look now further. Try compgen command.
compgen is bash built-in command and it will show all available commands, aliases, and functions for you. The syntax is:
It doesn’t happen a lot but it does sometimes when the Gnome Panel freeze. If you are a former windows user you might be used to restart the computer when something in you desktop stuck. This is not the way with Linux. We can fix the problem by restarting the desktop session (restarting the X server) pressing the Ctrl+Alt+BackSpace but this will destroy everything we worked on so far. A more elegant way will be to restart only the Gnome Panel.
Getting access to the Linux command line shell
In order to restart the Gnome Panel we will need to execute the Linux kill command. Once the Gnome Panel process is killed Gnome will restart it automatically so the only thing left for us is to kill the Gnome Panel process. In order to execute the Linux kill command we will need to get access to the Linux shell. This can be done by one of the following:
Pressing Alt+F2
Using an opened console window using the Alt+Tab buttons to navigate to it.
Using a console session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1
Killing the Gnome Panel
In each of these options we will need to execute the Linux kill command in order to kill the Gnome Panel process. There are two ways to use the kill command:
Using the application name will kill all the applications with the same name
Using the process id (pid) will kill only the process with the specified id.
Back to our case with the Gnome Panel, we can use both of the options.
I am a new Debian Linux v.7.x / Ubuntu Linux LTS user. How do I reinstall a package using apt-get command line?
The Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) works on both Debian / Ubuntu and it can handle the installation and removal of software. You need use apt-get command as follows to forcefully reinstall package. The syntax is:
apt-get --reinstall install PackageNameHere
OR
apt-get --reinstall install Package1 Package2
The --reinstall option re-install packages that are already installed and at the newest version.
Pro tip: Backup configuration files before you reinstall packages. For example, if you are reinstalling nginx web server package, backup /etc/nginx/ with cp command i.e. mkdir /root/nginx.mmddyyyy/; cp -avr /etc/nginx/* /root/nginx.mmddyyy/
Examples
The following command will reinstall rsync package. Open a terminal and then type: $ sudo apt-get --reinstall install rsync OR # apt-get --reinstall install rsync Sample outputs:
Fig.01: Debian / Ubuntu Linux reinstall a package using apt-get command
If above method failed for you, try the following syntax. Make sure you backup config file before typing the following commands. Please note that the --purge option is identical to remove except that packages are removed and purged including any configuration files are deleted too.
