Enhance Your rsync Script: Log Only When Files Are Transferred

Discover how to enhance your rsync shell script to log actions only when files are modified or transferred, preventing unnecessary logs.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/70930629/ asked by the user 'Juancho' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/11124234/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/70930801/ provided by the user 'Juranir Santos' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/10424004/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Enhance Your rsync Script: Log Only When Files Are Transferred

When automating file transfers using rsync, it can be tedious and uninformative to log actions every few minutes, especially when there are no changes to report. If you find yourself dealing with a script that logs unnecessary entries, this guide will guide you on how to modify your rsync shell script to log actions only when files are effectively transferred or modified.

Understanding the Problem

Let's say you have a shell script intended for synchronizing directories, but you notice that it generates log entries even when no files are copied. This results in clutter and an overwhelming amount of unnecessary log data, making it challenging to track actual changes. To overcome this issue, we need to implement a condition that checks for file changes before logging.

The Current Script

The original script looks something like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

While this script effectively synchronizes directories, it logs an entry each time it runs, regardless of file changes.

Solution Overview

To enhance our script, we will add a condition using rsync that checks if there are any files to copy or delete. We will only log a message if there are changes to report.

Step-by-step Explanation

Check for File Changes: We will modify the rsync command to perform a dry run (using the -n flag) and output the results to grep to check for any deletions or new files.

Conditional Logging: Based on the output, if files are found to be transferred or modified, we will log the appropriate messages.

Modified Script Implementation

Here’s how the updated script could look:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Key Components Explained

rsync -avunc --delete $ORIGEN $DESTINO: The -n flag performs a dry run, the -u flag skips files that are newer on the receiver, and --delete removes files that no longer exist on the source.

grep "^deleting": This filters the output to check if there are any files being deleted.

wc -l: This counts the number of lines output by the grep, giving us a rough idea of the number of changes.

Conclusion

By incorporating these modifications, you can ensure that your rsync shell script logs only when files are actually modified or transferred, thus keeping your logs clean and manageable. This method enables you to effectively monitor changes without unnecessary noise.

Happy synchronizing!

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