Tips on Downloading With Rsync Over Slow Connection

In the process of mirroring Fedora Core updates repository over a slow (256 Kbps) connection using rsync, I realized that the process can be extremely frustrating as you spend lots of time looking at the console, waiting for something to happen…anything. Then I found the magic option to show a progress meter - –progress. Add this to your rsync command options and you can see in realtime the status of your download, the current connection speed etc. While it will not speed your downloading it will at least make the pain bearable.

When you specify –delay-updates you want to ensure that all files are replaced in the destination directory only after the transfer has been complete. This is particularly important when you have people / process accessing the repository even during update. A downside is if you are syncing for the first time and the process fails then you will have to start all over again. A simple way around this is to copy all the files from the ~.tmp~ directory to your base directory and start the process again. This will ensure that already downloaded files are not downloaded again.

Finally a word about verbose mode. Increasing the number of v’s in the rsync options increases verbosity. Having 4 v’s is probably more information that you will ever want to know. Personally I prefer one v with –progress as described above for continuously updated status.