Is there a rsync error log by default?

Just like any other service, rsync logs come handy while troubleshooting errors.

Fortunately, Rsync does provide options to log every detail regarding file transfer.

At Bobcares we often get requests to log rsync errors, as a part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s see how our Support Engineers make an error log in rsync.

Why we need a rsync error log in a file?

Rsync is a versatile file synchronization tool.

Mostly, we use rsync for backups and copying files. Therefore, logs are really important to ensure proper file transfer. This helps to identify failed transfers, errors and many more.

By default, rsync works silently. But, there are a few options in rsync that gives complete details of rsync operation. Let’s have a look into it.

• -v, –verbose – Using this option in the rsync command gives the status about transferred files.
• -vv – Usually, this option is used to get information about the skipped files during file transfer.
• Using ‘-v’ more than twice indicates Rsync debugging.
• -q, –quiet – This option simply suppress non-error messages.
• –-progress – Use this option to see the transfer progress for large size file transfer.

All these options are useful in troubleshooting. But, these switches when used in command gives log details in the terminal.

We often get queries regarding the error logs in rsync. Mostly the request is to have a file for logs.

But is it possible to create an error log file for rsync?

How we enable error log for rsync?

Fortunately, Rsync offers other options that allow sending these logs into files.

For instance, some users may set automated backups every day. Usually, it will be a part of the daily cron jobs. In such situations, it is not possible to monitor errors logging. Hence, they prefer to send these logs into files.

So, let’s see how our Support Engineers make it possible.

When customers approach us to get a log file for rsync operation, we make use of the option:

--log-file=FILE

This option logs all the actions we do to the specified FILE. The complete usage of the command looks like:

rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --log-file=/tmp/rlog" source/ destination/

Similarly, if the customer wants the log in a particular file format, we use the option:

--log-file-format=FORMAT

So, this option logs files in the specified format.

Additionally, rsync exits with a non-zero code when the transfer fails. As a result, we can make use of this feature to write details to log files. This allows combining stderr and stdout into the stdout stream for further manipulation. Therefore, while executing Rsync commands we append the following on the end of the command:

rsync -avz -e ssh root@example.com:/ /mybackup/ > /var/log/rsync.log 2>&1

[Need help in enabling logs in rsync? – We’ll help you.]

Conclusion

In short, enabling a rsync error log is useful for users having automated daily backups. Usually, these log files are important for easy debugging of errors. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers enable logging in rsync.