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Using Rsync

Basic Rsync Usage

rsync is a very powerful and widely used tool for moving data. The manual page has many useful examples (from the command line type "man rsync"). Here are a couple of examples to get you started:

# the command format is 
#rsync <switch options>  <data source>  <data destination> 
#
# So the following copies from a local folder to a destination folder on a remote host named bellows.eri.ucsb.edu:
rsync -avr /data/ username@bellows.eri.ucsb.edu:/some/other/folder/

# the -avr switches are: 
# 'a' for archive mode (when in doubt use this)
# 'v' for verbose (rsync will tell you what is going on)
# 'r' for recursive, recurse into directories

One trick to learn with rsync is the difference between leaving the trailing slash on or off.

# this command copies contents of /data/ to the destination directory /some/other/folder/
rsync -avr /data/ username@bellows.eri.ucsb.edu:/some/other/folder/

# ... while this command creates a folder 'data' on the destination and copies all of its contents:
rsync -avr /data username@bellows.eri.ucsb.edu:/some/other/folder/

When in doubt, test with --dry-run, and rsync will tell you what would have happened:

rsync -avr --dry-run /data username@bellows.eri.ucsb.edu:/some/other/folder/


Accessing Servers via the Command Line

Access the HPC systems using secure shell with your username and password from a command line. Rsync can leverage this since it runs over ssh

# connect to the bastion host
ssh username@ssh.eri.grit.ucsb.edu

# or go straight to your HPC machine, e.g. bellows.eri.ucsb.edu
ssh username@bellows.eri.ucsb.edu

You'll get tired of typing your password, so use the more secure method of generating keys:

# generate the private and public key pair (leave password fields blank)
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

# copy the public key to the server
# Only the public key is copied to the server. The private key should never be copied to another machine.
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/mykey username@ssh.eri.ucsb.edu

# ... Once that is done you should be able to login without typing your password.


Advanced usage is to set up a config file in your /home/username/.ssh folder with similar entries (where "username" would be your username)

# Example Config File entries 
Host eri-hpc
Hostname ssh.eri.grit.ucsb.edu
IdentityFile /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa
User username

The above would allow you to ssh with the command:

ssh eri-hpc
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