◆Error Codes Wiki

rsync Errors — Permission Denied, Connection Failed, and Partial Transfer Fixes

Warningcommand

Overview

Fix rsync errors including permission denied, connection refused, partial transfer, and SSH authentication failures during file synchronization.

Key Details

  • rsync synchronizes files between local and remote systems efficiently using delta encoding
  • Remote rsync uses SSH by default — SSH authentication must be configured
  • Permission issues are common when syncing as root vs normal user or across different systems
  • The --delete flag removes files from destination that do not exist in source — use with caution
  • Partial transfers can be resumed with --partial and --append-verify flags

Common Causes

  • SSH key authentication not configured for the remote server
  • File permissions or ownership differing between source and destination systems
  • Disk space exhaustion on the destination causing partial transfer
  • Network interruption during large file transfer

Steps

  1. 1Test SSH first: 'ssh user@remote-host' to verify authentication works before using rsync
  2. 2Preserve permissions: 'rsync -avz --no-perms --no-owner --no-group source/ user@host:dest/'
  3. 3Resume interrupted transfer: 'rsync -avz --partial --progress source/ user@host:dest/'
  4. 4Dry run first: 'rsync -avzn --delete source/ dest/' — the -n flag shows what would happen without doing it
  5. 5For large transfers: use --bwlimit=1000 to limit bandwidth to 1000 KB/s and avoid saturating the network

Tags

rsyncsynctransfersshbackup

More in Command

linux-exit-code-127Linux Exit Code 127 — Command Not Found
Warning
linux-exit-code-126Linux Exit Code 126 — Permission Denied
Warning
linux-segmentation-faultLinux Segmentation Fault (Signal 11)
Error
linux-killed-signal-9Linux Process Killed (Signal 9)
Error
linux-ansible-playbook-errorsAnsible Playbook Errors — Task Failures, SSH Connectivity, and Variable Resolution Issues
Warning
linux-terraform-errorsTerraform Errors — Plan, Apply, and State Management Failures
Warning

Frequently Asked Questions

-a is archive mode (preserves permissions, timestamps, symlinks, recursion). -v is verbose output. -z enables compression during transfer. This is the most common rsync flag combination.