Does an rsync transfer require rsync on both machines?

[Splooshie123]

Does an rsync transfer require the rsync program to be installed on both the local and the remote computers?

[drmrgd]

No, it's only required on the computer executing the rsync. However, I believe most Linux distributions come with it built in anyway. So unless you're copying from a Windows drive, you should be covered I would imagine.

[Splooshie123]

Thanks

[kurt18947]

If you're not real comfortable in CLI, You could try Luckybackup in the repositories. It's a GUI frontend for rsync that seems pretty capable and simple to use. It also has a synch function which can be pretty useful for keeping folders synched. Plug in a USB drive, it takes a few seconds to sync the day's work to a removable drive.

[asmoore82]

Actually, Yes! The rsync binary is required on each end of the transfer to perform the rsync algorithm. I'm not sure if there is some sort of fallback mode or not, but I logged into a test server and did this:

#do not run, for testing only
sudo chmod -x /usr/bin/rsync

After that, attempting to rsync with that machine on the remote end caused this error:

bash: /usr/bin/rsync: Permission denied
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [Receiver]
rsync error: remote command could not be run (code 126) at io.c(601) [Receiver=3.0.7]

I also tried renaming the remote rsync binary, it caused this similar error:

bash: rsync: command not found
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [Receiver]
rsync error: remote command not found (code 127) at io.c(601) [Receiver=3.0.7]

[HermanAB]

Yup, rsync is required on both ends if you run it over a transport protocol such as ssh.

[Slim Odds]

Yup, rsync is required on both ends if you run it over a transport protocol such as ssh.

Indeed, any protocol needs support by both transmitter and receiver. That's how any communication works.