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I'm running 'rsync -a -i /foo /bar'. Every now and then I would like to know what exactly rsync is doing at the moment without having the -v output all the time. Is it possible to increase the verbosity of running processes e.g. by sending a kill signal?

Germar
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    Type ps afux|grep rsync Get the process ID (second field), then strace -e trace=file -p PID And type Ctrl-C when you want to quit. –  May 28 '15 at 06:15
  • Good answers in this http://askubuntu.com/questions/323775/monitor-watch-running-rsync-process question – Déjà vu Sep 24 '15 at 00:45

4 Answers4

52

I use rsync -v --stats --progress

Flo Rahl
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15

I would redirect the output in a file and then tail -f to see the output when desired:

rsync -a /foo /bar >/tmp/rsync.log 2>&1

when needed:

tail -f /tmp/rsync.log
Marc M
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    That's what I do right now ;-) But I was hoping there is something like the 'kill -USR1' for 'dd' – Germar Aug 12 '12 at 22:57
14

In addition of -i, you can use --progress for more verbosity in sending data. for example:

rsync -ai --progress .....

If need more and more the better way is logging it as @Marc M said above.

shgnInc
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The rsync documentation does not describe such behaviour, nor is there a (proper or de-facto) standard signal to send to a process in order to modify its verbosity.

However thanks to the incremental nature of rsync you should be able to abort a running rsync with Ctrl+C and re-run it with '-v' and not lose much time as a consequence.

pablomme
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  • Thanks pablomme. Ctrl+C and re-run is not an option for me because I'm syncing to a slow davfs mount. – Germar Jan 26 '12 at 03:40