rsync -arvzh [host:]/source/path/ [host:]/destination/path

Note the trailing slash in source path: this avoids creating [host:]/destination/path/path.

  • -a: archive (i.e. ensures that symlinks, attributes, permissions, owner, etc. are preserved)
  • -r: recursive
  • -v: verbose (second v gives what files are being skipped and some stats at the end)
  • -z: compress
  • -h: human-readable format of numbers

  • --del | --delete: delete files on the destination that are not sent from the source

  • --stats: file-transfer statistics at the end

  • -m: prune empty directories from file-list

  • -t: preserve modification times

This is how I deploy changes of this site with rsync:

rsync -arvzh --delete public/ vld.bg:www/vld.bg/public_html/