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I am quite confused as to why rsync requires --rsync-path flag even when remote rsync is in path.

Consider:

$ rsync -avze 'ssh -p 22' --delete public/ [email protected]:~/public_html bash: /usr/local/bin/rsync: No such file or directory rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [sender] rsync error: remote command not found (code 127) at io.c(601) [sender=3.0.7]

then I tried adding --rsync-path

$ rsync -avze 'ssh -p 22' --rsync-path=/usr/bin/rsync --delete public/ [email protected]:~/public_html sending incremental file list ...

So, the first rsync was not successful because it was searching for rsync in /usr/local/bin but as soon as I pass the obvious path for rsync using --rsync-path, then it works.

Why is this? (this command line is the one issued by rake deploy in octopress)

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  • Do you have any forced commands at the destination end? Anything in the .bashrc or .profile that might set a local environment variable? Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 12:20
  • $ cat ~/.bashrc | grep PATH returns nothing. Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 13:52
  • If you just ssh in yourself and run which rsync what do you get? Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 13:56
  • 2
    $ ssh [email protected] which rsync returns /usr/bin/rsync Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 15:07
  • 1
    Weird. Clutching at straws, now: Is perhaps your local rsync aliased to rsync --rsync-path (or some other local wrapper)? Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 16:18

2 Answers 2

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My memory is now quite fuzzy on this but the reason this was happening was that I used GNU stow on rsync at some point and created some symlinks that confused rsyncs location. This was sorted after much hair-pulling. I am now much lighter on hair but on the other hand I have a working rsync. That must be a win if you ask me.

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rsync connects to remote sshd which is usually compiled with a static PATH (check comments on sshd_config file).

# This sshd was compiled with PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Probably your rsync is not in that path.

This is the PATH used when running a remote command and is different than the PATH environment you might get from dotfiles when running an interactive ssh remote login shell.

You can check this by running:

ssh <remote-host> 'echo $PATH'

and comparing that to what you get when you do:

ssh <remote-host> # prompt on remote host > echo $PATH
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