Use the file transferring and syncing capabilities of rsync within your Gulp task. gulp-rsync calls rsync and offers you a subset of options for an easy setup.
rsync needs to be installed on your machine and must be sitting in your PATH.
npm install gulp-rsync --save-dev
var gulp = require('gulp');
var rsync = require('gulp-rsync');
gulp.task('deploy', function() {
return gulp.src('build/**')
.pipe(rsync({
root: 'build/',
hostname: 'example.com',
destination: 'path/to/site/'
}));
});A common parameter set for rsync is
rsync -avz ...
This can be achieved by:
var gulp = require('gulp');
var rsync = require('gulp-rsync');
gulp.task('deploy', function() {
gulp.src('build/**')
.pipe(rsync({
root: 'build/',
hostname: 'example.com',
destination: 'path/to/site/',
archive: true,
silent: false,
compress: true
}));
});Note that rsync does not synchronize your build/-directory if you give it a trailing /.
rsync-gulp implements the following options of rsync. See the official documentation for more information.
-a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
-n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-t, --times preserve modification times
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
--chmod affect file and/or directory permissions
--delete delete extraneous files from destination dirs
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--progress show progress during transfer
When you are syncing from Windows to Unix you might encounter permission errors or issues resulting from these. A reason can be that rsync tries to preserve NTFS file attributes in UNIX. This behaviour can be remedied by:
chmod: "ugo=rwX"So, if you are running rsync on Windows put this option in place.
Type: string, Required
The destination path. Use hostname when using a remote path.
Type: string, Default: process.cwd()
Specifying a root path changes the path names that are transferred to the
destination. The paths piped into rsync must be within the root path (or the
plugin will yell at you).
gulp.src('build/js/**']).pipe(rsync({destination: '/tmp'}));This will create the directory build in /tmp as well as the directory js
in /tmp/build.
gulp.src('build/js/**']).pipe(rsync({root: 'build', destination: '/tmp'}));This will create the directory js in /tmp.
Type: string
The hostname of the destination. rsync will connect to this hostname using SSH
along with configuration in ~/.ssh/config or SSH keys stored in a keychain.
When this is omitted, rsync will transfer the content to a local path.
Type: string
Used to specify a user for the remote host.
Type: string, Compares to: rsync -e
Typically, rsync is configured to use ssh by default, but you may prefer to
use rsh on a local network.
Type: integer
Used to specify an SSH port for the remote host. Note: This will override the
shell option and force the use ssh in rsync -e ssh --port=PORT.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -a
If set to true, rsync will turn on the archive mode which equals -rlptgoD:
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-p, --perms preserve permissions
-t, --times preserve modification times
-g, --group preserve group
-o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
-D same as --devices --specials
--devices preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials preserve special files
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -n
If set to true, rsync will do everything it does without actually syncing.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -c
If set to true, rsync will make incremental updates only. rsync will use the checksum of every file to determine whether a file needs to be updated. This will add a delay to the transfer, but will minimize the amount of files
transferred each time.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync --progress
If set to true, the transfer progress for each file will be displayed in the
console.
This looks like:
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: Starting rsync to example.com:/var/www/example.com/html/...
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: favicon.ico
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: 1150 100% 439.45kB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=12/13)
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: index.html
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: 2712 100% 101.86kB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#2, to-check=11/13)
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: css/style.1afca52f.css
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: 1445 100% 54.27kB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#3, to-check=9/13)
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: images/photo1.82515393.jpg
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: 31878 100% 1.09MB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#7, to-check=3/13)
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: images/photo2.2a41e1e3.jpg
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: 76988 100% 2.53MB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#9, to-check=1/13)
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync:
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: sent 2401 bytes received 2820 bytes 10442.00 bytes/sec
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: total size is 114173 speedup is 57.01
[20:49:53] gulp-rsync: Completed rsync.
Type: boolean, Default: true, Compares to: rsync -R
By default, gulp-rsync will transfer all paths relative to the root specified.
If you want to transfer assets from multiple paths to a single destination, you
can set relative to false.
gulp.src(['build/js/**/*.js', 'build/css/**/*.css', 'build/images/**'])
.pipe(rsync({
hostname: 'example.cdn',
destination: '/path/to/all/assets',
relative: false
}));This will transfer all assets (*.js, *.css, and images) into a single directory.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -d
If set to true, rsync will create empty directories.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -t
Preserves times of the transferred files.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -z
Compresses file data during transfer.
Type: boolean, Default: false
If set to true, rsync will transfer all files and subdirectories recursively.
This is not necessary when using glob(s) with gulp.src(). However, it can be
combined with non-globbed paths to transfer all files:
gulp.src(['build/js', 'build/css', 'build/images'])
.pipe(rsync({
root: 'build/',
destination: 'tmp/',
recursive: true
}));
This is the same as:
gulp.src(['build/js/**', 'build/css/**', 'build/images/**'])
.pipe(rsync({
root: 'build',
destination: '/tmp'
}));
The difference is that the actual rsync command used in the first example is
much shorter.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync --delete
This must be used with archive or recursive set to true. If set to true, this instructs rsync to delete all files and directories that are not in the source paths. Be careful with this option as it could lead to data loss.
Type: string, Compares to: rsync --chmod=STRING
Enables files or directories matching the pattern(s) provided to be excluded
from the transfer. This is probably most useful when recursive is set to
true since it is typically better to make these exclusions in gulp.src().
Type: string, Compares to: rsync --chown=STRING
Forces all remote files to be owned by the USER:GROUP provided in the string. If GROUP is empty, the trailing colon may be omitted, but if USER is empty, a leading colon must be supplied. If you're running macOS please check your rsync version with rsync --version. The default system version, older than 3.1.0, doesn't support this option. You can fix this by installing a recent version from Brew (brew install homebrew/dupes/rsync) or MacPorts (sudo port install rsync).
Type: string|Array<string>, Compares to: rsync --exclude=PATTERN
Enables files or directories matching the pattern(s) provided to be excluded
from the transfer. This is probably most useful when recursive is set to
true since it is typically better to make these exclusions in gulp.src().
Type: string|Array<string>, rsync --include=PATTERN
Used with exclude. This adds exceptions for the exclusions.
For example:
gulp.src('build')
.pipe(rsync({
root: 'build',
destination: '/tmp',
recursive: true,
exclude: ['*.css', '*.js'],
include: ['*.min.css', '*.min.js']
}));
This will transfer only minified CSS and JS files.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync -u
Skip files that are newer on the receiving end.
Type: boolean, Default: false, Compares to: rsync --no-v
Turns off logging.
Type: boolean, Default: false
Enables creation of symbolic links on the receiving end.
Type: boolean, Default: false
This is not a rsync-option. If set to true, gulp-rsync shows you the generated rsync command in your shell.
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright © 2015 Jerry Su, http://jerrysu.me
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
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