ripsync 1.2.0

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rsync's superpower, none of its footguns.

🚀 Overview

ripsync is a fast, memory-safe directory synchronization tool written in Rust, with copy-on-write backends per platform (Linux io_uring/reflink, Windows ReFS, macOS clonefile), a persistent index for quick re-syncs, an operator TUI, optional post-copy verification, and remote sync over SSH with delta transfer and zstd compression. Device-tier auto-tuning adapts thread count and buffers to the machine, from a 2-core NAS to a many-core workstation. --watch keeps a destination continuously mirrored, and rsync-style filters (--include, --filter, --files-from) select exactly what to transfer. For cloud object storage (S3 and compatible) see the sibling tool ripclone.

The full documentation is an mdBook (deployed to GitHub Pages); see the installation matrix for every install method.

📦 Installation

Quick Start (from source)

cargo build --release
./target/release/ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION

An optional short alias rs (same program) can be built with cargo build --features rs-alias. It is off by default and packagers install it only where it does not collide with the BSD rs reshape utility.

Package Managers

See installation matrix for:

• Homebrew (macOS/Linux): brew install beeboyd/homebrew-tap/ripsync
• AUR (Arch Linux): paru -S ripsync-bin
• cargo (all platforms): cargo install ripsync
• winget (Windows): winget install ripsync
• Scoop (Windows): scoop install ripsync (from extras bucket)

📚 Usage Examples

# Preview without changing the destination
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --dry-run

# Mirror deletions in an interactive terminal
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --delete

# Automation must approve deletion explicitly
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --delete --yes --no-tui

# Hash changed files after copying
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --verify changed

# Compare complete trees after copying
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --verify all

# Transfer only Rust files
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --include '*.rs' --exclude '*'

# Transfer exactly the paths in a list
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --files-from changed.txt

# Keep the destination continuously mirrored
ripsync SOURCE DESTINATION --watch

See docs/filters.md and docs/watch.md.

The TUI starts automatically for interactive human output. Use --no-tui, --output json, or --quiet for noninteractive operation.

🔗 Remote Sync (SSH)

Give a source or destination as [user@]host:path and ripsync transfers over ssh, rsync-style — the local side runs ssh host ripsync --server and the two ripsync peers speak a versioned binary protocol over the pipe. ripsync must be installed on both ends; your existing ssh keys, agent, ~/.ssh/config, and known_hosts are all reused.

# Push a local tree to a remote host
ripsync ./site/ user@web01:/var/www/site

# Pull from a remote host
ripsync user@web01:/var/www/site ./backup

# Delta + zstd compression over a slow link, capped at 2 MiB/s
ripsync ./data backup@nas:/pool/data -z --bwlimit 2M

# Custom ssh command (e.g. a non-default port)
ripsync ./data host:/srv -e "ssh -p 2222"

Changed files transfer as rolling-checksum deltas; --whole-file/-W forces a full copy. See docs/remote.md for the protocol and security model.

🛡️ Safety Model

• File updates use a temporary file and atomic rename.
• Every destination operation is containment-checked.
• In-flight atomic operations finish on cancellation; no later work starts.
• Cancellation keeps completed changes, removes temporary files, skips later phases, does not update the manifest, and exits with status 130.
• --delete refuses an empty source. Interactive deletion requires typing DELETE; automation requires --yes.
• Verification runs before manifest persistence. A mismatch returns nonzero and leaves the previous manifest intact.

See docs/safety.md for details.

💻 TUI

The lifecycle views cover planning, review, copying, deleting, verifying, finalizing, completion, cancellation, and failure. Controls include:

NO_COLOR disables semantic colors. Small terminals use a compact layout. See docs/tui.md.

⚙️ Important Options

--bwlimit applies to remote transfers (it is a no-op for local copies). --partial is accepted but resume-from-partial is not yet implemented; writes are always atomic regardless.

📊 Performance

Benchmarks: 10 warm-cache iterations on Apple silicon (14 cores, 48 GiB), macOS 26, APFS

Measured against Homebrew rsync 3.4.4. ripsync tested with (--reflink auto) and without (--reflink never).

Key wins:

• Copy-on-write clones (macOS clonefile, Linux reflink) reduce copy time from 6.69s → 0.05s
• Persistent index keeps re-syncs as fast as rsync's quick-check
• Portable engine is ~2.2× faster on tiny files, ~1.8× on large files

See Full benchmark methodology and Raw data.

📖 Documentation

🔒 Unsafe Code

The Linux-only io_uring module contains exactly two reviewed unsafe submission blocks. No new unsafe code is used elsewhere. All FFI is audited via cargo-deny and cargo-auditable.

📜 License

MIT OR Apache-2.0.