CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rsync
user9719859
user9719859

Reputation: 75

rsync can't resolve the hostname

As my network connection is slow and noisy, I want to use rsync to install texlive 2018. I posted a question on installation texlive offline in slow an d noisy network.

But, rsync is failed in my pc. What is the actual command to do this task? Downloading/mirroring the TeX Live repository 

  $ rsync -a --delete http://ctan.math.illinois.edu/systems/texlive/tlnet /home/alhelal/Downloads
    ssh: Could not resolve hostname http: Name or service not known
    rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [Receiver]
    rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at io.c(226) [Receiver=3.1.0]

Upvotes: 0

Views: 4728

Answers (1)

Gordon Davisson
Gordon Davisson

Reputation: 125918

From the docs you linked, you should look through the list of CTAN mirrors and find one that supports rsync (not http), and plug that into the command:

rsync -a --delete rsync://somectan/somepath/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /your/local/dir

So, I chose rsync://tug.ctan.org/CTAN/ as the mirror to use, and your downloads directory as the target. That gives:

rsync -a --delete rsync://tug.ctan.org/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /home/alhelal/Downloads

AIUI you're in Bangladesh, so you'll probably want to pick a closer one. If you used Shang­hai (rsync://mirrors.shu.edu.cn/CTAN/), the command would be:

rsync -a --delete rsync://mirrors.shu.edu.cn/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /home/alhelal/Downloads

But I tried this (with the tug.ctan.org mirror), and there's a huge problem -- the directory being synced is 3.4 gigs! I suspect you could leave out the archive subdirectory (it's most of the data) with:

rsync -a --delete --exclude=/tlnet/archive rsync://mirrors.shu.edu.cn/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /home/alhelal/Downloads

...but that's still 114MB. According to this page, the standard installs run from 3 to 19MB depending on platform, so if your connection is slow that's probably going to be a lot better option. The main reason to use rsync instead of a web download is that if it fails, you can re-run it and it'll pick up where it left off, so you can just keep running it over and over until it finishes successfully.

Upvotes: 1

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