How can I install rsync on Windows 11?
Jan 9
How can I get in Windows 11 an rsync that behaves like a Linux (Debian) rsync?
Just use rsync. Install WSL and you're good to go.
I have the Windows Feature 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' enabled on my machine and can use ls in cmd, but not rsync. - But I believe, that ls comes from git, not from WSL. (Via the installer option 'Use Git and optional Unix tools from the Command Prompt'.)
I would like to avoid installing a complete VM/distribution and GnuWin32 seems to be dead.
Here someone says
I install rsync for Windows through git-bash.
but... how? Bash cannot install anything, one needs a package manager or an installer. I checked the latest installer for an rsync component and it does not have one.
1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
Jan 9
rsync can be installed via MSYS2:
pacman -S rsync
It then runs natively under Windows as <MSYS2 installation>/usr/bin/rsync.exe.
As of today, the MSYS2 version is newer than the one in Debian 12 (3.3.0 vs. 3.2.7).
As of MINGW64_NT-10.0-19045 version 3.5.4-0bc1222b.x86_64 (runneradmin@fv-az1495-159) (gcc version 13.3.0 (GCC) ) 2024-12-05 09:27 UTC it has two cave-ats but otherwise works as expected:
- One must disable automatic path conversion for the server path (iff the server is not also a Windows machine, of course) and the documented environment variables do not seem to work, but the undocumented MSYS_NO_PATHCONV does.
- The MSYS2 version of OpenSSH must be used - with
C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exethe transmission fails after the first few Kilobytes. It can be added viapacman -S openssh.
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