Running Rsync as Daemon on Centos 6.2

Configuring /etc/rsyncd.conf

# mcedit /etc/rsyncd.conf
max connections = 2
motd file = /etc/rsync.motd
log file = /var/log/rsync.log
pid file = /var/run/rsync.pid
lock file = /var/run/rsync.lock
timeout = 300

[Test]
comment = "Backup Testing"
path = /mnt/share
uid = root
gid = root
list = true
use chroot = no
read only = no
list = yes
auth users = root, merkurius, venus, jupiter
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets
hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0

Creating the secrets file on /etc/rsyncd.secrets, and add the usernames and the passwords, one per line, separated by a colon (:)

# mcedit /etc/rsyncd.secrets

root:password
merkurius:Password
venus:passworD
jupiter:PassWord

Finally, change the permission of this file so it can't be read or modified by other users.

# chmod 600 /etc/rsyncd.secrets

Edit /etc/xinetd.d/rsync

# mcedit /etc/xinetd.d/rsync

service rsync
{
disable = no
socket_type = stream
wait = no
user = root
server = /usr/bin/rsync
server_args = --daemon
log_on_failure += USERID
}

Testing from Localhost

# rsyncd root@localhost::
Test "Backup Testing"

or

#rsync rsync://root@localhost
Test "Backup Testing"

Testing from another computer

# rsync -avzr root@192.168.77.194::Test /tmp/test/

Password:*******
receiving incremental file list
./
new.txt
sent 76 bytes received 216 bytes 83.43 bytes/sec
total size is 71 speedup is 0.24

As another user : merkurius

# rsync -avzr merkurius@192.168.77.194::Test /tmp/test/

Password:*****
receiving incremental file list
./
install.log
sent 81 bytes received 8707 bytes 2510.86 bytes/sec
total size is 35011 speedup is 3.98

Check Result

# ls -al /tmp/test/

total 48
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 28 17:08 .
drwxrwxrwt. 14 root root 4096 Nov 28 17:01 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 34940 Nov 28 17:08 install.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 71 Nov 28 16:57 new.txt

As shown above, all file are belong to root, because we specify uid and gid as root, when rsync run as daemon, we can specify which user and group owns the files that are transfer from and to.

Done