[ILUG] Fedora at heanet

[Barry O'Donovan]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, Conor Wynne wrote:
> RSYNC is my friend here. But I'm wondering how to use rsync in a script so
> that it can run via crontab without entering authentication manually.

I suggested ssh keys without passphrases (while sternly warning of the 
potential implications) in 
http://www.barryodonovan.com/publications/lg/104/ and it includes 
instructions.

Depending on your environment, passphrase-less ssh keys might be 
applicable. 

Some details I didn't go into in the article were to be sure to use a 
specific key for only this purpose and use a restricted account on the 
remote server (such as setting the shell to rbash - see man bash and look 
for RESTRICTED SHELL).

You can invoke rsync over ssh and specify a specifc key with:

rsync -a -e "ssh -i /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa-serverbackup"

Regards,
Barry O'Donovan
http://www.barryodonovan.com/