diff - compare contents of two directories on remote server using unix

Question

I am new to unix and need some help here. I have two directories present on two different server. both the directories contains the same files. Now i want to check if all files are in sync in both the directories. If files are not in sync then i want to display only name of those files. I am able to do it when directories are on same server. not able to figure out how to do this when directories are present on two different servers.

eg:
server1 /abc/home/sample1/
server2 /abc/home/sample2/

here i want only files name to display when it not in sync.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You can use rsync with the -n flag to find out if the files are in sync, without actually doing a sync.

For example, from server1:

rsync -n -avrc /abc/home/sample1/* server2:/abc/home/sample2/

This will print the names of all files (recursive, with the -r flag) that differ between server1:/abc/home/sample1/ and server2:/abc/home/sample2/

rsync used parameters explanation

-n, --dry-run - perform a trial run with no changes made

-a, --archive - archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)

-v, --verbose - increase verbosity

-r, --recursive - recurse into directories

-c, --checksum - skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size