Defaults

DiskPush has opinions. The point of them is that the common case should not require you to know rsync.

The default transfer

Every transfer that is not told otherwise runs as:

rsync \
  --archive \
  --partial-dir=.rsync-partial \
  --human-readable \
  --itemize-changes \
  --info=progress2 \
  SOURCE \
  DESTINATION

So these are the same thing:

diskpush ./data/ server:/data/
diskpush sync ./data/ server:/data/

diskpush --print-args prints the exact command for any job, so you never have to take this document's word for it.

What each default buys you

Incremental

rsync's quick check compares size and modification time. A file that matches on both is not sent. Re-running a finished job therefore moves almost nothing, which is the entire reason to prefer rsync over an SFTP upload.

Turn this off with --checksum, which compares content hashes instead. It is correct in more cases and much slower, because every candidate file has to be read on both ends.

Recursive

Directories are traversed. There is no separate recursion switch for ordinary folder work; --archive implies -r.

Archive

--archive is -rlptgoD: recursion, symlinks, permissions, modification times, group, owner (where permitted), and device and special files (where permitted).

It does not include hard links, ACLs, or extended attributes. Those cost extra scanning and need support at both ends, so they are separate options: --hard-links, --acls, --xattrs.

Resumable

--partial-dir=.rsync-partial keeps the bytes that did arrive, in a directory beside the destination file rather than in place of it. Two consequences worth understanding:

• An interrupted transfer can pick up where it stopped.
• A half-received file is never presented as if it were the finished one. That is the difference between --partial-dir and a bare --partial, and it is why DiskPush uses the former.

A job that stops this way is reported as Interrupted - resumable, not as Failed, because those are different situations.

Non-destructive

No delete flag is ever added by default. Copy, push, pull, sync, archive, backup, publish, and deploy all leave destination-only files alone.

Deleting requires Mirror, which is a separate command and a separate confirmation. See rsync-options.md.

What is not on by default

Option	Why it is off
Compression	It trades CPU for bandwidth. That is the right trade on a slow WAN and the wrong one on a fast LAN, and DiskPush will not guess. Use --compress or the slow-wan preset.
Checksums	Reads every file on both ends. Use --checksum when you have a reason to distrust timestamps.
Hard links, ACLs, xattrs	Extra scanning, and both ends must support them. Use --hard-links, --acls, --xattrs, or the maximum-metadata preset.
--inplace	Changes failure semantics: an interrupted transfer can leave a destination file partially overwritten.
Deletion	See above.

A note on --human-readable

It is on by default because the PRD specifies it and because the command DiskPush prints should be the command you would have typed. It does mean rsync rounds its progress byte counter to three significant figures, so the live progress number is approximate. Exact totals come from --stats.

Intents

push, pull, publish, deploy, and backup are the same engine with the same defaults. They exist so a script says what it means. Only mirror behaves differently, and it is the only one that can delete.