Question

I am trying implement rsync with python. Here’s my code.

#!/usr/bin/python

import os

url = raw_input("Paste your URL:")
username = raw_input("Enter username:")
#password = raw_input("Enter password:")

source = username + "@" + url
#print source

print os.system('rsync -zvr --progress source /home/zurelsoft/R')

The logic is simple: user inputs the url and username stored in source with proper formatting. The source variable is then used in rsync command. I am inputting the valid URL and username of my server but I am getting this error:

rsync: link_stat "/home/name/source" failed: No such file or directory (2)

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You’re passing a static string. Regardless of what the user inputs, you’re always giving rsync the exact same commandline options. You probably want source to be replaced with the value:

print os.system('rsync -zvr --progress {source} /home/zurelsoft/R'.format(source=source))

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As a side note, this can be done better with subprocess :

subprocess.call(['rsync','-zvr','--progress',source,'/home/zurelsoft/R'])

It might not matter, but you’ll close a HUGE security hole in your program this way (consider if the user put ; rm -rf ~; as their username …) and it’s always a good idea practice good programming habits.