rsync-webdav

Synchronizing files to a remote WebDAV server (version: 20260423)

Publication:

Authors or contributors: Stéphane Galland

This Python script synchronizes a local directory to a remote WebDAV server.
Local files are always the reference (one‑way sync).
It uses a local state file (.webdav_sync_state.json) with SHA256 hashes to reliably detect changes, bypassing WebDAV's lack of checksum support.

Features

  • One‑way sync (local → remote)
  • Local hashing (SHA256) – detects content changes even when size/mtime are identical
  • Dynamic progress display – overall transfer speed, current file, recently uploaded files (requires rich)
  • Exclude patterns – skip files/directories by name or wildcard
  • Dry‑run mode – preview what would be uploaded/deleted
  • Delete remote files – remove files that no longer exist locally (disable with --nodelete)
  • Preserves directory structure – creates remote directories automatically
  • Stores configuration – WebDAV URL, credentials, local source, excludes
  • Works on Linux, macOS, Windows (requires Python 3.6+)

Installation

1. Clone or download the script

Save the script as rsync-webdav.py and make it executable:

chmod +x rsync-webdav.py

2. Install Python dependencies

pip install webdavclient3
  • webdavclient3 – WebDAV operations

Configuration

Before synchronizing, you must create a configuration file.
Run:

./rsync-webdav.py create [options...]

You will be prompted for your WebDAV password.
The configuration is saved to ~/.config/webdav_sync_<NAME>.conf (plain text; use --password on the command line only if you understand the security implications).

<NAME> is the name of the configuration. It is determined from the name of the script at launching time. For example, if you rename the script rsync-my_config.py, then the <NAME> becomes my_config. On Unix systems, we recommend to create symbolic links to the original python script but with the expected name for the link.

Additional create options:

Option Description
--url WebDAV server URL, e.g., https://myhost.mydomain.com/path/to/files)
--user WebDAV username (default: current system user)
--source Local source directory (default: ./)
--excludes Space‑separated list of exclusion patterns, e.g., conf db lists

Example with custom excludes:

./rsync-my_config.py create --source /home/user/data --excludes tmp cache '*.log'

How it works

  1. Scanning – walks the local directory, computes SHA256 hash for every file.
  2. Comparison – compares current hash with the hash stored in .webdav_sync_state.json.
  3. Upload – only files with different/missing hashes are uploaded.
  4. Progress – a live display shows overall speed, current file.
  5. Deletion (if --nodelete not given) – removes remote files whose local counterparts no longer exist.
  6. State update – after a successful sync, the state file is updated.

Usage

Basic sync

./rsync-webdav.py sync

This will upload all changed/new files to the remote root (as defined in the configuration).

Dry run (simulate)

./rsync-webdav.py sync --dry-run -v

No deletion of the remote files that no longer exist locally

./rsync-webdav.py sync --nodelete

Override exclusions

./rsync-webdav.py sync --excludes tmp '*.pyc'

Excluding files/directories

Exclusion patterns support simple wildcards (*) and directory names.
Examples:

  • tmp – excludes any file/directory named tmp anywhere
  • *.pyc – excludes all .pyc files
  • conf/* – excludes everything inside conf/
  • generate_template_archives.py – excludes that specific file

The state file .webdav_sync_state.json is automatically excluded.