I'm trying to backup my files from my Linux box to my Windows Server 2008 as a push, and when I delete them from my Linux box, they remain on my Windows Server. I've found lots of sources that are similar, but most results were from Windows to Linux. I managed to find slightly more similar cases like Using rsync and cygwin to Sync Files from a Linux Server to a Windows Notebook PC, and rsync from Windows PC to remote Linux server, with the most similar being a backup from Linux to Windows Server, but through a pull from the Windows Server.

Initially, I used Unison because I thought having the 2-way capability would come in handy, and I would just have to set some configurations to make it 1-way. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the right configuration, and only managed to synchronize using the command unison "profile" -ui text -auto -silent. When I deleted the files on my Linux box, the files in the Server got deleted too, which of course, isn't what I want. When I tried to find any options for Unison, I only discovered the -force option, which didn't help, since what I wanted was an incremental update to the Server.

I found out I could achieve this from using rsync and the -a option (archive), which would keep adding files even if I deleted them from my Linux box.

I installed Cygwin on my Windows Server, configured an SSH daemon, but I can't seem to get it working. I've also already configured Windows Firewall to open port 22 (both inbound and outbound). I used the following command from my Linux box:

rsync -avrzn /folder/to/be/backed/up/ [email protected]:/cygdrive/c/place/to/store/backed/up/files

(a - archive, v - verbose, r - recurse into subdirectories, z - compress, n - dryrun)

but it just won't work. Can anyone help me out? I don't mind using either Unison or rsync, as long as it achieves what I want.