n8n-nodes-rsync

Run rsync pull and push operations from n8n.

Requirements

The rsync binary must be installed in the n8n container. If using SSH transport, ssh must also be available.

For the official Alpine-based n8n image, install them in a custom image with:

FROM n8nio/n8n:latest

USER root
RUN apk add --no-cache rsync openssh-client
USER node

Credentials

Use n8n's built-in SSH Private Key credential. Password-based SSH is not supported because native rsync/ssh cannot use a password non-interactively without extra tools such as sshpass.

By default, the private key is written to a temporary file while rsync runs, then removed. Passphrase-protected keys are not supported by this node; use an unencrypted deploy key with limited permissions.

The private key can be stored as a normal OpenSSH block, including escaped newlines. The node normalizes it before passing it to native OpenSSH.

Nodes

• Rsync Pull: Syncs remote -> local.
• Rsync Push: Syncs local -> remote.

Both nodes expose common rsync options such as archive mode, compression, deletion, dry run, excludes, timeout, binary path, and additional arguments.