"rsync updates only files that have changed, so you do not need to transfer 5 GB of data whenever you run rsync. It only mirrors new/changed files, and it can also delete files from the mirror that have been deleted on the main server. In addition to that it can preserve permissions and ownerships of mirrored files and directories; to preserve the ownerships, we need to run rsync as root which is what we do here. If permissions and/or ownerships change on the main server, rsync will also change them on the backup server.
"In this tutorial we will tunnel rsync through SSH which is more secure; it also means you do not have to open another port in your firewall for rsync - it is enough if port 22 (SSH) is open. The problem is that SSH requires a password for logging in which is not good if you want to run rsync as a cron job. The need for a password requires human interaction which is not what we want."
