It's all of these:
-r
, --recursive
recurse into directories
-l
, --links
copy symlinks as symlinks
-p
, --perms
preserve permissions
-t
, --times
preserve modification times
-g
, --group
preserve group
-o
, --owner
preserve owner (super-user only)
-D
same as --devices --specials
--devices
preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials
preserve special files
It excludes:
-H
, --hard-links
preserve hard links
-A
, --acls
preserve ACLs (implies -p
)
-X
, --xattrs
preserve extended attributes
It's perfect for backups. My "default" set of switches is -avzP
- archive mode, be verbose, use compression, preserve partial files, display progress.
Note: Invariably when the descriptions say "preserve", it means make the destination be like the source.