Rsync with Linux server: special character problem

Solution 1:

I finally figured out that apart from updating rsync, I also had to switch the order in which I specified the character sets: I thought you were supposed to specify the character set in the order of transformation; but it seems as that is not the correct syntax. Rather, one should always use --iconv=utf-8-mac,utf-8 when initialising the rsync from the mac, and always use --iconv=utf-8,utf-8-mac when initialising the rsync from the linux machine, no matter if I want to sync files from the mac or linux machine.

Then @Mark's solution works like magic!

Solution 2:

The --iconv argument was added in rsync version 3.0.0 (release notes) OSX provides only version 2.6.9 (see Apple's open source page)

Thus you need to get a newer version of rsync. The latest is 3.1.2 (2.6.9 was released in 2006)

I would also get a newer version rsync as xattr copying was also introduced after 2.6.9

I think the simplest way to get a new rsync is to install a package manager like Macports or Homebrew and then install rsync or you can install from the source