Setup rsync from laptop to a remote server. To get this done, I followed the steps described in http://www.jdmz.net/ssh/ The commands that I used: rsync -avz -e ssh Documents/gnupg-data/ jan@www.jankester.com:/home/jan/backup_rsync ssh-keygen -t dsa -b 2048 -f .ssh/ewing_ssh_rsync_key added entry in commands in authorized keys remote added validate-rsync script on remote under /home/jan/cron Test again whether new key works rsync -avz -e ssh -i /home/jan/.ssh/ewing_ssh_rsync_key Documents/gnupg-data/ jan@www.jankester.com:/home/jan/backup_rsync Now add a script to sync anything you like /home/jan/cron/backup-ewing-on-vs01-05.sh: #!/bin/sh RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync SSH=/usr/bin/ssh KEY=/home/jan/.ssh/ewing_ssh_rsync_key RUSER=jan RHOST=www.jankester.com RPATH=/home/jan/backup_rsync LPATH=/home/jan/Documents/gnupg-data $RSYNC -azv -e "$SSH -i $KEY" $LPATH $RUSER@$RHOST:$RPATH LPATH=/home/jan/.ssh $RSYNC -azv -e "$SSH -i $KEY" $LPATH $RUSER@$RHOST:$RPATH LPATH=/home/jan/ssh