How to rsync using a public ssh key

You can use ssh -i identity_file method with rsync by specifying the remote shell to use.

$ rsync --rsh "ssh -i identity_file" --checksum --recursive --verbose --progress "myfolder" "ubuntu@10.20.1.10:/home/ubuntu/"

Alternatively, modify your ssh config file. Add the following to your ~/.ssh/config file:

Host 10.20.1.10
Hostname 10.20.1.10
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/mykey
User ubuntu

Now you can omit the --rsh parameter and do:

$ rsync --checksum --recursive --verbose --progress "myfolder" "ubuntu@10.20.1.10:/home/ubuntu/"

And now passwordless ssh-ing into the machine also works with the ssh config additions. e.g.:

$ ssh 10.20.1.10