I took a quick look at the "man" pages for rsync and found this:
rsync -avz foo:src/bar /data/tmp
this would recursively transfer all files from the directory src/bar on
the machine foo into the /data/tmp/bar directory on the local machine.
The files are transferred in "archive" mode, which ensures that sym-
bolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships etc are pre-
served in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to
reduce the size of data portions of the transfer.
rsync -avz foo:src/bar/ /data/tmp
a trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to transfer all
files from the directory src/bar on the machine foo into the
/data/tmp/. A trailing / on a source name means "copy the contents of
this directory". Without a trailing slash it means "copy the direc-
For the IPs: If the systems are running RedHat / Fedora, the ethernet configuration files are in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory. Check this link:
You can also use the ifconfig command to do this. The URL mentions this also.
You'll create ARP problems if the servers are on the same subnet and you switch the IP addresses. This is because the MAC address to IP address mapping will be swapped.
You'll have to clear the ARP tables on most of the servers on your subnet and the routers too. Sometimes a ping to the subnet's broadcast address will help fix this, but not always.