One liner here: rsync -rave --filter='merge public/.rsync-filter' "ssh -i /keypath/key.pem" $PWD/public/* ubuntu@55.55.55.55:/var/www/www.server.com/
rsync -rave --filter='merge public/.rsync-filter' "ssh -i /keypath/key.pem" $PWD/public/* ubuntu@55.55.55.55:/var/www/www.server.com/
