Rsync-backup
Do backups using rsync

Rsync has the options to make it a good backup tool and there are lots of tutorials on the web describing how to do it. But doing everything needed to do a job a fully fledged backup system performs turns out to be a bit of work; more than any of those tutorials cover. Here, it's all done for you:

• It backs up to local directories, can auto mount backup file systems (fscking them before starting), and can backup to remote file systems reachable via ssh.
• It creates many backups over time, so you can go back a day, week, months or years.
• If a file is doesn't change between backups it is only stored once.
• Backups are simple copies of the directory(ies) backed up so you standard tools to restore, like cp, scp and drag and drop.
• Since it uses rsync, it only sends changes.
• It can automatically purge old backups based on several criteria.
• It can invoke sudo on the local and / or remote ends so owernships and permissions can be preserved.
• It uses low priority disk I/O, so it has little impact when running in the background.
• It will borrow the logged in user's ssh agent, so it can be run from cron on your laptop without annoying password prompts.
• If interrupted, it will resume from where it left off.
• Backups are atomic, so you can't mistake a 1/2 done backup for the real thing.
• It creates a lock, so two instances backing up the same directories to the same destination won't fight.
• It can send emails if it fails.

When should or shouldn't you use it? It works very well when the bulk of the files being backed up don't change. That's true for personal laptops, home Linux servers and so on. It's not true if your file system is taken up by a database that's updated every day.

Documentation

There is a man page, README.txt and change log.

Copyright and License

Rsync-backup.sh is copyright © 2024,2025 Russell Stuart. It is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The copyright holders grant you an additional permission under Section 7 of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, exempting you from the requirement in Section 6 of the GNU General Public License, version 3, to accompany Corresponding Source with Installation Information for the Program or any work based on the Program. You are still required to comply with all other Section 6 requirements to provide Corresponding Source.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

Downloading, Feedback & Contributing

Development for Rsync-backup is hosted on Source forge:

• Download area, (.tar.gz, .deb, .rpm).
• Issue tracker, bugs, features or just questions.
• Source repository.

Russell Stuart, 2024-Feb-10.