RSYNC-BACKUP

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Running a second time creates a second copy of the directories backed up under a different name, but files that haven't changed aren't copied. Instead they are hard linked to the version already present to save space.

backup-target can be:

/path

a local directory

x@host:/path

/path on a host reachable via "ssh x@host".

:filesys:/path

The directory /path on filesys. filesys will be mounted if not present. It can one one of:

/dev/sdaXXX

(a mountable block device)

UUID

(a UUID displayed by blkid)

LABEL

(a volume label displayed by blkid)

Older backups can be pruned to reduce space used. Files backed up can be read and written by root if sudo access is available. You can opt to be notified by email if the backup fails.

OPTIONS

-a A, --age=A

Keep progressively fewer older backups. A is a comma separated list in the format AGE:DAYS,.... Group backups in periods of DAYS long. If a period has more than one backup at least AGE days old, prune the youngest. Consider 7:2,30:7. 7:2 means only keep 1 backup per 2 days for backups a week or more old. Reduce that to one backup per week after a month.

--bwlimit=B

Passed through to rsync. Caps bandwidth usage. Useful with ssh.

--exclude=E, --exclude-from=E, -f=F, --include=I, --include-from=I, -x, --one-file-system

Passed through to rsync. These options select which files in the source-directory's are backed up. The default is to backup all files.

-g, --ignore-ssh

Exit silently (no email) if ssh host is unreachable. Useful with sporadically connected laptops.

-i, --ignore-device

Exit silently (no email) if the target :filesys: file system in backup-target can not be found. Useful for sporadically connected USB and networked drives.

-m E, --email=E

Send email to email addresses E if the backup fails.

--prune-all

Prune all unwanted backups. By default at most two are pruned.

-p S,--max-space=S

After a successful back is performed prune older backups until they occupy no more than S GiB. Calculating the disk space used can be very slow.

-r F,--min-free=F

After a successful backup is performed prune older backups until there is at least F GiB of free space on the backup-target file system. F% will treat F as a percentage rather than a absolute number.

-s,--sudo, --sudo-local, --sudo-remote

Read and write files as root. --sudo-local reads the backed up files as root, --sudo-remote writes the backup as root, --sudo does both. Without --sudo-remote device files can not not be backed up and file owner/group can not be preserved. --sudo-local requires sudo --preserve-env permission.

-u S,--auth-sock=S

Communicate with ssh-agent over unix socket S. The default is to use the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable if set and valid, otherwise look for the socket in a variety of well known places.

-v,--verbose=S

Passed through to rsync.

DEPENDENCIES & LIMITATIONS

Dependencies in additional packages that come with Debian minbase (ie, a very minimal install):

findfs

Only needed if backup locations are specified by label or UUID.

flock

Required.

netcat

Required. Both the BSD and the traditional version will work.

rsync

Required.

sh

Required. /bin/sh must be a POSIX shell.

/usr/lib/sendmail

Only needed if --email is used.

ssh

Only needed if used as a backup target.

sudo

Only needed if --sudo used or a file system must be mounted.

chrt, eatmydata, ionice, nice, nocache

Optional, but if present will be used to reduce the impact of rsync-backup on the machine.

Rsync-backup expects the source and target file systems to be Linux or BSD. ACL's and Extended attributes are not backed up.

AUTHOR