Deutsche Version

Why does nobody a backup if everybody is talking about it? Using a unix-system with rsync it is that easy!:

First you should know some things about rsync: its an network protocol for synchronizing files. The interesting thing about rsync is that it is able to compare parts of a file and if it is needed sync only that parts. For example if there was changed one line of a config-file it will only transfer the information of that line through the network. Thats why rsync is really lightweight and fast. I am backing up my Linux-systems using rsync. I want to show how i created a backup script and how it is working.

• -a is short for following commands:
  • -r copies the subfolders too
  • -l copies symbolic links
  • -p preserve permissions of the source file
  • -t preserve timestamps of the source file
  • -g preserve group permissions of the source file
  • -o preserve user rights of the source file (root only)
  • -D preserve device files (nur root)
• -z Use compression (if you are storing your backup to a network attached storage)
• -c skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size (take more time but is saver)
• ‘-e ssh’ defines the remote shell
• –delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs
• –stats Exports some stats
• ‘–exclude=foobar’ excludes the mask ‘foobar’

In the target path there is “$(hostname)” included. That is needed if you want to back up more then on system in the same path because it creates a folder named by the hostname. (for example “claw-desktop”)

Logs are exported to /var/log/ with the date year-month-day: “backup$(date +%Y%m%d)”

I am running this script as cronjob (crontab) as root and for target i use a samba mountpoint.

If you have any question or suggestions feel free to contact me.

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