[mdlug] Periodic backup software (dis)recommendations

[Duane]

Found a great article on the IBM Developer Works web site. The last part was extremely educational to me.
Duane
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-spunix_rsync/index.html?ca=dgr-twtrDoRSYNCdth-AIX

-----Original Message-----
>From: John Wiersba <jrw32982 at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Aug 15, 2010 11:21 PM
>To: mdlug at mdlug.org
>Subject: Re: [mdlug] Periodic backup software (dis)recommendations
>
>I would recommend backing up to an external disk or server, not using CD or 
>DVDs.  There are many reasons to do so, one of which is the convenience of 
>accessing your backup for restoring files or just exploring previous backup 
>points.
>
>Up until recently, I used a variation of rsync called rsnapshot (a perl script 
>which calls rsync).  It keeps snapshots of your backed up data using hard links, 
>so that unchanged files do not take up any extra disk space in subsequent 
>snapshots.  
>
>
>Now, I just use rsync directly with a little shell wrapper, for greater control 
>over my specific requirements.  On modern systems rsync can handle the hard 
>linking itself -- you just need to determine the directory to hard link to 
>(namely, your most recent snapshot directory):
>
>   /usr/bin/rsync -a    \
>      --numeric-ids     \
>      --relative        \
>      --delete          \
>      --delete-excluded \
>      --link-dest=$PREV \
>      $EXCLUDES         \
>      $FROM             \
>      $TO
>
>You can add -x and -H if appropriate.  PREV is the previous snapshot directory, 
>EXCLUDES is a list of exclude options (optional).  FROM is the source 
>directory.  TO is the new snapshot location.
>
>
>      
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