From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 2 17:20:48 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B656516A40F for ; Tue, 2 May 2006 17:20:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from howie@thingy.com) Received: from mbox1.network-i.net (pop32.network-i.net [212.21.121.156]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 05C7F43D53 for ; Tue, 2 May 2006 17:20:44 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from howie@thingy.com) Received: (qmail 86903 invoked by uid 0); 2 May 2006 17:20:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?10.1.1.134?) (212.21.99.52) by newmail.network-i.net with SMTP; 2 May 2006 17:20:43 -0000 Message-ID: <4457950D.8020800@thingy.com> Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 18:21:17 +0100 From: Howard Jones User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Philip Hallstrom , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <20060502111316.GA1267@arwen.nagual.st> <20060502111249.O76323@bravo.pjkh.com> In-Reply-To: <20060502111249.O76323@bravo.pjkh.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: backup system rsync <-> dump X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 17:20:50 -0000 Philip Hallstrom wrote: >> I have two disks; one is the fbsd system drive, the other is for backup >> purposes. >> >> I'm in doubt about what to use: dump or rsync >> >> I guess I can do something like: >> mount /dev/ad1s3a /backup/root >> mount /dev/ad1s3d /backup/var >> mount /dev/ad1s3f /backup/usr >> /usr/local/bin/rsync -avHxS --delete /usr /backup/usr >> for /usr / and var > > If you do go with rsync, watch the "-delete". If for some reason you > blow away /usr/local/etc and then run your backup you'll blow away > your backed up /usr/local/etc as well. Probably not what you want :) > > With the right settings of --backup --backup-dir you can easily create > a week (or two or three or whatever) archive of the "daily" changed > files. So, for example.. > > /backup/usr - contains identical copy > /backup/dailys/usr/Mon - contains files that changed on /usr on Monday. > > Then just set things up to rotate/expire the old copies and you have > an easy way to get files back you deleted that you didn't mean to. > > I can post the whole script if you're interested... If you'd like to go down that route (of incremental backups), then consider rdiff-backup, which makes a 'live backup' in the same way that rsync does but also saves the rsync 'transaction log' so you can produce a previous day's image easily, and store the differences compactly - the saving on the network in rsync becomes the saving in disk space for the incremental backups. http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/ http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_rdiff_backup I've been using this for a few dozen machines with no problems so far. Cheers, Howie