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About rsyncshot

Linux backups backup with bash, cron, rsync, and hard links. Inspired by http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

Usage

Simple Setup

rsyncshot installs itself. To setup, just run the following commands:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cjennings/rsyncshot/main/rsyncshot
sudo bash ./rsyncshot setup

or simply clone this repo and run make install as root.

Automatic Hourly/Daily/Weekly Schedule via Cron

rsyncshot will install a default schedule:

  • every hour at the top of the hour
  • every day at noon
  • every week on Sunday at noon

Edit the schedule with:

sudo crontab -e

Manual Backups

Manual backups in the terminal with two arguments:

  • TYPE is a way to group backups together. Automatic backups will have the TYPE as HOURLY, DAILY, or WEEKLY. But you can give your manual backups any TYPE you wish.
  • MAX is the maximum number of backups before the oldest gets removed.

For instance:

rsyncshot manual 100

Filtering

Specify which directories to backup by editing /etc/rsyncshot/includes.txt. The defaults are:

- /home
- /etc 
- /usr/local/bin

Specify what filetype patterns to exclude by editing /etc/rsyncshot/excludes.txt. The defaults are:

- *.pyc
- *.pyo
- *.class
- *.elc
- *.o
- *.tmp
- .cache*

A Few Safeguards

  • rsyncshot separates backups by the machine’s name. Use one external drive to backup multiple machines without conflicts.
  • rsyncshot leverages lockfiles to prevent overapping runs. A rsyncshot backup will not begin if a previous run is still in progress.
  • rsyncshot will validate the specified source directories exist before beginning the backup.
  • rsyncshot validates it’s backing up to a mounted drive. If the drive isn’t mounted, rsyncshot attempts to mount it.
  • Backup directory permissions are changed to read-only to avoid mistaken deletion.
  • rsyncshot logs the details of all runs to /var/log/rsyncshot.log.

Requirements

  • Bash
  • Cron
  • Rsync
  • Grep
  • Flock

Uninstalling

  • run ‘sudo make uninstall’ from the cloned directory.
  • delete relevant cron entries as root

or become root and remove

  • the /usr/local/bin/rsyncshot script
  • the /etc/rsyncshot directory
  • (optional) /var/log/rsyncshot.log

… and the relevant cron entries with crontab -e

Notes

rsyncshot isn’t production software, even though the underlying utilities are.