On 08 Apr 07, at 08:58, Adam Chlipala wrote: > I think it probably makes sense now to create an archive of all > non-restorable disk contents (e.g., /home, parts of /etc and /var) and > have an admin download it. Can anyone recommend the best command > to use > to do this? (The recommendation should include the exact paths that > should be backed up.)
I'm a little late to this party, but here's what I use. rsync over ssh is great because it's differential, which means I've been able to keep a multi-deca-gigabyte GIS archive backed up even over a 128Kbps ISDN connection. (The initial backup was conducted via a USB hard drive that was shipped using a courier, but subsequent differential backups over the net finish overnight.) This solution will not compress the backed-up files, so you'll use just as much disk space on the target as they take up on the source. # This command will not delete files on the backup target # that no longer exist on the backup source. So, you'll slowly # accumulate old files on the target interspersed with the current # files if you run this repeatedly over time. # /usr/bin/rsync --archive --progress --stats --exclude-from=/backup/ exclude-from.txt -e ssh -a / [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/path/to/ backup/hostname/ # This command *WILL* delete files on the backup target that # no longer exist on the backup source, and will *not* backup # any paths contained in the text file '/backup/exclude-from.txt'. # Because this example contains the "--delete" flag, I've included # the "--dry-run" flag and the "--max-delete=" flag. It always sets # my heart pounding the first time I run this on a system - am I # really specifying the source and target in the proper order, or # am I about to delete stuff on the source that I don't want to delete? /usr/bin/rsync --archive --stats --dry-run --progress --delete -- delete-excluded --delete-after --max-delete=50 --exclude-from=/backup/ exclude-from.txt -e ssh -a / [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/path/to/ backup/hostname/ # Here's a sample "exclude-from.txt" file # /proc /dev /sys /tmp /var/tmp /var/named/chroot/proc /var/named/chroot/dev /usr/local/src /usr/src /var/cache /lib Graham _______________________________________________ HCoop-SysAdmin mailing list [email protected] http://hcoop.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hcoop-sysadmin
