On 11/12/15 23:40, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
Hi Folks,
I've been using rdiff-backup for many years, both at home and in a client/server setup at work. But it's getting a bit long in the tooth and I get occasional crashes seeming caused by a problem with gzip.py. (IOError: Negative seek in write mode) It seems that rdiff-backup hasn't been updated since 2009, maybe it's time for me to switch? But to what?
I'm dong backups to disk, rather than to tape, and the disks are either local or remote. The candidate system should back up to a regular filesystem, and be accessible just like the source. The backup should be an up-to-date copy of the source at the time the backup was run. It should do incremental backups, and be able to restore to any given time the backup was run. For instance, if the process is run on a daily basis, you should be able to recover a file/directory that was removed 30 or more days ago. I've recovered files that had been removed two years ago with rdiff-backup. It's not necessary for individual users to recover their own stuff, it's enough for root to do it for them. I know about rsync, but it doesn't do the history thing, as far as I know.
Can anyone offer any suggestions?
I backup to a pair of disks in an external enclosure formatted as a btrfs raid1 array. I have written a python script that uses rsync to do the daily backup, followed by a btrfs snapshot of that backup. A variable in the script decides when to delete old, out-of-date snapshots (I use 90 days here). Rsync gives me the granular control I want, by using .rsync-filter files scattered through the folder hierarchy to fine tune what to include/exclude in the backup. I backup stuff like Documents, Pictures, Music to separate destination folders. The btrfs snapshots on the destination are named with a date and time string, which makes them easy to find. You are welcome to a copy, if you think it would help. Bob -- Bob Williams System: Linux 4.1.13-5-default Distro: openSUSE 42.1 (x86_64) with KDE Development Platform: 4.14.10