automatic rsync mirroring fears

RodWC · 07-16-2006, 06:41 PM

I have a server with rsync running nightly as a cron job to backup/mirror one disk to another, ie:

Code:

rsync -au /mnt/Disk-1 /mnt/Disk-3/Disk-1_backup

This works fine, but I'd like to add the --delete option so I wouldn't have to do that manually. The reason I haven't done it is fairly simple: if something happens to "Disk-1", and it becomes unmounted (perhaps unmountable), all that mirrored data will be erased from "Disk-3", and the backup will have done me no good. Is there a way to use the --delete option, but keep it from running if "Disk-1" would not be mounted?

Thanks

macemoneta · 07-16-2006, 06:55 PM

This should do it:

Code:

DISK1=`/bin/mount | /bin/grep "Disk-1"`
if [ "$DISK1" == "" ]
then
   echo "Disk-1 not mounted, rsync skipped"
else
   rsync -au /mnt/Disk-1 /mnt/Disk-3/Disk-1_backup
fi

nattflyger · 07-16-2006, 07:03 PM

My setup is similar, I back up a remote SMB share using rsync. I got the solution to this problem from Vector Linux's Support Forum. The backup is launced from a script:

##! /bin/bash
entries="$(ls -A "/share_source")"
if [ -z "$entries" ]
then
echo "Network connection to server lost. Backup aborted" > /error_file
else

rsync -avub --delete /share_source /share_destination

Matir · 07-17-2006, 12:04 AM

I think the mount-based one would work better on the event you need to have a new disk for the remote site or something similar.

If you have the space, you could keep 2 (alternating) copies on the backup server, so even if one gets blown away, the other would still be good.