[SOLVED] rsync, crontab and backing up files

trucutu · 04-11-2011, 03:47 PM

This is a quick one, I don't have any problems yet, I just want to check that this is going to do what I think it is. I added the line

Code:

00 01 * * * rsync -avz --delete /local-storage /mnt/usbackup

to my crontab file, am I to understand that this will backup /local-storage to my external HD mounted on /mnt/usbackup every day at 0100?

Also, will rsync ignore files that haven't changed? Or will it copy everything every day regardless?

Thank you!

sibe · 04-11-2011, 04:13 PM

Hi,

well, yes your crontab will incrementally-backup /local-storage to /mnt/usbackup. Just make sure your external HD really mounted on /mnt/usbackup, 0100 oclock every day. Rsync will leave any unchanged dir/file untouched.

And if you didn't plan to actually watch you rsync in action, I suggest you to exclude the -v option, as it will verbosely spit out the process to the monitor when rsync got executed.

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sibe

jlinkels · 04-11-2011, 04:18 PM

Use -auz instead of -avz as rsync option.
Adding -u means just the updated files.
Removing -v means rsync output is not verbose, you probably don't want that.

You have to be sure that the USB device is mounted, otherwise you will be backing up you entire disk to the mount point which then IS your disk. Results are not pretty. Refer to this post of mine:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...3/#post4232330
I call my script from cron instead of running rsync from cron.

jlinkels

sibe · 04-11-2011, 04:27 PM

One more thing, I don't see any particular advantages of doing a -z (compress) option in a locally mounted dir. With a huge file to backup, this option tends to be *really* slow.

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sibe

trucutu · 04-11-2011, 06:17 PM

I have properly mounted the external drive and added it to the fstab file so it gets mounted automatically.

So as you guys comment, compression doesn't really give me anything so how about this

Code:

00 01 * * * rsync -avu --delete /local-storage /mnt/usbackup > backup.log

and I'll ahver a log of the last run.

This is helpful thanks!