Hi Scasey,

I followed the link, it goes to Github and I have no experience in building such an app from source code.
Is there somehere a .deb installation, or a package?

It looks exactly what I am after but...

Thanks
Alex

The link lead to this https://rsnapshot.org/download.html and you can get packages there. You are using Ubuntu, correct? If so, it should be in the software repositories. It is Linux Mint's.

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rsnapshot is in the major distro repositories. Just install it from Synaptic package manager, or from the command line using apt.

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Yes.It's in the epel for fedora/centos too. Definitely should be able to install it with the package manager.

We use it to backup the production servers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The last shop I worked in ran it every two hours, which was very helpful if someone accidentally blew away a bunch of files on the development server.

Sorry, I am very new here. When I click the link, It takes me to:
https://rsnapshot.org/download.html
So, I select the Ubuntu , it takes me here:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?k...ll&section=all
I select focal (20.04LTS) - it takes me here:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/rsnapshot

Now, I am lost... I also found the rsnapshot-1.4.3 tar.gz
When I extract, it has all the source code in it...

Nowhere I can find an installation file.
It seems anyway that it is a Terminal only app - not a GUI package

What am I missing?

Cheers
Alex

You do not need an installation file. The link provided was just for information. Install rsnapshot with your package manager. In Ubuntu, that should be Synaptic.

You can install it using apt . You do not need any installation file, just the package manger, it is in the repos

I used the package manager, it is still just a Terminal / command line app

Thanks
Alex

Yes it is. As has been mentioned, if you want to automate copies/backups, you'll need to do that at the command line.

What rsnapshot provides is the wrapper to manage incremental backups using a config file, avoiding having to understand all the features of rsync or how to use cron.

The top level tree of my snapshots tree looks like this:

I can see the final result, but have no idea how to create the script for it...

I want to backup in original file format, documents, spreadsheets, pdf, images etc.... From source to destination (external drive) once a day at say 8:00pm and keep 7 versions, so there will be one backup on Sunday, one on Monday etc...

Thnaks
Alex

You're going to have to roll up your sleeves, put your big boy pants on, and go to school. You need to learn to do this stuff for yourself. Start by reading these pages thoroughly:
https://linuxconfig.org/guide-to-rsn...ckups-on-linux
https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/tools-rsnapshot
https://linux.die.net/man/1/rsnapshot
https://ostechnix.com/a-beginners-guide-to-cron-jobs/
https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...ks-ubuntu-1804
The config file at /etc/rsnapshot.conf on your computer

Your system is different from anyone else's, and so are your preferences, so things have to be tailored to yours. There is no GUI program that can do what you want, so you have to get your hands dirty and use the command line for a few things. It ain't rocket science, and if I can do it, so can you, with some experience. That will take time, but it's worth it. You've spent years learning Windows, so a few hours for Linux isn't unreasonable. If you have specific questions on individual tasks, first read the manual or help file, use Google, and come back if you truly can't find what you need. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I see no other options at this point.

OK S, I did the following:

00 20 * * 1 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 2 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 3 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 4 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 5 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 6 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly
00 20 * * 7 rsync -a /home/alex/alexfolders /media/New-SD-512/weekly

The intention (I hope I got it right) is:
1) One backup each day at 8:00 PM
2) Each backup is done on a different day each week, this gives me 7 versions
3) Each Sunday, the previous Sunday backup is overriden...

Now, I went to Terminal, typed in crontab -e (Ubuntu 20.04) Selected the default editor - nano.
Pasted the above text into it (after clearing the text it had)
CTRL+X, the y, then accepted the name crontab and hit ENTER

Then, back to command prompt, typed crontab -l and the content I entered showed up.

Is all this correct?

Thanks for pushing me

Cheers
Alex

That will overwrite each backup, since they are all going to the same folder, /media/New-SD-512/weekly. To keep separate backups for each day, you need a separate folder for each. That's why this method gets messy, but it should work. You can put 7 subfolders under weekly, say 1, 2, 3, etc.
Sunday == 0, through Saturday == 6. There is no 7, which would be the 8th day of the week. You can name the destination folders anything you like - a number, the text day of the week, whatever you can remember best. The destination folders must exist before running rsync.

You’ll need to read the documentation for rsnapshot to learn how to configure and run it. As it automagically creates a different directory for each run, it will do exactly what you’re asking. If you don’t want weekly or monthly backups, simply don’t configure them.

Another feature of rsnapshot is that if a file is the same today as it was yesterday, it links to yesterday’s copy instead of copying the file again. This saves both time and space on the backup system.

Note that you’ll need to learn one way or the other. As noted, the documentation is on the web as well as in the man pages for the tools. We tend not to repeat here what you can read for yourself.

One other thought: Rather than asking if something will work, just try it and see what happens.

I think rsnapshot is a better option, but really it's just a front-end for rsync. Either can get the job done. And I agree that trying it and seeing what happens is the best way to go. Blowing things up and putting them back together again is an excellent way to learn things, and one tends to remember those things better through that process. I cannot count the number of times I've borked my systems over the years. Sometimes it was frustrating, but I always learned something from it. Often I learned a lot.

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