rsync equivalent to mv --backup=numbered
 

Dear LQ,

How do you rsync files to remote location AND save a backup copy of overwritten files ? I was hoping to find something similar to mv's --backup=numbered version. The end result on the target host would look like :

file.1
file.2
file.3

From the rsync manual page:
This is not quite what you want. I don't know if it is possible to create several versions of old destination files like in your example, but the continuation of the above paragraph contains the sentence "This will prevent previously backed-up files from being deleted".

Not the function of rsync. A simple search should have turned up rsnapshot or its contemporaries.

Taking a slightly lateral approach, it looks a bit like you want a different backup for eg each day ?
In which case, use target dirs named for each day (or date etc), which means you'd always have a 'few' backups/originals.
It really depends on the exact effect you are after; keep 2 systems in sync+backups, or just backups...

+1 for rsnapshot...an easy to configure wrapper for rsync to create/maintain multi-generational backups.

Not the function of mv too I suppose.

It's the closest solution I have found, but that means hacking the --backup-dir option with a $(date --some-options) for eg.

A simple file copy from A to B, while keeping B's original file. I turned to rsync since OpenSSH says not to use scp anymore.

So why not just use cp? You could write a script, or just put the entire statement in the crontab. I think a script would be preferable. Get the day of the week, use that as a variable to choose the folder to receive the cp.

'cp' just works locally (unless you pipe through netcat / nc ?).
Apart from that though, yes - grab the day name from the date cmd and write a script for cron to call.

Otoh, if you literally just want to backup some files from A to B, and overwrite previous copies (without disturbing B copy of the files), then the above sans the 'day' bit.

Just designate a dir on B to save A's files and rsync or whatever to there.
You could even mount the dir on B onto A and use a 'local' cp ;)

If you want secure, see sshfs :)

PS I'm assuming the machines are 'close enough' that remote mounting is practical (think timeouts on long distance cxns) .

Thank you all folks, the easiest would be to use rsync --backup-dir, but if I take only the "day" portion of it that means I can only have a single backup per day. Anyway, marking this as solved.

If you want to back up more often than once per day, there are ways to do that. You could do it hourly and have a directory for each hour. You can get the hour of the day easily enough. Or just name the directory with a number which rotates between 1 and the number of backups you want. 1.1, 1.2, etc. It depends on the frequency of backups, and the number you want to keep.

Exactly what my question asks, and exactly what mv --backup=numbered does.