cron runs a nightly job on my main computer to backup some directories to a NAS. I hoped to put a list of the files backup up into one file and errors into a second, but those two files have no entries other than the start and end dates. This is my syntax:

date > /home/xxx/backups
date > /home/xxx/nightly_files
date > /home/xxx/nightly_probs
rsync -avzrcpt /home/xxx/Downloads /media/nas2/xxx 1>>nightly_files 2>>nightly_probs
date >> /home/xxx/backups
date >> /home/xxx/nightly_files
date >> /home/xxx/nightly_probs

What have I done wrong

Since you didn't specify a full path for those files in the rsync command, they will be written in whatever directory you were in when you ran that command, not necessarily /home/xxx/ .

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Thank you very much; don't know how I missed that one.

Whenever I need a rsync script, I download the Debian mirroring package, ftpsync: https://ftp-master.debian.org/ftpsync.tar.gz and modify the scripts to what I want. But bacula is a better back-up program than raw rsync. Also, I think some of your switches are redundant or unnecessary. The -a switch includes rlptgoD.

That's very helpful. I('ve used rsync for years but have learned several new additional methods.

Please have a look at the old and tired documentation?

as it states
With Linux as usual, there is more than 1 way to "get 'er done".

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