rsync - May 2010 - command line to backup my documents to external drive

I'm really confused with all the examples out there and all different types
of incremental backups. I tried several scripts but cannot reduce the size
of my backup folders. What I want is to backup my documents to my external
drive every month and save as much disk space as possible.

 Lets say I have 3 backup directories in the external drive, backup03.10,
backup04.10 and backup05.10. I want to:

1) keep old files in backup03.10 that have been deleted in May, and hence
are not in backup05.10
2) use symbolic or hard links for files or directories that have not been
modified
3) files that were modified in May must be in backup05.10 whereas the old
versions in backup03.10 and backup04.10, with those in backup04.10 being
symbolic links (if possible)

Please someone help me with this or point me to the right example.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/attachments/20100514/664ddbcd/attachment.html>

Well,

You may look at:

http://www.howtoforge.com/backing-up-with-rsync-and-managing-previous-versions-history

I've written it. Very simple and comprehensive to setup.
It's easy to setup when doing a local backup, it's getting more
difficult when backing up to a remote host.

Stef

PS in this howto backing up to a remote rsync server contains an
error. I'll report about that here in an other mail


2010/5/14 Thomas Evangelidis <tevang3 at
gmail.com>:
> I'm really confused with all the examples out there and all different
types
> of incremental backups. I tried several scripts but cannot reduce the size
> of my backup folders. What I want is to backup my documents to my external
> drive every month and save as much disk space as possible.
>
> ?Lets say I have 3 backup directories in the external drive, backup03.10,
> backup04.10 and backup05.10. I want to:
>
> 1) keep old files in backup03.10 that have been deleted in May, and hence
> are not in backup05.10
> 2) use symbolic or hard links for files or directories that have not been
> modified
> 3) files that were modified in May must be in backup05.10 whereas the old
> versions in backup03.10 and backup04.10, with those in backup04.10 being
> symbolic links (if possible)
>
> Please someone help me with this or point me to the right example.
>
> --
> Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list.
> To unsubscribe or change options:
> https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync
> Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>

> I'm really confused with all the examples out there and all different
types of incremental backups. I tried several scripts but cannot reduce the size
of my backup folders. What I want is to backup my documents to my external drive
every month and save as much disk space as possible.
> 
>  Lets say I have 3 backup directories in the external drive, backup03.10,
backup04.10 and backup05.10. I want to:
> 
> 1) keep old files in backup03.10 that have been deleted in May, and hence
are not in backup05.10
> 2) use symbolic or hard links for files or directories that have not been
modified
> 3) files that were modified in May must be in backup05.10 whereas the old
versions in backup03.10 and backup04.10, with those in backup04.10 being
symbolic links (if possible)
You may want to have a look at LBackup : <http://www.lbackup.org>

Although hard-linking is part of the way LBackup works to reduce backup size,
please be aware that there are other ways to reduce the backup set size which
are not implemented in the current version of LBackup.

If you are interested to see if LBackup is a possible solution without
installing it onto your system and giving it a try, please consider watching an
LBackup screen cast. The screen cast called "Basic Backup Local
Machine" is probably the most relevant to you :
<http://www.lbackup.org/screencasts>

In addition, I would suggest looking at Mike Rubel's article which relates
to snapshot-style backups with rsync :
<http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/>

Finally, currently there is a ".pkg" installer for Mac OS X and a
".deb" installer for Debian and derivative systems (with support for
dpkg). However, provided you are running a *NIX system you should be able to
easily install LBackup from the source code. Instructions, relating to
installing LBackup onto almost any *NIX platform that supports rsync is
available from : <http://www.lbackup.org/source>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
This email is protected by LBackup, an open source backup solution.
http://www.lbackup.org