I think this is a problem in the fact that * never includes anything beginning wth . character. To do this, you need to back up a superior directory to the Mail directory and that will work -- I do it all the time.
Hope this helps. on Monday 06/01/2009 Cybertinus([email protected]) wrote > Hello everybody, > > This is my first post to this mailing list, so I hope I don't ask to many > stupid > questions ;). And also a short introduction: > I'm Cybertinus, a 22 year old IT-student from The Netherlands. I tend to > fiddle > around a bit with computers at home. Just playing a bit with Linux server > aimed > for server usage. Applications like Apache and MySQL, but also Nagios or > Snort. > Just to find out what it takes to get a secure, stable server up and > running. > And one of the most important parts of secure and stable is backups. And at > my > desktop at home I use rdiff-backup for the backups. > And when I create a new topic on a mailinglist or forum, I always seam to > manage > that is becomes a very long post :p, sry for that ;). > > First let me explain what my backup plan is :) (you can skip this paragraph > if > you are only interested in the problem I have ;) ). I have 3 external > harddrives. The first one is mounted on /backup and rdiff-backup writes the > complete backup to that directory (well, /backup/snapshots actually). > The second disk is also connected to my computer, but then at the mountpoint > /backup_sync. 15 minutes after rdiff-backup has updated the backup on > /backup I > use rsync to copy everything from /backup to /backup_sync (why? I tell you > in a > bit ;) ) > The third disk is at my grandma's place, for external backup. Even when my > house > burns down, my data is safe :). > Once every week I disconnect the disk which was mounted at /backup and take > that > to my grandma. The disk that was there I take back home with me, and gets > connected to /backup_sync. The disk that was at /backup_sync already moved > to > /backup, when the original disk at /backup was disconnected. This way I can > rotate my disks and can I make incremental backups at my computer, and I > have > all the time in the world to swap the disks at my grandma's place :). > I've written a little script to automate the backup. I've created 3 > backupsets: > the first set backups my most important directories every hour to my > external > disk, the first set backups the little bit less important directories every > day > and the rest of the data I want to keep gets backuped in the third set, once > a week. > > My problem I have with rdiff-backup is that it seams to ignore hidden files > (files or directories that start with a .) when it creates a incremental > backup. > I use Courier IMAP as a mailserver and the mails are stored in a maildir. So > I've got directories like ~/mail/.CybertinusNl.site1, > ~/mail/.CybertinusNl.site2, etc. But those directories don't get incremented > when I run rdiff-backup again. I've added a new maildir today > (~/mail/.CybertinusNl.Backup) but that directory doesn't show up in the > output > directory of rdiff-backup. > > I've written a script to make the configuration an generation of my backups > very > easy. This scripts is actually multiple files. The main file I called > rdiff-main, and I've placed in /usr/sbin. It looks like this (don't mind the > comments in the beginning, it is Dutch text, explaining the meaning of the > script and stuff, nothing important): > #!/bin/bash > > # Handige optie om incrementeel te backuppen... > # local of remote (default via ssh). > # Ik vind het handiger dan rsync of rsnapshot. > > # Home: http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup > # Voor Debian: in de repository > # Voor Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS: bij Dag Wieers > # Voor Gentoo: in Porage > # Orgineel script: http://www.mrleejohn.nl/downloads/rdiff.txt > > DEST="/backup/snapshots" > > if [ -x /etc/rdiff-backup/rdiff-$1 ] ; then > source /etc/rdiff-backup/rdiff-$1 > else > echo "The file rdiff-$1 doesn't exist. Please fix your config" 1>&2 > exit 1 > fi > > cd / > for dir in $DIRS ; do > echo "Starting backup of $dir" > rdiff-backup --create-full-path $dir "$DEST/$1/$dir" > rdiff-backup --remove-older-than $TIME_SAVED "$DEST/$1/$dir" > echo "Done backing up $dir" > done > > As you can see, the script requires one argument, which defines which file > needs > to be included. That argument can be 'hourly' for example. > /etc/rdiff-backup/rdiff-hourly looks like this: > #!/bin/bash > > export DIRS='/home/mysql /home/svn /home/cybertinus/bash > /home/cybertinus/localhost /home/cybertinus/mail' > export TIME_SAVED='2D' > > So, just a configuration file, nothing fancy. But a neat way to create > different > backupsets ;). > When I first created the backup everything gets copied, but now I need it to > increment the existing backup, but I don't see anything happening at > /backup/snapshots/hourly/home/cybertinus/mail. The new directories don't get > visible. > > I've searched the manpage, the wiki and the mailinglist, but nothing told me > anything about those hidden directories. I found one post on the mailinglist > that told a user that you can use --exclude '**/.*' to skip all the hidden > files. So I added --include '**/.*' to my main script, but then I got an > error > that rdiff-backup includes everything right away, so adding --include wasn't > needed and that I probably meant something else, so the script just exited > :(. > I also tried adding --backup-mode (with and without --force), but to no > avail, > the hidden directories still get ignored. > When I look at the directory with rdiff-backup -l > /backup/snapshots/hourly/home/cybertinus/mail I see that it created a new > snapshot. And normal files also got updated. > > So, am I doing something wrong with rdiff-backup? Or don't I understand what > I > see in /backup/snapshots/hourly/home/cybertinus/mail? The last thing is very > well possible, I just started using rdiff-backup (I used rsnapshot before > this, > but that wasn't exactly what I needed, and before that I didn't make any > backups). > > Thnx in advance for every reply :). > > Best regards, > Cybertinus > > > _______________________________________________ > rdiff-backup-users mailing list at [email protected] > http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users > Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki -- Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is: How do you spend it? John Covici [email protected] _______________________________________________ rdiff-backup-users mailing list at [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki
