Hello Jason and welcome to rdiff-backup!
On 06/02/2013 20:07, Jason Sauders
wrote:
Hello! I'm a new user to rdiff-backup and have been
experimenting with it for the better part of two days now. It was
recommended to me by another user who wondered why I was using
rsync exclusively for backing my systems up. Considering
rdiff-backup seems to keep an rsync-esque mirror of current data +
old version archives it stands for good reason as to why this user
questioned my current backup procedures.
I've since done a lot of reading on rdiff-backup, and so far
I like what I see. On the main page here I
see that there's a notation saying: A
remote incremental backup of all your files could be as easy
as
This is interesting, to say the least. I do have to wonder,
even when you take into account what the disclaimer says about
recommended excludes, is it actually "safe" to run rdiff-backup
against a currently running root file system? Is it accurate to
say that I can SSH into my Ubuntu Server 12.04.1 install and as
root run rdiff-backup --exclude /media / /media/external_hdd and
presto, my root drive is backed up (while ignoring media) and I
can run rdiff-backup -r on a totally different HDD and bingo - I
can be up and running? I just want to make sure I understand the
context before I try something that might be detrimental.
I have never tried that, I have always used rdiff-backup for data
backup, not for systems. The versioning that rdiff-backup offers is
particularly valuable for data files that change over time. I kinda
doubt it would work 'out of the box', too.
Question 2... rdiff-backup has to be installed on both the
client and the server... I get that... but is it important that
they be the same identical version? Will I run into issues if
I'm trying to rdiff-backup an Ubuntu 12.10 systems to an Ubuntu
12.04 server?
It is advisable to have the same version, in practice you should use
1.2.8 (as I do) or 1.3.3. I am not sure if they will work together
but why make it difficult by trying?
Question 3... I see that there hasn't been much development
on rdiff-backup for a few years now. Is that due to the 70
updated releases fixing all of the bugs? Is that to say that the
current version is rock solid stable? The fact that there's an
experimental version that is seemingly untouched is food for
thought to contradict that, though...
Development of rdiff-backup is dead because the previous maintainer
went away and no one took over. Both 1.2.8 (stable) and 1.3.3
(unstable) are in practice stable and effective in many scenarios.
There are situations where problems can arise, many of them
involving a Windows destination, which are best avoided (you can
backup data *from* Windows).
Last question - With my backup procedure, I only wanted to
back up Documents and Pictures to my server. Since rdiff-backup
includes everything by default, it appears as if the only way to
make it work was to run --exclude '**' as part of the command.
Is that exclude entry essentially telling the command "Exclude
everything.... EXCEPT these two includes Documents + Pictures"?
Or am I misunderstanding it? I just didn't see too much
highlighted info about --exclude '**' so I wanted to run that by
this list and see what you folks thought.
I'm not clear whether you mean you want to back up everything in
your Documents and Pictures folders, or just some particular file
types (docx, jpg etc)? If you just want to backup particular folders
I suggest you create separate repositories for each folder. The
--exclude-globbing-filelist option might help you too.
--
TimeDicer: Free
File Recovery from Whenever |
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