RLBackup (Rsync Local Backup). An easy way to backup your system

[sloth0815]

Thanks for the quick reply. The rsync command is the following:

rsync -ahvv --log-file=/media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/back-2010-12-03_11-11-34-LOGFILE.txt --link-dest=/media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/current-0 --exclude-from=/home/Jonas/rsync_backupscripts/rlbackup1exclude.txt --stats / /media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/back-2010-12-03_11-11-34

All harddrives are internal ext3 pooled with mhddfs and parity protected with flexraid

[SilverWave]

Thanks for the quick reply. The rsync command is the following:

rsync -ahvv --log-file=/media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/back-2010-12-03_11-11-34-LOGFILE.txt --link-dest=/media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/current-0 --exclude-from=/home/Jonas/rsync_backupscripts/rlbackup1exclude.txt --stats / /media/Data/Backup_Jonas/Server/back-2010-12-03_11-11-34

All harddrives are internal ext3 pooled with mhddfs and parity protected with flexraid

I would set-up a simple plain ext3/ext4 disk (preferably with 10.04 if you have another spare machine) and see if that works first.

[david.macquigg]

I've been using this excellent script for over a year now to back up my entire system, including Ubuntu 10.04 as a host for VirtualBox and two Windows virtual machines. I've had a few problems, and found simple solutions, so I thought I would pass these on and hopefully save someone else a major expense.

The costly problem is my backup drive needed to be replaced, and the link tree which holds all the backups could not be copied to the new drive. The guy at the computer shop said his cloning program (Acronis) saw 90 million files, ran all weekend, and eventually gave up. The unix cp command has the same problem. It creates a separate copy for each link in the tree. After a few hours of futile effort, he gave up, thinking the problem was bad sectors and a corruption of the filesystem.

The solution is to use the command "rsync -aHr". The H option preserves the hard-links.

The second problem happened when I added virtual machines to my setup. VirtualBox keeps these virtual machines in huge files on the host system. RLBackup copies the entire file anytime there is a small change to any file within the VM. The solution I'm using is to exclude the VM files from the backup, and just run a separate backup utility within each virtual machine. I'm using Mozy because it is free while the total backup is less than 2GB, and they don't seem to mind that I have a separate free account for my Windows 7 VM. I don't feel like I am cheating here, because I have a paid account which would easily store the entire system if it could avoid copying the entire VM for every little change.

[SilverWave]

The guy at the computer shop said his cloning program (Acronis) saw 90 million files, ran all weekend, and eventually gave up. The unix cp command has the same problem. It creates a separate copy for each link in the tree. After a few hours of futile effort, he gave up, thinking the problem was bad sectors and a corruption of the filesystem.

The solution is to use the command "rsync -aHr". The H option preserves the hard-links.

Class! that’s is so funny


Glad you liked the script.

[adrian.h]

What is the purpose of sudo -i? What is the need for elevated permissions? Or is this only required for backing up directories that are not directly accessible to you from your logged in permissions?


A

[SilverWave]

What is the purpose of sudo -i? What is the need for elevated permissions? Or is this only required for backing up directories that are not directly accessible to you from your logged in permissions?


A

The following link has some discussion on the subject:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/70534...-sudo-s-sudo-i

su asks for the password of the user "root".
sudo asks for your own password (and also checks if you're allowed to run commands as root, which is configured through /etc/sudoers -- by default all user accounts that belong to the "admin" group are allowed to use sudo).
sudo -s launches a shell as root, but doesn't change your working directory.
sudo -i simulates a login into the root account: your working directory will be /root, and root's .profile etc. will be sourced as if on login.