rdiff-backup howto and script

[nanotube]

to set a different sudo timout, see this thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=179048
(it can be set in /etc/sudoers)

that NOPASSWD sudoers entry should allow you to run rdiff-backup without sudo... does in not work?

i wrote the script so that i don't have to retype all those exclude options etc, all i have to do is launch the script.

i didn't care to have it run unattended, because it was backing up to a usb drive, with wasn't always connected - only when i needed to do a backup. if you need it to run unattended, then obviously there is more to be done (ie, all that sudoers tweaking)

[hollerith]

that NOPASSWD sudoers entry should allow you to run rdiff-backup without sudo... does in not work?

I wasn't sure if it was just because I had just done a sudo. I had originally tried to

sudo chmod 4755 `which rdiff-backup`

but still got permissions problems on the destination!

i wrote the script so that i don't have to retype all those exclude options etc, all i have to do is launch the script.

I was just saying that you could put all those excludes in a globbing file on the destination instead. But I like this way too.

Incidentally, what I'm doing is weird anyway - I'm running the script from xscreensaver so that I get 'many and often'. I tend to work in bursts so its like an autosave/undo option!

Also, I use quoted excludes with wildcards so I get empty directories on the destination.

#!/bin/bash

sudo rdiff-backup --print-statistics --exclude '/media/*' --exclude '/proc/*' --exclude '/tmp/*' --exclude '/dev/*' --exclude '/sys/*' --exclude /root/.cache --exclude '/var/log/*' / /media/Maxtor/backups &

I'd be interested to hear other peoples exclude lists for 'everything essential' and perhaps some examples with ignoring types of files.

I was going to give this point and drool interface for rdiff-backup called pybackpack a go too but this howto is so easy anyway why bother?

Thanks for the link BTW (and of course the great howto!)

[shane2peru]

This is old, but I wonder if anyone has used this and restored without problems? I started looking into rdiff again, and like what it offers, better than the tar method. Wondered if anyone had successfully restored their system with this.

Shane