Arch Linux

stork92

Member

Registered: 2013-02-03

Posts: 1

rsync

Please correct me if I am wrong

I am reading a number of batch scripts for backup pupose, or about backintime, or about a script that will move the firefox profile to ramfs while maintaining an intermittent copy on the hard drive,

All these use rsync in what they call is some sort of "snapshot" mode
but really it is not a snapshot, in  that while the rsync happens, writes on the disk are not inhibited

A file system like zfs would be needed for that purpose

which in turns implies that all these "backups" are likely to be inconsistent in some way (unless precautions are taken to ensure no change to any of the files)

Or did I miss something ? Is rsync capable of some "real" snapshot ?

thanks

olive

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2008-06-22

Posts: 1,490

Re: rsync

Please correct me if I am wrong

I am reading a number of batch scripts for backup pupose, or about backintime, or about a script that will move the firefox profile to ramfs while maintaining an intermittent copy on the hard drive,

All these use rsync in what they call is some sort of "snapshot" mode
but really it is not a snapshot, in  that while the rsync happens, writes on the disk are not inhibited

A file system like zfs would be needed for that purpose

which in turns implies that all these "backups" are likely to be inconsistent in some way (unless precautions are taken to ensure no change to any of the files)

Or did I miss something ? Is rsync capable of some "real" snapshot ?

thanks

Don't think so. rsync is not atomic on the file system. I don't think such tool is possible without a proper support from the filesystem. You will have the same problem with other tools such as cp -a