Arch Linux

pittaxx

Member

Registered: 2010-10-16

Posts: 5

need help with backup (rdiff?) + compression

Basically I have started looking in various ways to backup my system.
rdiff-backup cough my eye, because as I see it it's rather simple and supports incremental backups which I consider a nice feature to have.

The first question would be about the compression. If i understood it correctly rdiff keeps uncompressed mirror of selected files (as it can be restored with simple cp).
If that is the case, what would be the most sensible way to compress the backup?
Or is there another tool that does both compression and incremental backups (I use kde, but i'd rather prefer a command line tool)?

The second question would be, what should be excluded from full system backup?

I am using separate partitions for root, /boot, /var, /home.
/storage is a separate hard disk for large multimedia files, backups etc.

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: need help with backup (rdiff?) + compression

Personally I use rsync with the -z option. You can even set the level of compression. If you are happy to re-install packages after a severely broken system then I would just backup /home and /etc and /storage.

---

Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

rwd

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 664

Re: need help with backup (rdiff?) + compression

Unlike rdiff-backup rsync doesn't keep older snapshots. Rdiff compresses the snapshots as the manpage says, but not the current/latest. I have never bothered with compression as diskspace is so cheap.

As far as excluding stuff is concerned this is the 'exclude' part of the rdiff-script that backups my whole system to my NAS. The folders that don't have any files in them   but system generated stuff such as /dev , /sys and /proc have no reason to be backuped. Anything that can be regenerated such as thumbnails, and cache are safe to exclude as well . The rest is personal preference.

--exclude /dev \
--exclude /media \
--exclude /mnt \
--exclude '/home/*/.cache' \
--exclude '/home/**/Cache' \
--exclude '/home/*/.gvfs' \
--exclude '/home/*/.local/share/Trash/files' \
--exclude '/home/*/.thumbnails' \
--exclude '/home/*/.Trash' \
--exclude /var/cache/pacman/pkg \
--exclude /var/log \
--exclude /proc \
--exclude /sys \
--exclude /tmp \

Last edited by rwd (2010-10-18 18:49:12)

SanskritFritz

Member

From: Budapest, Hungary

Registered: 2009-01-08

Posts: 1,924

Website

Re: need help with backup (rdiff?) + compression

The authors of rdiff-backup probably saw the shortcomings of this otherwise excellent backup program, and wrote duplicity. It supports compression, encryption, incremental backups, and a plethora of backends, including imap, which makes even backing up to gmail a childs play. Especially if you use duply as wrapper.
http://trick77.com/2010/01/03/backup-a- … -to-gmail/
Dont forget though, that when you backup with rdiff-backup, you will be able to get the latest snapshot by any means like cp, because it is simply a mirror with increments included. Using duplicity, the only way to restore your files at any state is with duplicity itself. I personally dont see this as a problem, but others might.

Last edited by SanskritFritz (2010-10-17 11:59:14)

---

zʇıɹɟʇıɹʞsuɐs AUR || Cycling in Budapest with a helmet camera || Revised log levels proposal: "FYI" "WTF" and "OMG" (John Barnette)

jdarnold

Member

From: Medford MA USA

Registered: 2009-12-15

Posts: 485

Website

Re: need help with backup (rdiff?) + compression

how do these solutions match up with Flyback?

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=14575