rdup-backups(8) - Linux man page
Name
rdup-backups - introduction into making backups with rdupTodo
A big TODO still applies here. Need to add: rdup-simpleIntroduction
The are two wrappers for rdup to make backups. These are rdup-dump and rdup-snapshot. The first uses one directory per month where backups are dumped, the latter uses a hardlinked backup scheme where each day has its own directory. It is a matter of taste what you want to use. I personally use rdup-snapshot as it gives me more freedom when restoring and it is space efficient, but no more then rdup-dump.
Both wrappers support encryption, compressions and remote backups.
Backing Up with Rdup-snapshot
When using rdup-snapshot the backup process consists out of two phases. During phase one a copy is made of any previous backups backups. This a hardlinked copy, meaning that it will take up very little space. It uses GNU cp to make this copy. See the manual page of rdup-snapshot for more information.
In phase two, rdup-snapshot will only update the files that are changed since the last backup. For these files the hardlink is removed or overwritten with a new version of the file. The net result is that each backup represents a complete view of your filesystem.
For rdup-snapshot two utilities are used: rdup-snapshot it self and rdup-snap. The first is a wrapper script, that will also create the copy of any previous backup and will then call rdup-snap to update this copy.
Rdup Pipeline
Backing Up with Rdup-dump
See the manual page of rdup-dump for more information.Rdup Pipeline
Examples
Local Backup
Snapshotting my homedir to the backup directory:
rdup-snapshot -b /vol/backup/$HOST ~
Snapshotting /var/lib to the backup:
rdup-snapshot -b /vol/backup/$HOST /var/lib
Remote Backup
For a remote backup to work, both the sending machine and the receiving machine must have rdup installed. The currently implemented protocol is ssh.Dumping my homedir to the remote server:
rdup-snapshot -b /vol/backup/$HOST -c miekg@remote ~
Dumping /home to the remote backup:
rdup-snapshot -b /vol/backup/$HOST -c miekg@remote /home
Restore
In principle a restore is as easy as using the standard system tools to copy a directory to another location. However when the -a flag is used extended attributes are set, these are normally not read by the unix utilities. In this case you should restore by using rdup-cp to copy the files to another location.
Backing Up with Rdup-dump
Rdup Pipeline
Examples
Local Backup
Dumping my homedir to the backup directory:rdup-dump -b /vol/backup/$HOST ~
Dumping /var/lib to the backup:
rdup-dump -b /vol/backup/$HOST /var/lib
Remote Backup
Dumping my homedir to the remote server:rdup-dump -b /vol/backup/$HOST -c miekg@remote ~
Dumping /home to the remote backup:
rdup-dump -b /vol/backup/$HOST -c miekg@remote /home