Backup part 2

[Adam McGreggor]

On Tue, Aug 07, 2007 at 11:02:00PM -0400, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> Neil Winchurst wrote:
[...]

> > Once I have bought the drive, are there any recommendations as to how
> > to best use it please? Which program for example.
> 
> I use rdiff-backup (http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/) to keep a 
> complete mirror of my home directory, along with reverse increments 
> (using the rsync diff algorithm) that allow me to get earlier versions 
> of the files.

Hum, i've had problems with rdiff-backup running on different OSen (even
'tween Debian and Umbungo), which ISTR is documented. Handles well
between different versions of FreeBSD tho' :)

> It's supposed to run nightly, but the automatic backups tend to get 
> interrupted when my computer goes to sleep.  So I run it manually 
> occasionally.

My backups typically use rsync; bit o' bash to specify what and how, and
good ole cron dealing. On the BSD boxes, I use rdiff-backup.

I back-up configs (& their RCS directories) & log files for things I care
about (including dpkg -l output); + data : anything that's bog-standard,
software, or something that can easily be re-created on an install i
see no point wasting (backup) disk-space on.

rdiff's got quite an example-based man page.

If you're using your removable device, just remember to mount it before
doing a backup :) ...