Back Up with rsync

[Patton Echols]

On 01/15/2010 05:37 AM, Karl F. Larsen wrote:
> Jozsef wrote:
>   
>> On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:37:15 +0400, Karl F. Larsen <klarsen1 at gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>>   [snip]
>>>
>>>   rsync -avz / --exclude-from=/home/karl/bin/exclude-list
>>> /media/disk/backup94
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Good. Thanks for this. Will give it a try. But I want to ask what's the  
>> way you are restoring your files in case you need them? Would be nice to  
>> have that part of commands in details like we got your commands for  
>> backing up.
>> Thank you.
>>
>>     
>
> 	The rebuild is simple. If you loose a couple of files, you 
> find those files EXACTLY where they were on the backup. Use cp 
> -a filename if permissions allow, otherwise sudo cp -a.
>
> 	If you have a new hard drive because the old one died,  just 
> cp the whole system into the SAME partition on the new hard 
> drive and you will be up and running in 15 minutes.
>
> 73 Karl
>
>
>   


I believe you can also simply "reverse" the rsync command.  Careful to 
read the man pages for what you want rsync to do.  Example, you can 
instruct rsync to replace older files, newer files, files of different 
size, etc, but if the time stamp and file size are the same, then 
ignore.  The exact command you would give depends on exactly what you 
want to accomplish.

<disclaimer> I am operating from memory here.  For exact capabilities, 
see the man page </disclaimer>

The point is that, because rsync is designed to work over networks, it 
is oriented to only transferring files that have changed in some way.