Skip to main content

Differential Backups Made Simple

To backup or not to backup.  That is the question.

Who likes to make backups? Anyone, Anyone?

Hmm, I thought so...

Versioned Backups
I prefer to make backups with very simple tools, since when things go south, I don't want to have to install a complicated system just to get my data back.

Most UNIX backup systems are based on rsync and by using a careful system of  hard links (multiple new names for the same old file), differential backups can save you oodles of disk space in the long run, while making it very easy to step through an archive and retrieve specific versions of old files:
https://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
https://popey.com/blog/2020/12/straightforward-linux-backups-with-rsnapshot/

Three for the Price of One
The original article by Mike Rubel describes how to keep three backups for the price of one, using a combination of hard links and rsync. That idea then spawned the rsnapshot (pull) and rdiff-backup (push) scripts.

The method described below, creates three directory trees of all my data for today, some day and who knows when, without using significantly more disk space than a single backup.  One could similarly expand it to five, ten or more backups - it only depends on your use case and forgetfulness. I can browse the tree on the backup server using a common file browser and click-drag-drop a lost/damaged file back to the host.  This is as simple as it gets and just the way I like it.

Since the PSU of my Raspberry Pi server blew up, I now have a little NUC with a 2TB solid state disk that has all my music, movies and backups as a WiFi enabled file server, using this idea to good effect.   (The RPi is fine, it just needs a new USB widget.)

Differential Backup Script
On my MacBook, my backup script is directly based on Mike's and looks like this:
#! /bin/bash
# Rsync to Muzak 192.168.1.250 and keep 3 old hard linked copies.
# Assumes the public key is installed in /home/herman/.ssh
ssh herman@muzak "mv ~/Backups/Herman.3 ~/Backups/Herman.tmp"
ssh herman@muzak "mv ~/Backups/Herman.2 ~/Backups/Herman.3"
ssh herman@muzak "mv ~/Backups/Herman.1 ~/Backups/Herman.2"
ssh herman@muzak "mv ~/Backups/Herman.0 ~/Backups/Herman.1"
ssh herman@muzak "mv ~/Backups/Herman.tmp ~/Backups/Herman.0"
ssh herman@muzak "cp -al ~/Backups/Herman.1/. ~/Backups/Herman.0"
rsync -avze ssh --progress --delete --max-size=20M --exclude "*Trash*" --exclude "*bak" \
--exclude "*old" --exclude "*cache*" --exclude "*Cache*" --exclude "*iso" ~/ herman@muzak:~/Backups/Herman.0/

The script follows the principle of: Include everything and Exclude the cruft. This makes the script maintenance free.

I simply run this little script whenever I feel like it.


La voila!

Herman
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

On topic comments are welcome. Junk will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

OpenEMS with Octave and SciLAB

I wanted to do some advanced RF antenna development work and needed an electromagnetic field solver that is a bit more up to date than NEC2 .  Commercial solvers from Matlab , Ansys and others are hideously expensive (in the order of $20,000 to $50,000) and do not fit in the wallet of a hobbyist or a small consulting company.  Recently, openEMS became available and it fills the niche with a capable free tool.  In general, openEMS is a solver - a Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) numerical engine.  You interact with it through Octave , which is almost identical to Matlab .  You can watch a good video by Thorsten Liebig here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ThMLf0d5gaE   Getting it to work is a little painful, but it is free, so bear with it - then save a backup clone, or a zipped copy of the whole virtual machine directory and NEVER update it, to ensure that it keeps going and doesn't get broken by future updates, right when you are ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Parasitic Quadrifilar Helical Antenna

This article was reprinted in OSCAR News, March 2018:  http://www.amsat-uk.org If you want to receive Satellite Weather Pictures , then you need a decent antenna, otherwise you will receive more noise than picture. For polar orbit satellites, one needs an antenna with a mushroom shaped radiation pattern .  It needs to have strong gain towards the horizon where the satellites are distant, less gain upwards where they are close and as little as possible downwards, which would be wasted and a source of noise.  Most satellites are spin stabilized and therefore the antenna also needs circular polarization, otherwise the received signal will flutter as the antennas rotate through nulls. The helical antenna, first proposed by Kraus in 1948, is the natural solution to circular polarized satellite communications.  It is a simple twisted wire - there seems to be nothing to it.  Various papers have been published on helix antennas, so the operation is pretty well ...
3 comments
Read more

Yagi Antenna for 900 MHz ISM Band

I like tinkering with wire antenna designs, since they are simple and cheap to make.  Mr Yagi invented his antenna about 100 years ago, but there are still some things left to learn about it. 900 MHz ISM Band Yagi The 900 MHz ISM band ranges from 902 to 928 MHz.  Covering the whole band with a single Yagi antenna is difficult, since they are inherently narrow band devices.  Consequently some tweaking is required and the result below is a desensitized design that can be built and replicated quite easily, but you need a network analyzer - "To Measure, is to Know!" A Yagi generally consists of a Reflector, Radiator and one or more Director elements, arranged on a boom.  For a small Yagi, a wooden ruler works a treat, since one can easily mark the position of the wires.  The wire elements are fastened to the bottom of the ruler with hot glue.  The wire elements are  made from straightened out jumbo size paper clips.  The balun, is tw...
Post a Comment
Read more