Backup

rsync

Dry run

• --dry-run https://www.tecmint.com/rsync-local-remote-file-synchronization-commands/
• -n https://linux.die.net/man/1/rsync

rsync -avn master.bioconductor.org::release

Copy large file

If we need to copy large file (say > 4GB), we shall

1. format USB drive to NTFS (exFat seems not work)
2. Run rsync --progress source dest
3. Run sync

The last step (rsync) is important. We can use sudo iotop to check if rsync is finished or not.

speed comparison of cp vs rsync

BigData basic: copy & delete folder containing large number of files

Incremental backup: --link-dest

rsync -aP --link-dest=PATHTO/$PREVIOUSBACKUP $SOURCE $CURRENTBACKUP

• Time Machine for every Unix out there
• Automating backups on a Raspberry Pi NAS
• How to use advanced rsync for large Linux backups

rsync with exclude files/directories

See http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/01/rsync-exclude-files-and-folders/. The key is excluded files are relative to the current directory even we specify the absolute path. For example /path1/path2/file does not mean the file is located under /path1/path2; it means the file is located under ./path1/path2.

rsync -avz --exclude '/path1/path2/file' source/ destination/

We add add multiple --exclude to exclude more files/directories.

rsync to exclude hidden files/directories

--exclude=".*"  # exclude both hidden files and directories
--exclude ".*"  # same as above

--exclude ".*/" # exclude hidden directories ONLY

--exclude ".DS_Store"

--exclude ".git" # exclude .git directory ONLY; relative to the directory to be synchronized.

rsync with -a option

The -a flag in there stands for “archive,” and it’s important to include. It makes sure that the sync command is recursive (meaning any sub-folders and files inside of old_movies are copied too) and it’s important for preserving all of those modification dates, symbolic links, permissions, and other goodies we talked about earlier.

rsync with non-standard port

Use -e option

rsync -avz -e "ssh -p 23" mydir user@remoteip:

rsync with progress bar

Use --progress option.

rsync -avz --progress file1 file2

The 'rsync' command works on transferring files local to local too.

Or it is better to use -P option which is the same as --partial --progress. When it is used you’ll get a progress dialog at the command line that shows you which file is currently transferring, what percentage of that transfer is complete, and how many more files are left to check. As each file completes, you’ll see an ever-growing list of completed file transfers, which is great for making sure everything transfers successfully. It also allows you to easily resume suspended or interrupted transfers. Combined, you can see how it’ll show you which file was the last one to go, where it failed, and if it failed, give you the option to resume. It’s a pretty powerful combination.

rsync on Windows

Download and install command line rsync from http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/windows_rsync.html. The website also provides a documentation. Some people are concern about the license issue. The website here provides a link to the free, old but usable version 4.0.5 which is newer than I tested v3.1.0.

Below are my note by using cwrsync v3.1.0 installer got from http://www.rsync.net.

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\cwRsync\bin
ssh-keygen -t rsa -N ''
rsync -av "/cygdrive/c/Users/brb/.ssh/id_rsa.pub" [email protected]:.ssh/authorized_keys

rsync -av "/cygdrive/c/Users/brb/Downloads/cytokineMC.txt" [email protected]:Downloads/

rsync and its GUIs programs

How to Back Up Your Linux System

13 open source backup solutions

13 open source backup solutions

• 6 tools: Cronopete, Deja Dup, Rclone, Rdiff-backup, Restic, and Rsync.
• 13 tools: BorgBackup, UrBackup, LuckyBackup, Casync, Syncthing, Duplicati, Dirvish, Bacula, BackupPC, Amanda, Back in Time, Timeshift, Kup.

rdiff-backup

rdiff-backup. See

• Turn your old Raspberry Pi into an automatic backup server
• rdiff-backup – A Remote Incremental Backup Tool for Linux

Dropbox

If we don't want to install dropbox software, we can install bash dropbox uploader: http://www.andreafabrizi.it/?dropbox_uploader OR https://github.com/andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader

It allows to upload/download/delete/list files and show info of user. The version I am using is v0.9.7. It works on linux, Windows/Cygwin, Raspberry Pi, etc.

I install it under ~/Downloads/andreafabrizi-Dropbox-Uploader-cdc2466 directory

Instruction with screenshots: http://www.jobnix.in/dropbox-command-line-interface-cli-client/

Sample usages:

./dropbox_uploader.sh  list /
./dropbox_uploader.sh  upload ~/Desktop/ConfigurateNote.txt

Clone

4 Methods To Clone Your Linux Hard Drive

1. dd can clone an entire HDD or disk partition
2. Partimage. partimage does not support the ext4 filesystem
3. Partclone
4. Clonezilla

back up DVDs

See Create an iso file from a DVD/CD

back up a remote drive using SSH and save the resulting archive to your local machine

# ssh [email protected] "dd if=/dev/sda | gzip -1 -" | dd of=backup.gz

where "-1" (one) indicates the fastest compression method and the dash means ‘standard input’.

Backups vs. Archives

How to Archive Your Data (Virtually) Forever

Delete files or directories older than XXX days

Suppose we have a cron job to run backup and that creates a lot of directories. We like to erase them to avoid our system running out of space. You can run a space-checking program that'll alert you when the filesystem is low on free space. In addition we can run a cron job that uses find to erase all files.

cp -p -r ~/Downloads/SomeOldDirectory /tmp/
ls -lt /tmp
# List only
# Older than 2 days. Note the plus sign after "-mtime".
# Quotes in "{}" is to deal with names with spaces
find /tmp -type d -mtime +2 -exec ls -ld "{}" +

find /tmp -type d -mtime +2 -exec rm -rf "{}" +  
# Or if we don't mind some extra warning messages
# find /tmp -type d -mtime +2 -exec rm -rf "{}" \;
ls -lt /tmp

See

• How to find and delete directory recursively on Linux or Unix-like system
• How to delete all files before a certain date in Linux
• Avoding server disaster

Timeshift

• How To Backup And Restore Linux With Timeshift
• Linux TimeShift for Backup Tutorial

Vorta (BorgBackup GUI)

• Securely And Efficiently Backup Data On Linux Or macOS With Vorta (BorgBackup GUI), Vorta BorgBackup GUI Now Available For Install On Linux From Flathub
• BorgBackup
• Vorta

CloudBerry

CloudBerry Backup Protects Files on Windows, Mac, and Linux

Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab

We can use these git services to get real-time data (eg temperature, IP, etc).