Backup Commands

# Local Backups; all backups need to run as root, to capture file metadata
sudo  /usr/bin/rdiff-backup \
        --exclude-sockets --exclude-device-files --exclude-fifos \
        --exclude '**/.cache'  --exclude "$TGT" \
        --include /usr/local --include /etc  --include /root  --include /home \
        --exclude '**'   /       /Backups/
    

# "push" backups using userid: backup5492 to a remote system (aka backup server)
sudo  /usr/bin/rdiff-backup \
        --exclude-sockets --exclude-device-files --exclude-fifos \
        --exclude '**/.cache'  --exclude "$TGT" \
        --include /usr/local --include /etc --include /root --include /home \
        --exclude '**'   /  backup5492@{remote-machine}::/Backups/{remote-machine}


# "Pull" backups using userid: backup5492 from a remote system (backup client)
sudo  /usr/bin/rdiff-backup \
        --exclude-sockets --exclude-device-files --exclude-fifos \
        --exclude '**/.cache'  --exclude "$TGT" \
        --include /usr/local --include /etc \
    --include /root --include /home \
        --exclude '**'   backup5492@{remote-machine}::/ \
        /Backups/{remote-machine}
    
# Using LVM/btrfs snapshots are not covered here.
    

Remove Old Backup Sets

DAYS=120
sudo /usr/bin/rdiff-backup --remove-older-than "$DAYS"  --force /Backups/

Notes:

• backup5492 is a "root-equiv" account (uid=0) setup to accept specific rdiff-backup commands.
• remote-machine implies a client or backup server are involved
• --exclude-sockets - prevents reading from sockets.
• --exclude-device-files - prevents reading from files like /dev/zero which never stop producing output
• --exclude-fifos - prevents reading from files that are used for IPC between different programs
• rdiff-backup works best by excluding everything, then including / and the specific directories in the backup command.

2023-Backup-How-To

Last Update: 2023-06-15