Guillermo Zaandam

Rsync back-ups

rsync — a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool

Some of the additional features of rsync are:

  • support for copying links, devices, owners, groups, and permissions
  • exclude and exclude-from options similar to GNU tar
  • a CVS exclude mode for ignoring the same files that CVS would ignore
  • can use any transparent remote shell, including ssh or rsh
  • does not require super-user privileges
  • pipelining of file transfers to minimize latency costs
  • support for anonymous or authenticated rsync daemons (ideal for mirroring)

Rsync copies files either to or from a remote host, or locally on the current host (it does not support copying files between two remote hosts). More info at: https://linux.die.net/man/1/rsync

Story

After many back-up solutions, I’ve found the best one that suits my needs. One that copy the “raw” files instead of making of compressing it with non-standard tools. (my assumption) so when I need to get those files back, I can open the File Explorer and copy it right back, without installing the back-up program itself.

The way I use Rsync is very simple… let me explain the explain the options.

  • a is for archiving [0]
  • v is for verbosity
  • h is human readable
  • p is preserve permission
rsync -avhp --exclude-from="/home/guillermo/rsyncexclude.txt" /home/guillermo/ /media/guillermo/SAMSUNG_256_NVME/MAGGIERAW

The reason why I increase verbosity is to exclude files and folders I don’t need back-up. I don’t need to back-up .cache so that directory is going on the exclude list.

And also it’s easier to keep up which files and directories to exclude instead of typing everything in the terminal emulator.

Rsyncexclude.txt

An example what to exclude:

node_modules
.cache
.config
.local
.npm
.nvm

For Windows

rynsc.ps1 (Powershell executable)

Slightly different for Windows utilizing Cygwin

Cygwin is a collection of open source tools that allows Unix or Linux applications to be compiled and run on a Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) from within a Linux-like interface.

And is required to run Rsync.

https://www.cygwin.com/install.html

https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/Cygwin

You can copy the command or copy the command in a file.

rsync -ahvp --exclude-from="/cygdrive/c/Users/guill/rsyncexclude.txt" "/cygdrive/c/Users/guill/" "/cygdrive/D/GUILLERMO_LATEST"

—

Rsyncexclude.txt (Windows)

An example what to exclude:

AppData/Local/Packages
AppData/Local/
"C:\Users\guill\VirtualBox VMs"
.vscode/extensions/*
AppData/Roaming/Code/
AppData/Roaming/EaseUS/*
AppData/Roaming/*
AppData/LocalLow/*
VirtualBox VMs/
.vagrant.d/*
.config/
.vscode

[0] What is archive mode in Rsync

Simple and stupid, but it works flawlessly, no time to waste.