You might not even like rsync. Yeah it's old. Yeah it's slow. But if you're working with Linux you're going to need to know it. In this video I walk through my favorite everyday flags for rsync. Su...

You might not even like rsync. Yeah it’s old. Yeah it’s slow. But if you’re working with Linux you’re going to need to know it.

In this video I walk through my favorite everyday flags for rsync.

Support the channel:
https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/

Here’s a companion blog post, where I cover a bit more detail: https://vkc.sh/everyday-rsync

Also, @BreadOnPenguins made an awesome rsync video and you should check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eifQI5uD6VQ

Lastly, I left out all of the ssh setup stuff because I made a video about that and the blog post goes into a smidge more detail. If you want to see a video covering the basics of using SSH, I made one a few years ago and it’s still pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKsdbjzBcc

Chapters:
1:18 Invoking rsync
4:05 The --delete flag for rsync
5:30 Compression flag: -z
6:02 Using tmux and rsync together
6:30 but Veronica… why not use (insert shiny object here)

  • tal@olio.cafeEnglish
    20·
    1 day ago

    I would generally argue that rsync is not a backup solution.

    Yeah, if you want to use rsync specifically for backups, you’re probably better-off using something like rdiff-backup, which makes use of rsync to generate backups and store them efficiently, and drive it from something like backupninja, which will run the task periodically and notify you if it fails.

    rsync: one-way synchronization

    unison: bidirectional synchronization

    git: synchronization of text files with good interactive merging.

    rdiff-backup: rsync-based backups. I used to use this and moved to restic, as the backupninja target for rdiff-backup has kind of fallen into disrepair.

    That doesn’t mean “don’t use rsync”. I mean, rsync’s a fine tool. It’s just…not really a backup program on its own.

    • koala@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      15 hours ago

      Beware rdiff-backup. It certainly does turn rsync (not a backup program) into a backup program.

      However, I used rdiff-backup in the past and it can be a bit problematic. If I remember correctly, every “snapshot” you keep in rdiff-backup uses as many inodes as the thing you are backing up. (Because every “file” in the snapshot is either a file or a hard link to an identical version of that file in another snapshot.) So this can be a problem if you store many snapshots of many files.

      But it does make rsync a backup solution; a snapshot or a redundant copy is very useful, but it’s not a backup.

      (OTOH, rsync is still wonderful for large transfers.)

      • tal@olio.cafeEnglish
        2·
        12 hours ago

        Because every “file” in the snapshot is either a file or a hard link to an identical version of that file in another snapshot.) So this can be a problem if you store many snapshots of many files.

        I think that you may be thinking of rsnapshot rather than rdiff-backup which has that behavior; both use rsync.

        But I’m not sure why you’d be concerned about this behavior.

        Are you worried about inode exhaustion on the destination filesystem?

        • koala@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          11 hours ago

          Huh, I think you’re right.

          Before discovering ZFS, my previous backup solution was rdiff-backup. I have memories of it being problematic for me, but I may be wrong in my remembering of why it caused problems.

    • melfie@lemy.lolEnglish
      52·
      1 day ago

      Having a synced copy elsewhere is not an adequate backup and snapshots are pretty important. I recently had RAM go bad and my most recent backups had corrupt data, but having previous snapshots saved the day.

      • melfie@lemy.lolEnglish
        1·
        10 hours ago

        Don’t understand the downvotes. This is the type of lesson people have learned from losing data and no sense in learning it the hard way yourself.