On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 13:39, Ken Teh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> You need to be clear about what you mean by backup.  If you are keeping a
> mirror of your data, rsync is fine.  But sometimes you want a version of a
> file from 3 months ago.  rsync is not going to do that for you.

Rsync will absolutely do that for you;  If you ask it to.

man rsync wrote:
>       -b, --backup
>              With  this  option,  preexisting  destination  files are
>              renamed as each file is transferred or deleted.  You can
>              control  where  the  backup  file goes and what (if any)
>              suffix gets appended using the --backup-dir and --suffix
>              options.
>
>              Note  that  if  you  don’t specify --backup-dir, (1) the
>              --omit-dir-times option will  be  implied,  and  (2)  if
>              --delete  is also in effect (without --delete-excluded),
>              rsync will add a “protect” filter-rule  for  the  backup
>              suffix to the end of all your existing excludes (e.g. -f
>              "P *~").  This will prevent previously  backed-up  files
>              from being deleted.  Note that if you are supplying your
>              own filter rules, you may need to manually  insert  your
>              own exclude/protect rule somewhere higher up in the list
>              so that it has a high enough priority  to  be  effective
>              (e.g., if your rules specify a trailing inclusion/exclu-
>              sion  of  ‘*’,  the  auto-added  rule  would  never   be
>              reached).
>
>       --backup-dir=DIR
>              In  combination  with  the  --backup  option, this tells
>              rsync to store all backups in the specified directory on
>              the  receiving  side.   This can be used for incremental
>              backups.  You can additionally specify a  backup  suffix
>              using the --suffix option (otherwise the files backed up
>              in the specified  directory  will  keep  their  original
>              filenames).
>
>       --suffix=SUFFIX
>              This  option  allows  you to override the default backup
>              suffix used with the --backup (-b) option.  The  default
>              suffix  is  a ~ if no --backup-dir was specified, other-
>              wise it is an empty string.

So.  use "rsync -avx /src/ /dst/live/ --backup
--backup-dir=/dst/shadows/$(date +%Y%m%dT%H%M%S)/" and before rsync
deletes anything from /dst/live (the mirror) it copies it to
/dst/shadows/20091015T180700.  Then you can browse /dst/shadows by
date to find accidentally deleted or changed files.

There is also rdiff-backup has a sidekick web interface recovery
component which I liked until I had destination directories
irrevocably become unusable after loosing connectivity to the target
during backup, and rsnapshot.pl, which I have had no similar problem
with yet, but appears to be slower, and has no web interface for
recovery Unless you count apache directory listings.