Rsync

[narkeddiver]

Hi,

Does anyone here use Rsync to keep folders on separate macs in sync?

I want to back some folders on my Mac mini to an external drive on my wife's mac book

I would also like to back up my wife's photo library to a folder on an external drive on my Mac mini

I would appreciate any advice or pointers to some good websites

Thanks in advance

[nullx8]

rsync -avx --progress /original/location/Documents/ /Volumes/mountpointofbackupdisk/DataBackup/

quite straight forward.

write that in a sh file .. and create a applescript, then you will have a cute icon to click on and you not have to type it always again

[Wonka]

I would also use the -X option for extended attributes (if they are used on Mac)

After a first backup, you can make full backup in an incremental way.

Make a hard linked copy of the old backup (it is very fast) and use rsync on top of that.

I don't know the differences between Mac and linux, but maybe you can use my script in some way:

#!/usr/bin/shMOUNT_T=`lsblk|grep /mnt`if test -z "${MOUNT_T}"; then (echo "Cannot mount, /mnt already mounted" && exit); fimount -L "backup" /mnt || (echo -e "\nMount failed! Wrong disk/label?" && exit)# Disks used for backup must have label "backup"RECENT=`ls -A /mnt/backup|grep -e "^[0-9]"|sort|tail -1`NEW=`date +%y%m%d:%H%M%S`;echo $RECENT $NEWif test -z $RECENT; then mkdir -p /mnt/backup/${NEW}/localhost;else cp -al /mnt/backup/$RECENT /mnt/backup/${NEW}/; fiif test -z $RECENT; then mkdir -p /mnt/backup/${NEW}/localhost;else cp -al /mnt/backup/$RECENT /mnt/backup/${NEW}/; firsync -aXxv --delete --relative --delete-excluded \ /bin \ /boot \ /.config \ /etc \ /home --exclude=/home/user/.thumbnails/* --exclude=/home/user/.kde4/share/apps/nepomuk/*  \  --exclude=/home/archlinux/* --exclude=/home/user/.cache/chromium/* --exclude=/home/user/.ccache/* \ /lib \ /lib64 \ /opt \ /root --exclude=/root/.thumbnails/*/*  --exclude=/root/.kde4/share/apps/nepomuk/* \ /sbin \ /usr \ /var --exclude=/var/log/ --exclude=/var/db/sudo/ --exclude=/var/tmp/ \ /mnt/backup/${NEW}/localhost/ && \ df -h && \ sync && \ du -csh /mnt/backup/* && \ sync && \ umount -v /mnt || echo -e '\nError backing up - or unmounting disk !!!!!!!!!!'

Edited April 23, 2014 by Wonka

[Wonka]

The formatting in the code box went terribly wrong.

I can PM you if you want a more readable script

[narkeddiver]

Thank you for the help guys - I may have some follow up questions if I get stuck

[negreanu]

Would just use dropbox or similar these days rather than rsync.

[nullx8]

Would just use dropbox or similar these days rather than rsync.

Yes rsync to the dropbox folder. Saves the trouble about mounting nfs and laggy os if they unavaiable.