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Old 21st May 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Default basic rsync questions

Hi there
I want to rsync my FreeBSDs to an external usb drive that is attached to a Linux box. If i create a single, non-bootable root partition on this external drive, create an ext3 file system on this partition and do the necessary ssh public key set up would these commands back up the entire FreeBSDs, so that the entire system could be completely recovered in the event of an emergency?:
Code:
#rsync --progress -avhe ssh --delete --exclude /dev / user@Linuxbox:/usb/drive/path/dirBSD_x
Or should this be done differently from a FreeBSD system? Would just specifying / only back up the partition that / lived on? Or would it back up the whole system into /usb/drive/path/dirBSD_x ?
I'm not joking i really am a complete n00b with BSD. Any answers would be great. Thank you
regards unixjingleman
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Old 21st May 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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I've just realized that of course rsync wouldn't back-up just the / partition because it's a tool for syncing files so a recursive back-up if / would back-up the whole system. That aside any suggestions on the other question would be great. Thanks
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Old 25th May 2011
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phoenix phoenix is offline
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You're missing two *very* important options when using rsync between FreeBSD and Linux systems: --hard-links and --numeric-ids

FreeBSD uses a lot of hardlinks (/rescue/* is a single binary, for example). If you omit that option, your backup will be huge (each hard-link gets copied as a separate file). And you won't be able to restore back to the same size harddrive.

The numeric IDs option is important when transferring between OSes. Without it, rsync will send the username/groupname and the remote system will set the UID/GID to match whatever it has on the local system. These are not the same across Unix-like OSes, and bad things can happen on restores.

These are the options we are currently using for our rsync backups:
--archive --hard-links --sparse --xattrs --numeric-ids

--verbose is handy to see what it's backing up, while it's running.

If you have /home on a separate filesystem, you can add --one-file-system to only backup the / filesystem and nothing else (no /dev, no /home, no other mounted filesystems).

Or, you can use --exclude /dev --exclude /home --exclude /blahblah to skip directory trees.

However, if you want to make restoring easy, then do a complete backup of everything except virtual filesystems. So something like the following:
# rsync --archive --hard-links --sparse --xattrs --numeric-ids --exclude=/dev --exclude=/tmp --rsh="ssh -what -ever -options -needed" / username@linuxbox:/path/to/USB/drive/

That way, the restore process is just:
  1. Minimal install of FreeBSD onto new harddrive (to get partitions and filesystems right, installs boot loader correctly)
  2. Boot LiveCD
  3. Mount FreeBSD filesystems to /mnt
  4. rsync --archive --hard-links --sparse --xattrs --numeric-ids --exclude=/dev --exclude=/tmp --rsh="ssh -what -ever -options -needed" username@linuxbox:/path/to/USB/drive/ /
  5. Reboot

If you try to do a piecemeal backup, then you have to a convoluted piecemeal restore.
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Old 27th May 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Thank you to the power of a googolplex dude. Great stuff. That has saved me a lot of headache. Can't thank you enough
king regards
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Old 27th May 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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How do you officially thank people on this forum?
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Old 27th May 2011
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Just saying thanks in the thread works, a persons receptiveness to unsolicited private messages varies.

There was once a "Thanks" button.. it's gone now, for whatever reason.
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