rsync
So, you would like to setup a simple rsync of some important files?
Great! That's what we like, good, clean, copies.
It has been a while since I last used rsync, but it came up recently, so
why not document something now, that way back, I thought was trivial.
There are two popular methods for running rsync, that is traditional
rsync server, and rsync over ssh. The rsync server is a daemon that runs
continuously in the background, listening for rsync clients to connect.
Rsync over ssh uses the sshd server on the host to provide for the rsync
client to do the work.
what good methods of using rsync are there
Well, a good and popular backup system is to copy files from a host
to an alternate location for backup. I myself often use gzip and tar at
the client and then use scp to the backup system for storage. It's often
better to rsync the files for backup to some place else, where they can
then be compressed and filed away. Another method of backup is to copy a
working set to another location and then to snapshot the files after the
copy. This provides a working backup, should the primary fail and
removes much of the stress of a backup from the server.
This can be accomplished with some script within a cron job.
example usage
To copy files from fw to localhost use, and remove files on the localhost copy that do not exist on fw:
rsync -avz -e ssh rsync-user@fw:/home ./ --delete