The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Rsnapshot

TARGET PRACTICE

Article from Issue 53/2005
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The principle behind Rsnapshot is nothing new: use Rsync and SSH to back up files to another computer. What sets Rsnapshot apart is its simple setup and its rich collection of features.

Rsnapshot [1] gives admins a space-saving backup system. The Rsnapshot tool leaves long, configurable intervals between full backups and creates daily incremental backups on the target system; and this saves a lot of space compared to a full backup. The rotational logic that underlies the system makes heavy use of hardlinks. Under the hood, Rsnapshot uses SSH and Rsync. I decided to install the 89KB tarball on one of my lab systems, which happens to run Slackware 10, but DEB and RPM packages are available as downloads from [1] if you prefer. The following commands were all it took to install the Perl-based system: tar xvzpf U rsnapshot-1.1.6.tar.gz cd rsnapshot-1.1.6 ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc su make install

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