rsync_incremental_backup.sh

#!/bin/sh
#
# Novel (?) rsync incremental backup without hardlinks
# Pol Llovet <pol.llovet@montana.edu>

BACKUP_NAME=`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S`
BASE="$WORK/backup"
BACKUP="$BASE/$BACKUP_NAME"
MANIFEST="$BASE/manifest"

LOG="$BASE/current.log"
BACKUP_MANIFEST="$MANIFEST/$BACKUP_NAME.manifest"
v="$BASE/$BACKUP_NAME.log"

CHECK_CURRENT="--dry-run -Wiah $HOME/ $BASE/current"
CREATE_INCREMENT="-Wah --stats --compare-dest=$BASE/current $HOME/ $BASE/$BACKUP_NAME"
UPDATE_CURRENT="-Wah --delete --stats $HOME/ $BASE/current"

# make sure target dirs exist
if [ ! -d $BASE ]; then mkdir -p $BASE; fi
if [ ! -d $MANIFEST ]; then mkdir -p $MANIFEST; fi

echo "========== $TS ==========" >> $LOG

rsync $CHECK_CURRENT > $TS_MANIFEST

if [ -s $BACKUP_MANIFEST ]; then
    rsync $CREATE_INCREMENT > $BACKUP_LOG
    rsync $UPDATE_CURRENT >> $LOG
    tar --remove-files -czf $BACKUP.tgz $BACKUP_LOG $BACKUP
else
    # no changes, nothing to do, rm the empty manifest
    rm -f $TS_MANIFEST
fi

exit 0

The manifests should be in their own dir, they will need to all be grepped to find files. They could be temporarily gzipped (not really necessary though, it's all just txt).

I forgot how annoying full path rsyncs were. Hm. It should be relative.