my rsync scripts

daily.sh

#!/bin/bash

# run this script on the client

# inspired by https://gist.github.com/deviantintegral/0f1066650e3ea5c5ffc1

TODAY=`date +"%Y%m%d"`

# Set the path to rsync on the remote server so it runs with sudo.
#RSYNC="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync"
RSYNC="/usr/bin/rsync"

# This is a list of files to ignore from backups.
EXCLUDES="/home/stefan/Backup/rsync/rsync.excludes"

# I use a separate volume for backups. Remember that you will not be generating
# backups that are particularly large (other than the initial backup), but that
# you will be creating thousands of hardlinks on disk that will consume inodes.

DESTINATION="rsync@server7:/backup/notebook/current/"

# Backup installed packages
dpkg --get-selections > /home/stefan/Backup/rsync/apt-backup-selections

# This command rsync's files from the remote server to the local server.
# Flags:
#   -z enables gzip compression of the transport stream.
#   -e enables using ssh as the transport prototcol.
#   --rsync-path lets us pass the remote rsync command through sudo.
#   --archive preserves all file attributes and permissions.
#   --exclude-from points to our configuration of files and directories to skip.
#   --numeric-ids is needed if user ids don't match between the source and
#       destination servers.
#   --link-dest is a key flag. It tells the local rsync process that if the
#       file on the server is identical to the file in ../$YESTERDAY, instead
#       of transferring it create a hard link. You can use the "stat" command
#       on a file to determine the number of hard links. Note that when
#       calculating disk space, du includes disk space used for the first
#       instance of a linked file it encounters. To properly determine the disk
#       space used of a given backup, include both the backup and it's previous
#       backup in your du command.
#
# The "rsync" user is a special user on the remote server that has permissions
# to run a specific rsync command. We limit it so that if the backup server is
# compromised it can't use rsync to overwrite remote files by setting a remote
# destination. I determined the sudo command to allow by running the backup
# with the rsync user granted permission to use any flags for rsync, and then
# copied the actual command run from ps auxww. With these options, under
# Ubuntu, the sudo line is:
#
#   rsync   ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync --server --sender -logDtprze.iLsf --numeric-ids . /
#
# Note the NOPASSWD option in the sudo configuration. For remote
# authentication use a password-less SSH key only allowed read permissions by
# the backup server's root user.
sudo rsync -z -h -e "ssh" \
   --rsync-path="$RSYNC" \
   --archive \
   --delete \
   --recursive \
   --exclude-from=$EXCLUDES \
   --numeric-ids \
   --stats --progress \
     / $DESTINATION

echo ""
echo "rsync done. rotating backups on server ..."

ssh stefan@server7 'bash /backup/notebook/rotate.sh'

echo "done!"

rotate.sh

#!/bin/bash

# run this script on the server

# use rsync (daily.sh script) to backup to ./current
# (should unlink files before overwriting)

TODAY=`date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M"`

# make hardlinked copy:
cp -al /backup/thinkbook/current /backup/thinkbook/$TODAY

rsync.excludes

/home/stefan/Videos
/home/stefan/VMs
/home/stefan/Downloads
/home/stefan/Steam
/home/stefan/.cache
/bin
/proc
/boot
/initrd.img
/media
/sys
/vmlinuz
/dev
/lib
/mnt
/run
/tmp
/lib64
/opt
/sbin
/var/tmp
/usr