View source for Rdiff-backup

'''rdiff-backup''' is a [[:Category:Linux Command Line Tools|command line tool]] that backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. <code>rdiff-backup</code> also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, modification times, extended attributes, acls, and resource forks. Also, <code>rdiff-backup</code> can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like [[Rsync (command)|rsync]]. Thus you can use <code>rdiff-backup</code> and [[ssh]] to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, <code>rdiff-backup</code> is easy to use and settings have sensical defaults.

== Installation ==

* Step 1: Make sure you have <code>librsync</code> installed on your system. If not [http://librsync.sourceforge.net/ downlaod the package], extract the contents, and then execute the following commands:
<pre>
./configure
make
make install
ldconfig
</pre>

* Step 2: Install <code>rdiff-backup</code> (you will need Python v2.2 or later)
<pre>
python setup.py install
</pre>

That's it! You are ready to start making regular backups.

== Using rdiff-backup ==

* In most cases, the command

<pre>rdiff-backup dir1 dir2</pre>

will work out-of-the-box to backup <code>dir1</code> to <code>dir2</code>.

<pre>rdiff-backup dir1 user@system::/dir2</pre>

will backup <code>dir1</code> to <code>dir2</code> on a different system (provided <code>rdiff-backup</code> is installed on both systems). <code>rdiff-backup</code> also comes with a lot of up-to-date [http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/docs.html documentation].

==See also==
*[[rsync]]

== External links ==
* [http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/index.html Official website]
* [http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki rdiff-backup wiki]

[[Category:Linux Command Line Tools]]