Linux Reality Episode 63 - Home Servers Part 9:  Backup Servers 
Extra Notes

TAR

Tar will create a single file archive of another file or directory.
Like a ZIP file.

Format of command:

tar -zcvf backup.tar.gz directory/

-z: use gzip compression -c: compress -v: verbose -f: filename

Can make this a simple cron job, maybe overwrite old tarball, or add
something to the tarball name, like the date:

tar -zcvf backup.$(date +%y%m%d).tar.gz text/

This will create tarball with this name:

backup070520.tar.gz

Also, try using SaraB, which uses DAR.

RSYNC

Rsync will make incremental backups.

Format of command:

rsync -a source/ destination/

-a means archive -v verbose -r recursive -z compress

Trailing Slashes Can Matter

For example:

rsync -a source destination/

produces destination/source/stuff, whereas this command:

rsync -a source/ destination/

produces destination/stuff.  The presence or absence of a trailing
slash on the destination has no effect.

Using the --delete flag

If a file was originally in both source/ and destination/ (from an
earlier rsync, for example), and you delete it from
source/, you probably want it to be deleted from destination/ on the
next rsync. However, the default behavior is to leave the copy at
destination/ in place. Assuming you want rsync to delete any file from
destination/ that is not in source/, you'll need to use the --delete
flag:

rsync -a --delete source/ destination/

Using Cron:

To run the rsync-with-backup command from the previous section, for
example, edit the root cron table: (as root)

crontab -e

Then add the following line:

* 4 * * * rsync -a --delete source/ destination/

This will run at 4am every day.

Finally, can add SSH to the mix with -e ssh (be sure to exchange SSH
keys as necessary first):

rsync -avz -e ssh source/ remoteuser@remotehost:/destination/ 

Can also exclude with --exclude <pattern> or --exclude-from
<filename>.  Here is an example of both:

rsync -avz -e ssh --exclude "*.html" --exclude "tmp/" --exclude-from
list_of_excluded_stuff.txt --delete source/ remotehost:/destination/

LINKS:

http://sbackup.sourceforge.net/HomePage 
http://www.bacula.org/
http://sarab.sourceforge.net/
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
http://www.sanitarium.net/golug/rsync_backups.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/rsync_incremental_snapshot_backups
http://finmath.uchicago.edu/~wilder/Security/rsync/
http://troy.jdmz.net/rsync/index.html
http://gradha.sdf-eu.org/textos/dar-differential-backup-mini-howto.en.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-backup/?ca=dgr-lnxw41Backup
http://linuxgazette.net/104/odonovan.html

Backup MySQL databases:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

Updated:  Mon May 21 21:33:09 EDT 2007