rsnapshot(1)



rsnapshot(1)                    rsnapshot-tools                   rsnapshot(1)

NAME
       rsnapshot - remote filesystem snapshot utility

SYNOPSIS
       rsnapshot [-vtxqVD] [-c cfgfile] [command] [args]

DESCRIPTION
       rsnapshot is a filesystem snapshot utility. It can take incremental
       snapshots of local and remote filesystems for any number of machines.

       Local filesystem snapshots are handled with rsync(1). Secure remote
       connections are handled with rsync over ssh(1), while anonymous rsync
       connections simply use an rsync server. Both remote and local transfers
       depend on rsync.

       rsnapshot saves much more disk space than you might imagine. The amount
       of space required is roughly the size of one full backup, plus a copy
       of each additional file that is changed. rsnapshot makes extensive use
       of hard links, so if the file doesn't change, the next snapshot is
       simply a hard link to the exact same file.

       rsnapshot will typically be invoked as root by a cron job, or series of
       cron jobs. It is possible, however, to run as any arbitrary user with
       an alternate configuration file.

       All important options are specified in a configuration file, which is
       located by default at /etc/rsnapshot.conf. An alternate file can be
       specified on the command line. There are also additional options which
       can be passed on the command line.

       The command line options are as follows:

           -v verbose, show shell commands being executed

           -t test, show shell commands that would be executed

           -c path to alternate config file

           -x one filesystem, don't cross partitions within each backup point

           -q quiet, suppress non-fatal warnings

           -V same as -v, but with more detail

           -D a firehose of diagnostic information

CONFIGURATION
       /etc/rsnapshot.conf is the default configuration file. All parameters
       in this file must be separated by tabs.
       /usr/share/doc/rsnapshot/examples/rsnapshot.conf.default.gz can be used
       as a reference.

       It is recommended that you copy
       /usr/share/doc/rsnapshot/examples/rsnapshot.conf.default.gz to
       /etc/rsnapshot.conf, and then modify /etc/rsnapshot.conf to suit your
       needs.

       Long lines may be split over several lines.  "Continuation" lines must
       begin with a space or a tab character.  Continuation lines will have
       all leading and trailing whitespace stripped off, and then be appended
       with an intervening tab character to the previous line when the
       configuration file is parsed.

       Here is a list of allowed parameters:

           config_version     Config file version (required). Default is 1.2

           snapshot_root      Local filesystem path to save all snapshots

           include_conf       Include another file in the configuration at
           this point.

               This is recursive, but you may need to be careful about paths
               when specifying which file to include.  We check to see if the
               file you have specified is readable, and will yell an error if
               it isn't.  We recommend using a full path.  As a special case,
               include_conf's value may be enclosed in `backticks` in which
               case it will be executed and whatever it spits to STDOUT will
               be included in the configuration.  Note that shell meta-
               characters may be interpreted.

           no_create_root     If set to 1, rsnapshot won't create
           snapshot_root directory

           cmd_rsync          Full path to rsync (required)

           cmd_ssh            Full path to ssh (optional)

           cmd_cp             Full path to cp  (optional, but must be GNU
           version)

               If you are using Linux, you should uncomment cmd_cp. If you are
               using a platform which does not have GNU cp, you should leave
               cmd_cp commented out.

               With GNU cp, rsnapshot can take care of both normal files and
               special files (such as FIFOs, sockets, and block/character
               devices) in one pass.

               If cmd_cp is disabled, rsnapshot will use its own built-in
               function, native_cp_al() to backup up regular files and
               directories. This will then be followed up by a separate call
               to rsync, to move the special files over (assuming there are
               any).

           cmd_rm             Full path to rm (optional)

           cmd_logger         Full path to logger (optional, for syslog
           support)

           cmd_du             Full path to du (optional, for disk usage
           reports)

           cmd_rsnapshot_diff Full path to rsnapshot-diff (optional)

           cmd_preexec

               Full path (plus any arguments) to preexec script (optional).
               This script will run immediately before each backup operation
               (but not any rotations). If the execution fails, rsnapshot will
               stop immediately.

           cmd_postexec

               Full path (plus any arguments) to postexec script (optional).
               This script will run immediately after each backup operation
               (but not any rotations). If the execution fails, rsnapshot will
               stop immediately.

           linux_lvm_cmd_lvcreate

           linux_lvm_cmd_lvremove

           linux_lvm_cmd_mount

           linux_lvm_cmd_umount

               Paths to lvcreate, lvremove, mount and umount commands, for use
               with Linux LVMs.  You may include options to the commands also.
               The lvcreate, lvremove, mount and umount commands are required
               for managing snapshots of LVM volumes and are otherwise
               optional.

           retain             [name]   [number]

               "name" refers to the name of this backup level (e.g., alpha,
               beta, so also called the 'interval'). "number" is the number of
               snapshots for this type of interval that will be retained.  The
               value of "name" will be the command passed to rsnapshot to
               perform this type of backup.

               A deprecated alias for 'retain' is 'interval'.

               Example: retain alpha 6

               [root@localhost]# rsnapshot alpha

               For this example, every time this is run, the following will
               happen:

               <snapshot_root>/alpha.5/ will be deleted, if it exists.

               <snapshot_root>/alpha.{1,2,3,4} will all be rotated +1, if they
               exist.

               <snapshot_root>/alpha.0/ will be copied to
               <snapshot_root>/alpha.1/ using hard links.

               Each backup point (explained below) will then be rsynced to the
               corresponding directories in <snapshot_root>/alpha.0/

               Backup levels must be specified in the config file in order,
               from most frequent to least frequent. The first entry is the
               one which will be synced with the backup points. The subsequent
               backup levels (e.g., beta, gamma, etc) simply rotate, with each
               higher backup level pulling from the one below it for its .0
               directory.

               Example:

                   retain  alpha 6

                   retain  beta  7

                   retain  gamma 4

               beta.0/ will be moved from alpha.5/, and gamma.0/ will be moved
               from beta.6/

               alpha.0/ will be rsynced directly from the filesystem.

           link_dest           1

               If your version of rsync supports --link-dest (2.5.7 or newer),
               you can enable this to let rsync handle some things that GNU cp
               or the built-in subroutines would otherwise do. Enabling this
               makes rsnapshot take a slightly more complicated code branch,
               but it's the best way to support special files on non-Linux
               systems.

           sync_first          1

               sync_first changes the behaviour of rsnapshot. When this is
               enabled, all calls to rsnapshot with various backup levels
               simply rotate files. All backups are handled by calling
               rsnapshot with the "sync" argument. The synced files are stored
               in a ".sync" directory under the snapshot_root.

               This allows better recovery in the event that rsnapshot is
               interrupted in the middle of a sync operation, since the sync
               step and rotation steps are separated. This also means that you
               can easily run "rsnapshot sync" on the command line without
               fear of forcing all the other directories to rotate up.  This
               benefit comes at the cost of one more snapshot worth of disk
               space.  The default is 0 (off).

           verbose             2

               The amount of information to print out when the program is run.
               Allowed values are 1 through 5. The default is 2.

                   1        Quiet            Show fatal errors only
                   2        Default          Show warnings and errors
                   3        Verbose          Show equivalent shell commands being executed
                   4        Extra Verbose    Same as verbose, but with more detail
                   5        Debug            All kinds of information

           loglevel            3

               This number means the same thing as verbose above, but it
               determines how much data is written to the logfile, if one is
               being written.

           logfile             /var/log/rsnapshot

               Full filesystem path to the rsnapshot log file. If this is
               defined, a log file will be written, with the amount of data
               being controlled by loglevel. If this is commented out, no log
               file will be written.

           include             [file-name-pattern]

               This gets passed directly to rsync using the --include
               directive. This parameter can be specified as many times as
               needed, with one pattern defined per line. See the rsync(1) man
               page for the syntax.

           exclude             [file-name-pattern]

               This gets passed directly to rsync using the --exclude
               directive. This parameter can be specified as many times as
               needed, with one pattern defined per line. See the rsync(1) man
               page for the syntax.

           include_file        /path/to/include/file

               This gets passed directly to rsync using the --include-from
               directive. See the rsync(1) man page for the syntax.

           exclude_file        /path/to/exclude/file

               This gets passed directly to rsync using the --exclude-from
               directive. See the rsync(1) man page for the syntax.

           rsync_short_args    -a

               List of short arguments to pass to rsync. If not specified,
               "-a" is the default. Please note that these must be all next to
               each other.  For example, "-az" is valid, while "-a -z" is not.

               "-a" is rsync's "archive mode" which tells it to copy as much
               of the filesystem metadata as it can for each file.  This
               specifically does *not* include information about hard links,
               as that would greatly increase rsync's memory usage and slow it
               down.  If you need to preserve hard links in your backups, then
               add "H" to this.

           rsync_long_args     --delete --numeric-ids --relative
           --delete-excluded

               List of long arguments to pass to rsync.  The default values
               are
                   --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded This
               means that the directory structure in each backup point
               destination will match that in the backup point source.

               Quotes are permitted in rsync_long_args, eg --rsync-path="sudo
               /usr/bin/rsync".  You may use either single (') or double (")
               quotes, but nested quotes (including mixed nested quotes) are
               not permitted.  Similar quoting is also allowed in per-backup-
               point rsync_long_args.

           ssh_args    -p 22

               Arguments to be passed to ssh. If not specified, the default is
               none.

           du_args     -csh

               Arguments to be passed to du. If not specified, the default is
               -csh.  GNU du supports -csh, BSD du supports -csk, Solaris du
               doesn't support -c at all. The GNU version is recommended,
               since it offers the most features.

           lockfile    /var/run/rsnapshot.pid

           stop_on_stale_lockfile   0

               Lockfile to use when rsnapshot is run. This prevents a second
               invocation from clobbering the first one. If not specified, no
               lock file is used.  Make sure to use a directory that is not
               world writeable for security reasons.  Use of a lock file is
               strongly recommended.

               If a lockfile exists when rsnapshot starts, it will try to read
               the file and stop with an error if it can't.  If it *can* read
               the file, it sees if a process exists with the PID noted in the
               file.  If it does, rsnapshot stops with an error message.  If
               there is no process with that PID, then we assume that the
               lockfile is stale and ignore it *unless* stop_on_stale_lockfile
               is set to 1 in which case we stop.

               stop_on_stale_lockfile defaults to 0.

           one_fs    1

               Prevents rsync from crossing filesystem partitions. Setting
               this to a value of 1 enables this feature. 0 turns it off. This
               parameter is optional.  The default is 0 (off).

           use_lazy_deletes    1

               Changes default behavior of rsnapshot and does not initially
               remove the oldest snapshot. Instead it moves that directory to
               _delete.[processid] and continues as normal. Once the backup
               has been completed, the lockfile will be removed before
               rsnapshot starts deleting the directory.

               Enabling this means that snapshots get taken sooner (since the
               delete doesn't come first), and any other rsnapshot processes
               are allowed to start while the final delete is happening. This
               benefit comes at the cost of using more disk space. The default
               is 0 (off).

               The details of how this works have changed in rsnapshot version
               1.3.1.  Originally you could only ever have one .delete
               directory per backup level.  Now you can have many, so if your
               next (eg) alpha backup kicks off while the previous one is
               still doing a lazy delete you may temporarily have extra
               _delete directories hanging around.

           linux_lvm_snapshotsize    2G

               LVM snapshot(s) size (lvcreate --size option).

           linux_lvm_snapshotname  rsnapshot

               Name to be used when creating the LVM logical volume
               snapshot(s) (lvcreate --name option).

           linux_lvm_vgpath         /dev

               Path to the LVM Volume Groups.

           linux_lvm_mountpath      /mnt/lvm-snapshot

               Mount point to use to temporarily mount the snapshot(s).

           backup  /etc/                       localhost/

           backup  root@example.com:/etc/      example.com/

           backup  rsync://example.com/path2/  example.com/

           backup  /var/                       localhost/      one_fs=1

           backup  lvm://vg0/home/path2/       lvm-vg0/

           backup_script   /usr/local/bin/backup_pgsql.sh    pgsql_backup/

               Examples:

               backup   /etc/        localhost/

                   Backs up /etc/ to <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/localhost/etc/
                   using rsync on the local filesystem

               backup   /usr/local/  localhost/

                   Backs up /usr/local/ to
                   <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/localhost/usr/local/ using rsync
                   on the local filesystem

               backup   root@example.com:/etc/       example.com/

                   Backs up root@example.com:/etc/ to
                   <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/example.com/etc/ using rsync
                   over ssh

               backup   example.com:/etc/       example.com/

                   Same thing but let ssh choose the remote username (as
                   specified in ~/.ssh/config, otherwise the same as the local
                   username)

               backup   root@example.com:/usr/local/ example.com/

                   Backs up root@example.com:/usr/local/ to
                   <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/example.com/usr/local/ using
                   rsync over ssh

               backup   rsync://example.com/pub/      example.com/pub/

                   Backs up rsync://example.com/pub/ to
                   <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/example.com/pub/ using an
                   anonymous rsync server. Please note that unlike backing up
                   local paths and using rsync over ssh, rsync servers have
                   "modules", which are top level directories that are
                   exported. Therefore, the module should also be specified in
                   the destination path, as shown in the example above (the
                   pub/ directory at the end).

               backup   /var/     localhost/   one_fs=1

                   This is the same as the other examples, but notice the
                   fourth column.  This is how you specify per-backup-point
                   options to over-ride global settings.  This extra parameter
                   can take several options, separated by commas.

                   It is most useful when specifying per-backup rsync excludes
                   thus:

                   backup  root@somehost:/  somehost
                   +rsync_long_args=--exclude=/var/spool/

                   Note the + sign.  That tells rsnapshot to add to the list
                   of arguments to pass to rsync instead of replacing the
                   list.

               backup  lvm://vg0/home/path2/       lvm-vg0/

                   Backs up the LVM logical volume called home, of volume
                   group vg0, to <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/lvm-vg0/. Will
                   create, mount, backup, unmount and remove an LVM snapshot
                   for each lvm:// entry.

               backup_script      /usr/local/bin/backup_database.sh
               db_backup/

                   In this example, we specify a script or program to run.
                   This script should simply create files and/or directories
                   in its current working directory. rsnapshot will then take
                   that output and move it into the directory specified in the
                   third column.

                   Please note that whatever is in the destination directory
                   will be completely deleted and recreated. For this reason,
                   rsnapshot prevents you from specifying a destination
                   directory for a backup_script that will clobber other
                   backups.

                   So in this example, say the backup_database.sh script
                   simply runs a command like:

                       #!/bin/sh

                       mysqldump -uusername mydatabase > mydatabase.sql

                       chmod u=r,go= mydatabase.sql  # r-------- (0400)

                   rsnapshot will take the generated "mydatabase.sql" file and
                   move it into the <snapshot_root>/<retain>.0/db_backup/
                   directory. On subsequent runs, rsnapshot checks the
                   differences between the files created against the previous
                   files. If the backup script generates the same output on
                   the next run, the files will be hard linked against the
                   previous ones, and no additional disk space will be taken
                   up.

               backup_exec      ssh root@1.2.3.4 "du -sh /.offsite_backup"
               optional/

               backup_exec      rsync -az /.snapshots/daily.0
               root@1.2.3.4:/.offsite_backup/   required/

               backup_exec      /bin/true/

                   backup_exec simply runs the command listed. The second
                   argument is not required and defaults to a value of
                   'optional'. It specifies the importance that the command
                   return 0. Valid values are 'optional' and 'required'. If
                   the command is specified as optional, a non-zero exit
                   status from the command will result in a warning message
                   being output. If the command is specified as 'required', a
                   non-zero exit status from the command will result in an
                   error message being output and rsnapshot itself will exit
                   with a non-zero exit status.

           Remember that tabs must separate all elements, and that there must
           be a trailing slash on the end of every directory.

           A hash mark (#) on the beginning of a line is treated as a comment.

           Putting it all together (an example file):

               # THIS IS A COMMENT, REMEMBER TABS MUST SEPARATE ALL ELEMENTS

               config_version  1.2

               snapshot_root   /.snapshots/

               cmd_rsync           /usr/bin/rsync
               cmd_ssh             /usr/bin/ssh
               #cmd_cp             /bin/cp
               cmd_rm              /bin/rm
               cmd_logger          /usr/bin/logger
               cmd_du              /usr/bin/du

               linux_lvm_cmd_lvcreate        /sbin/lvcreate
               linux_lvm_cmd_lvremove        /sbin/lvremove
               linux_lvm_cmd_mount           /bin/mount
               linux_lvm_cmd_umount          /bin/umount

               linux_lvm_snapshotsize    2G
               linux_lvm_snapshotname    rsnapshot
               linux_lvm_vgpath          /dev
               linux_lvm_mountpath       /mnt/lvm-snapshot

               retain              alpha  6
               retain              beta   7
               retain              gamma  7
               retain              delta 3

               backup              /etc/                     localhost/
               backup              /home/                    localhost/
               backup_script       /usr/local/bin/backup_mysql.sh  mysql_backup/

               backup              root@foo.com:/etc/        foo.com/
               backup              root@foo.com:/home/       foo.com/
               backup              root@mail.foo.com:/home/  mail.foo.com/
               backup              rsync://example.com/pub/  example.com/pub/
               backup              lvm://vg0/xen-home/       lvm-vg0/xen-home/
               backup_exec         echo "backup finished!"

USAGE
       rsnapshot can be used by any user, but for system-wide backups you will
       probably want to run it as root.

       Since backups usually get neglected if human intervention is required,
       the preferred way is to run it from cron.

       When you are first setting up your backups, you will probably also want
       to run it from the command line once or twice to get a feel for what
       it's doing.

       Here is an example crontab entry, assuming that backup levels alpha,
       beta, gamma and delta have been defined in /etc/rsnapshot.conf

           0 */4 * * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot alpha

           50 23 * * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot beta

           40 23 * * 6         /usr/bin/rsnapshot gamma

           30 23 1 * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot delta

       This example will do the following:

           6 alpha backups a day (once every 4 hours, at 0,4,8,12,16,20)

           1 beta backup every day, at 11:50PM

           1 gamma backup every week, at 11:40PM, on Saturdays (6th day of
           week)

           1 delta backup every month, at 11:30PM on the 1st day of the month

       It is usually a good idea to schedule the larger backup levels to run a
       bit before the lower ones. For example, in the crontab above, notice
       that "beta" runs 10 minutes before "alpha".  The main reason for this
       is that the beta rotate will pull out the oldest alpha and make that
       the youngest beta (which means that the next alpha rotate will not need
       to delete the oldest alpha), which is more efficient.  A secondary
       reason is that it is harder to predict how long the lowest backup level
       will take, since it needs to actually do an rsync of the source as well
       as the rotate that all backups do.

       If rsnapshot takes longer than 10 minutes to do the "beta" rotate
       (which usually includes deleting the oldest beta snapshot), then you
       should increase the time between the backup levels.  Otherwise
       (assuming you have set the lockfile parameter, as is recommended) your
       alpha snapshot will fail sometimes because the beta still has the lock.

       Remember that these are just the times that the program runs.  To set
       the number of backups stored, set the retain numbers in
       /etc/rsnapshot.conf

       To check the disk space used by rsnapshot, you can call it with the
       "du" argument.

       For example:

           rsnapshot du

       This will show you exactly how much disk space is taken up in the
       snapshot root. This feature requires the UNIX du command to be
       installed on your system, for it to support the "-csh" command line
       arguments, and to be in your path. You can also override your path
       settings and the flags passed to du using the cmd_du and du_args
       parameters.

       It is also possible to pass a relative file path as a second argument,
       to get a report on a particular file or subdirectory.

           rsnapshot du localhost/home/

       The GNU version of "du" is preferred. The BSD version works well also,
       but does not support the -h flag (use -k instead, to see the totals in
       kilobytes). Other versions of "du", such as Solaris, may not work at
       all.

       To check the differences between two directories, call rsnapshot with
       the "diff" argument, followed by two backup levels or directory paths.

       For example:

           rsnapshot diff beta.0 beta.1

           rsnapshot diff beta.0/localhost/etc beta.1/localhost/etc

           rsnapshot diff /.snapshots/beta.0 /.snapshots/beta.1

       This will call the rsnapshot-diff program, which will scan both
       directories looking for differences (based on hard links).

       rsnapshot sync

           When sync_first is enabled, rsnapshot must first be called with the
           sync argument, followed by the other usual cron entries. The sync
           should happen as the lowest, most frequent backup level, and right
           before. For example:

               0 */4 * * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot sync &&
               /usr/bin/rsnapshot alpha

               50 23 * * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot beta

               40 23 1,8,15,22 * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot gamma

               30 23 1 * *         /usr/bin/rsnapshot delta

           The sync operation simply runs rsync and all backup scripts. In
           this scenario, all calls simply rotate directories, even the lowest
           backup level.

       rsnapshot sync [dest]

           When sync_first is enabled, all sync behaviour happens during an
           additional sync step (see above). When using the sync argument, it
           is also possible to specify a backup point destination as an
           optional parameter. If this is done, only backup points sharing
           that destination path will be synced.

           For example, let's say that example.com is a destination path
           shared by one or more of your backup points.

               rsnapshot sync example.com

           This command will only sync the files that normally get backed up
           into example.com.  It will NOT get any other backup points with
           slightly different values (like example.com/etc/, for example). In
           order to sync example.com/etc, you would need to run rsnapshot
           again, using example.com/etc as the optional parameter.

       rsnapshot configtest

           Do a quick sanity check to make sure everything is ready to go.

EXIT VALUES
           0  All operations completed successfully

           1  A fatal error occurred

           2  Some warnings occurred, but the backup still finished

FILES
       /etc/rsnapshot.conf

SEE ALSO
       rsync(1), ssh(1), logger(1), sshd(1), ssh-keygen(1), perl(1), cp(1),
       du(1), crontab(1)

DIAGNOSTICS
       Use the -t flag to see what commands would have been executed. This
       will show you the commands rsnapshot would try to run. There are a few
       minor differences (for example, not showing an attempt to remove the
       lockfile because it wasn't really created in the test), but should give
       you a very good idea what will happen.

       Using the -v, -V, and -D flags will print increasingly more information
       to STDOUT.

       Make sure you don't have spaces in the config file that you think are
       actually tabs.

       Much other weird behavior can probably be attributed to plain old file
       system permissions and ssh authentication issues.

BUGS
       Please report bugs (and other comments) to the rsnapshot-discuss
       mailing list:

       http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rsnapshot-discuss

NOTES
       Make sure your /etc/rsnapshot.conf file has all elements separated by
       tabs.  See /usr/share/doc/rsnapshot/examples/rsnapshot.conf.default.gz
       for a working example file.

       Make sure you put a trailing slash on the end of all directory
       references.  If you don't, you may have extra directories created in
       your snapshots.  For more information on how the trailing slash is
       handled, see the rsync(1) manpage.

       Make sure to make the snapshot directory chmod 700 and owned by root
       (assuming backups are made by the root user). If the snapshot directory
       is readable by other users, they will be able to modify the snapshots
       containing their files, thus destroying the integrity of the snapshots.

       If you would like regular users to be able to restore their own
       backups, there are a number of ways this can be accomplished. One such
       scenario would be:

       Set snapshot_root to /.private/.snapshots in /etc/rsnapshot.conf

       Set the file permissions on these directories as follows:

           drwx------    /.private

           drwxr-xr-x    /.private/.snapshots

       Export the /.private/.snapshots directory over read-only NFS, a read-
       only Samba share, etc.

       See the rsnapshot HOWTO for more information on making backups
       accessible to non-privileged users.

       For ssh to work unattended through cron, you will probably want to use
       public key logins. Create an ssh key with no passphrase for root, and
       install the public key on each machine you want to backup. If you are
       backing up system files from remote machines, this probably means
       unattended root logins. Another possibility is to create a second user
       on the machine just for backups. Give the user a different name such as
       "rsnapshot", but keep the UID and GID set to 0, to give root
       privileges. However, make logins more restrictive, either through ssh
       configuration, or using an alternate shell.

       BE CAREFUL! If the private key is obtained by an attacker, they will
       have free run of all the systems involved. If you are unclear on how to
       do this, see ssh(1), sshd(1), and ssh-keygen(1).

       Backup scripts are run as the same user that rsnapshot is running as.
       Typically this is root. Make sure that all of your backup scripts are
       only writable by root, and that they don't call any other programs that
       aren't owned by root. If you fail to do this, anyone who can write to
       the backup script or any program it calls can fully take over the
       machine. Of course, this is not a situation unique to rsnapshot.

       By default, rsync transfers are done using the --numeric-ids option.
       This means that user names and group names are ignored during
       transfers, but the UID/GID information is kept intact. The assumption
       is that the backups will be restored in the same environment they came
       from. Without this option, restoring backups for multiple heterogeneous
       servers would be unmanageable. If you are archiving snapshots with GNU
       tar, you may want to use the --numeric-owner parameter. Also, keep a
       copy of the archived system's /etc/passwd and /etc/group files handy
       for the UID/GID to name mapping.

       If you remove backup points in the config file, the previously archived
       files under those points will permanently stay in the snapshots
       directory unless you remove the files yourself. If you want to conserve
       disk space, you will need to go into the <snapshot_root> directory and
       manually remove the files from the smallest backup level's ".0"
       directory.

       For example, if you were previously backing up /home/ with a
       destination of localhost/, and alpha is your smallest backup level, you
       would need to do the following to reclaim that disk space:

           rm -rf <snapshot_root>/alpha.0/localhost/home/

       Please note that the other snapshots previously made of /home/ will
       still be using that disk space, but since the files are flushed out of
       alpha.0/, they will no longer be copied to the subsequent directories,
       and will thus be removed in due time as the rotations happen.

AUTHORS
       Mike Rubel - http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

       - Created the original shell scripts on which this project is based

       Nathan Rosenquist (nathan@rsnapshot.org)

       - Primary author and original maintainer of rsnapshot.

       David Cantrell (david@cantrell.org.uk)

       - Previous maintainer of rsnapshot
       - Wrote the rsnapshot-diff utility
       - Improved how use_lazy_deletes work so slow deletes don't screw up the
       next backup at that backup level.

       David Keegel <djk@cybersource.com.au>

       - Previous rsnapshot maintainer
       - Fixed race condition in lock file creation, improved error reporting
       - Allowed remote ssh directory paths starting with "~/" as well as "/"
       - Fixed a number of other bugs and buglets

       Benedikt Heine <benedikt@heine.rocks>

       - Current rsnapshot maintainer

       Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom (chrome@real-time.com)

       - Created the RPM .spec file which allowed the RPM package to be built,
       among other things.

       Ted Zlatanov (tzz@lifelogs.com)

       - Added the one_fs feature, autoconf support, good advice, and much
       more.

       Ralf van Dooren (r.vdooren@snow.nl)

       - Added and maintains the rsnapshot entry in the FreeBSD ports tree.

       SlapAyoda

       - Provided access to his computer museum for software testing.

       Carl Boe (boe@demog.berkeley.edu)

       - Found several subtle bugs and provided fixes for them.

       Shane Leibling (shane@cryptio.net)

       - Fixed a compatibility bug in utils/backup_smb_share.sh

       Christoph Wegscheider (christoph.wegscheider@wegi.net)

       - Added (and previously maintained) the Debian rsnapshot package.

       Bharat Mediratta (bharat@menalto.com)

       - Improved the exclusion rules to avoid backing up the snapshot root
       (among other things).

       Peter Palfrader (weasel@debian.org)

       - Enhanced error reporting to include command line options.

       Nicolas Kaiser (nikai@nikai.net)

       - Fixed typos in program and man page

       Chris Petersen - (http://www.forevermore.net/)

           Added cwrsync permanent-share support

       Robert Jackson (RobertJ@promedicalinc.com)

           Added use_lazy_deletes feature

       Justin Grote (justin@grote.name)

           Improved rsync error reporting code

       Anthony Ettinger (apwebdesign@yahoo.com)

           Wrote the utils/mysqlbackup.pl script

       Sherman Boyd

           Wrote utils/random_file_verify.sh script

       William Bear (bear@umn.edu)

           Wrote the utils/rsnapreport.pl script (pretty summary of rsync
           stats)

       Eric Anderson (anderson@centtech.com)

           Improvements to utils/rsnapreport.pl.

       Alan Batie (alan@batie.org)

           Bug fixes for include_conf

       Dieter Bloms (dieter@bloms.de)

           Multi-line configuration options

       Henning Moll (newsScott@gmx.de)

           stop_on_stale_lockfile

       Ben Low (ben@bdlow.net)

           Linux LVM snapshot support

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Nathan Rosenquist

       Portions Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Mike Rubel, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom,
       Ted Zlatanov, Carl Boe, Shane Liebling, Bharat Mediratta, Peter
       Palfrader, Nicolas Kaiser, David Cantrell, Chris Petersen, Robert
       Jackson, Justin Grote, David Keegel, Alan Batie, Dieter Bloms, Henning
       Moll, Ben Low, Anthony Ettinger

       This man page is distributed under the same license as rsnapshot: the
       GPL (see below).

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
       Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
       option) any later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
       General Public License for more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
       with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
       51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301 USA

rsnapshot-tools                   2020-01-31                      rsnapshot(1)

Man(1) output converted with man2html
list of all man pages