[tlug] rdiff-backup

[Jim Tittsler <jwt-tlug@example.com>]

I really like what I've seen of rdiff-backup.
  http://rdiff-backup.stanford.edu/

rdiff-backup backups up one directory to another (either
locally or over SSH).  But in addition to the current mirror,
it also keeps reverse diffs so that you can recover older
versions of the files.  So you get both an rsync-like mirror
and incremental backups.  You periodically run rdiff-backup
with a different argument to have it throw away increments
older than a specified age.

I've been using rsync a lot, with a --max-delete limit to try
to protect against some catastrophe on the primary being
mirrored to the secondary.  rdiff-backup is a MUCH better
solution.

It can keep filesystem metadata like permissions and ownership
(or Mac OS file resource forks in the 0.13 development branch)
in a separate database, so the secondary system (a) need not be
root to keep such things and (b) can keep ACL/resource
fork/other data that might not be native on the secondary.

Active mailing list, with a very responsive primary author.
(He also has a second project, which uses encrypted files
for backing up to a server you don't completely trust.)

Very cool.


-- 
Jim Tittsler                                         GPG: 0x01159DB6
Kanto Computer Calendar  http://www.OnJapan.net/calendar/
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