Understanding backup-dir semantics

[Alan Chandler]

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Please cc in replies as I am not subscrubed to the list - However I have just 
searched backwards over the list archive looking for an answer and I can't 
find any posts relating to this.

I am currently backing up my family's windows machine over the network to my 
linux box by mounting the windows disk as a file share an using cp to copy 
the data over.  This is not very satisfactory

I would like to set up my backup so that I can 
a) restore a disk image for most of the  machine
a) have an immediate backup of the "My Documents" directory for all users 
b) provide a facilty where I can collect files from these directories for all 
users and ultimately copy them to CD-R as long term archive.

Sometime in the past I set this machine up with rsync using cygwin with the 
following command line

rsync -a --delete --exclude='/WINDOWS/WIN386.SWP' /* roo::pooh/

where "roo" is a linux box with a area defined by rsyncd.conf as pooh (the 
machine I am backing up) but I had given up due to the time it takes to run, 
and the need to schedule the backup automatically on the windows side.

Assuming I can find another way to dd if-/dev/hda1 | bzip2 -c | "stream over 
network" [as an aside I have yet to figure out what the last program of the 
pipe should be - anyone any ideas] to make a reasonable stable disk image

I would like to change that to something like a series of

rsync -a --delete --backup --backup-dir=SOMETHING '/My\ Documents/*' 
roo::pooh/backup/ (but with the profiled version of My Docs)

where SOMETHING represents roo::pooh/archive/user

but I want to be reasonable sure I can get it to work before destroying the 
other backup method.

I did try some experiments on a local machine, but without a leading '/' the 
backup-dir seemed to be a subdir of destination.  The man page and all other 
documentation I have been able to find is very unclear just exactly what the 
semantics for the backup-dir are.  Can someone explain very explicitly how 
backup-dir is related to destination (particularly when there is a rsyncd 
server acting for destination) and how I can go about achieving what I am 
trying to do

TIA  



- -- 

  Alan - alan at chandlerfamily.org.uk
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk
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