Time rsYnc Machine (tym)

[M. Carrasco]

These are comments to several previous posting.

Regards
Tomas


1. Limitations
tym is a wrap: the hard work is done by rsync, with whatever limitations it might have, in particular for "non-atomic".

Each backup is a new directory; "--backup" is not used as no renaming is required.


2. Time machine implemented inside rsync
As one can observe from tym, it should be straightforward to implement a time machines inside rsync: 

 rsync ... --tm-source --tm-dest [--tm-machine] [--tm-log]

The correct parameters should be automatically included. Finer aspect such as atomicity could be better considered.

If it is appropriate is a different matter.


3. Cron
It can run properly run from cron as it is demonized.


4. Remote machine
 - As long as tym is concerned, it is client-side.
 - The communication is with ssh and rsync.
 - No filesystem mounting is required.
 - Unattended execution requires ~./ssh keys to avoid password prompting from ssh and rsync.


5. Finding the latest backup
In function MakeDest, locally (or remote with ssh), the line
   ;  else ls $DestDir | tail -1


6. Creating new directory
Created by bash (not rsync) in function MakeDest, locally (or remote with ssh), the line
   ;  then mkdir $DestDir

The tree below by rsync.


7. Automatic space recovery
I will put this in the wish list.
 - Calculate the needed space.
 - Check the maximum allocated space (it could be less than total available).
 - Delete as necessary the oldest version with appropriate heuristics.

tym is "pull".


8. rsync parameters
See the function Sync, the concerned parameters are:
 rsync -azhq --delete --partial

For the first run. "--link-dest" is not present: the variable "$LinkDest" is empty.

"--hard-links" is not used and there is for and against reasons. From man rsync:

   "... finding  multiply-linked  files  is expensive."
   "Without this option, hard-linked files in the transfer are treated as though they were separate files."


9. Wish list
 - More comments in the code
 - Improve man page for tym
 - Autoamtic space recovery
 - tymkill: command for soft kill with SIGTERM.
 - tymold: command to delete oldest backups