rsync --link-dest and --files-from lead by a "change list" from some file system audit tool (Was: Re: cut-off time for rsync ?)

[Andrew Gideon]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:40:51 +0100, Simon Hobson wrote:

> The think here is that you are into "backup" tools rather than the
> general purpose tool that rsync is intended to be.

Yes, that is true.  Rsync serves so well as a core component to backup, I 
can be blind about "something other than rsync".

I'll look at the tools you suggest.  However, you've made be a little 
apprehensive about storebackup.  I like the lack of a need for a "restore 
tool".  This permits all the standard UNIX tools to be applied to 
whatever I might want to do over the backup, which is often *very* 
convenient.

On the other hand, I do confess that I am sometimes miffed at the waste 
involved in a small change to a very large file.  Rsync is smart about 
moving minimal data, but it still stores an entire new copy of the file.

What's needed is a file system that can do what hard links do, but at the 
file page level.  I imagine that this would work using the same Copy On 
Write logic used in managing memory pages after a fork().

	- Andrew