On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 1:17 AM, Sergei G <sergeig.pub...@gmail.com> wrote: > I would like a backup tool that does not bring a million dependencies with > MBs of files. Something that works on server without X Windows and can send > backup to an externally attached USB drive. Nothing fancy. No network > infrastructure. Incremental backups would be greatly appreciated. Ability > to pipe to a compression program is a plus, just like I did with dump. > [...] > Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
You won't like my solution, and it doesn't work with your current setup because it requires a specific file system: btrfs[1]. I'm posting it here for two reasons: 1) You might consider using btrfs on new installs 2) Someone else may search and find the thread After switching to btrfs I can now take instant snapshots of selected filesystems, transfer these to remote servers for backup, and most important: btrfs can track the *exact difference* between two snapshots taken over time, and only transfer the changes. All of this is very quick, because the filesystem already knows exactly what changed: Permission bits, file sizes, deleted files, changed data, whatever, all is already kept in a log. It also means that nothing will be missed, for example ACL bits etc. The delta is just a simple stream of data that can be compressed if necessary. Typically it is transmitted to a backup server where it is "replayed" so that you have a full clone of the original system.[2] In debian I use the little tool, btrbk[3], to automate all of this. You can simply do it manually if you want. [1] https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page [2] https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Incremental_Backup [3] https://github.com/digint/btrbk
