On 2020-04-28 [TU] at 14:18 EDT, Bob Weber <bobrwe...@gmail.com> said:
> According to the manual the -x option is: > > -x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries > > I use that option all the time to keep from backing up my large home > > directory when I only > want the system directories under root. It even > keeps rsync from copying > system directories > like /proc /dev and > /sys. > Before I do a system update/upgrade I run rsnapshot (debian > package) on the root system directories so I can get the system > back in case of major failure in some of the updates (I run testing so > I > have to be careful). I do > run this on a live system and on 3 or 4 > occasions I have had to restore from the snapshot successfully > getting my system back alive. > Do you have another system you could backup to? I can get around > 50 mega > bytes per > second transfer over 1Gb Ethernet so you might > try that. > My main backup is done by backuppc on a dedicated server . I > have 4 or 5 systems that get unattended daily backups with versions > going > back about a year. > All my systems use a 2 drive raid1 array > > so I can survive a single disk crash without having to resort to restoring a > backup. Every few > months I install an extra drive in the backuppc server and have raid sync it > to the 2 drives in the > server. After syncing I pull the drive and put it > in my barn for offsite storage. Since it is a raid1 > full copy you can take that drive and mount it on another system and get the > files back if you > need to (running the raid array in a degraded mode). Hi, Bob! I don't recall the specific error code I got; just that it refused to do a sync using the -x option. And I can't try it now, as I am now into the 11th or 12th hour of rsyncing one external usb drive to another. At this rate it could take days to complete! I had no idea. Unfortunately, I only have one computer. I am not on a LAN and have no NAS, etc. And raid setups are "above my pay grade" anyway. Question: When you use rsync, do you ever do it on a live, mounted filesystem from within said machine/filesystem (that is, using the same machine)? Or do you do it on a "dormant" unmounted filesystem, either from another machine or from a "live [usb or .iso] utility distribution or boot disk from which you have booted the same machine? Most references to rsync I have seen just seem to accept as a given, that you are doing it remotely, from across a LAN (or across the world). And don't seem to address whether the machine/filesystem they are rsyncing to/from is "live" (mounted), or can/should be unmounted (like it would be when imaging a disk with dd or Clonezilla, for example.
