diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1')
| -rw-r--r-- | rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1 | 72 |
1 files changed, 60 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1 b/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1 index cc0513b..87e0c25 100644 --- a/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1 +++ b/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup.1 @@ -15,17 +15,22 @@ rdiff-backup \- local/remote mirror and incremental backup .B rdiff-backup --calculate-average .I statfile1 statfile2 ... +.B rdiff-backup --test-server +.BI [ user1 ] @host1.net1 :: path +.BI [[ user2 ] @host2.net2 :: path ] +.I ... + .SH DESCRIPTION .B rdiff-backup is a script, written in .BR python (1) that backs up one directory to another. The target directory ends up -a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in -the target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time -ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an -incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves symlinks, special -files, hardlinks, permissions, uid/gid ownership (if it is running as -root), and modification times. +a exacty copy (mirror) of the source directory, but extra reverse +diffs are stored in the target directory, so you can still recover +files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of +a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves +symlinks, special files, hardlinks, permissions, uid/gid ownership (if +it is running as root), and modification times. .B rdiff-backup can also operate @@ -40,6 +45,11 @@ is installed in the user's PATH on the remote system. For information on other options, see the section on .B REMOTE OPERATION. +Note that you +.B should not write to the mirror directory +except with rdiff-backup. Many of the increments are stored as +reverse diffs, so if you delete or modify a file, you may lose the +ability to restore previous versions of that file. .SH OPTIONS .TP @@ -122,8 +132,8 @@ See the section for more information. .TP .B --force -Authorize overwriting of a destination directory. rdiff-backup will -generally tell you if it needs this. +Authorize the updating or overwriting of a destination path. +rdiff-backup will generally tell you if it needs this. .TP .BI "--include " shell_pattern Similar to @@ -194,7 +204,7 @@ Use nulls (\\0) instead of newlines (\\n) as line separators, which may help when dealing with filenames containing newlines. This affects the expected format of the files specified by the --{include|exclude}-filelist[-stdin] switches as well as the format of -the directory_statistics file. +the directory statistics file. .TP .B --parsable-output If set, rdiff-backup's output will be tailored for easy parsing by @@ -208,7 +218,9 @@ switches. .B --print-statistics If set, summary statistics will be printed after a successful backup If not set, this information will still be available from the -session_statistics.<time>.data file. +session statistics file. See the +.B STATISTICS +section for more information. .TP .BI "--quoting-char " char Use the specified character for quoting characters specified to be @@ -425,7 +437,7 @@ rdiff-backup smith@host1::foo jones@host2::bar Test to see if the specified ssh command really opens up a working rdiff-backup server on the remote side. .RS -rdiff-backup --test-server hostname.net::/this/is/ignored +rdiff-backup --test-server hostname.net::/ignored .SH RESTORING There are two ways to tell rdiff-backup to restore a file or @@ -460,7 +472,7 @@ is the directory containing the current version of /usr/local. .PP Note that the option to .B --restore-as-of -always specifies an exact time. (So "3D" refers to the instant 36 +always specifies an exact time. (So "3D" refers to the instant 72 hours before the present.) If there was no backup made at that time, rdiff-backup restores the state recorded for the previous backup. For instance, in the above case, if "3D" is used, and there are only @@ -482,6 +494,12 @@ rdiff-backup /backup/rdiff-backup-data/increments/usr/local.<time>.dir /usr/loca .PP .RE would also restore the file as desired. +.PP +If you are not sure exactly which version of a file you need, it is +probably easiest to either restore from the increments files as +described immediately above, or to see which increments are available +with -l/--list-increments, and then specify exact times into +-r/--restore-as-of. .SH TIME FORMATS rdiff-backup uses time strings in two places. Firstly, all of the @@ -779,6 +797,36 @@ matches any files whose full pathnames contain 7 consecutive digits which aren't followed by 'foo'. However, it wouldn't match /home even if /home/ben/1234567 existed. +.SH STATISTICS + +Every session rdiff-backup saves various statistics into two files, +the session statistics file at +rdiff-backup-data/session_statistics.<time>.data and the directory +statistics file at rdiff-backup-data/directory_statistics.<time>.data. +They are both text files and contain similar information: how many +files changed, how many were deleted, the total size of increment +files created, etc. However, the session statistics file is intended +to be very readable and only describes the session as a whole. The +directory statistics file is more compact (and slightly less readable) +but describes every directory backed up. It also may be compressed to +save space. + +Statistics related options include +.B --print-statistics +and +.BR --null-separator . + +Also, rdiff-backup will save various messages to the log file, which +is rdiff-backup-data/backup.log for backup sessions and +rdiff-backup-data/restore.log for restore sessions. Generally what is +written to this file will coincide with the messages diplayed to +stdout or stderr, although this can be changed with the +.B --terminal-verbosity +option. + +The log file is not compressed and can become quite large if +rdiff-backup is run with high verbosity. + .SH BUGS rdiff-backup uses the shell command .BR mknod (1) |