When I installed Ubuntu I couldn’t find any backup tool with features I wanted. I also wanted some exercise in Python so I wrote a backup tool and called it PySync. In meantime it became obvious to me that there is much better way to backup under Linux. As always with Linux, there really isn’t any full featured tool but with little time and knowledge you can modify everything to suit your needs. Combining rsync, bash script and cron, now I have backup system which does everything I need.

Features I wanted:

• Daily backup
• Only copy changed files
• Write a log with list of changed files
• Read a list of directories and synchronize them one by one
• Way to exclude some files or folders

So here’s the procedure.

1. Write a script

The script contains a list of directories that will be synced. Log is created in a subfolder, one file for every day. I’ve put the script in ‘/usr/local/bin/backup-all’ file.

#!/bin/bash
# backup procedure by Hugo Riley, www.gamesandcode.com
BACKUP_LOG=/usr/local/bin/backup-log/backup-log-$(date +%Y%m%d)
EXCLUDE_LIST=/usr/local/bin/backup-exclude
echo "************************" > $BACKUP_LOG
echo "System backup with RSync" >> $BACKUP_LOG
date >> $BACKUP_LOG
echo "************************" >> $BACKUP_LOG
FILES=(
'/boot /media/backup/filesystem'
'/home /media/backup/filesystem'
'/opt /media/backup/filesystem'
'/media/data/Dokumenti /media/backup'
'/media/data/Music /media/backup'
'/media/data/Projects /media/backup'
)
ELEMENTS=${#FILES[@]}
for (( i=0;i<$ELEMENTS;i++)); do
folderpair=${FILES[${i}]}
rsync --delete --delete-excluded -av $folderpair --exclude-from=$EXCLUDE_LIST >> $BACKUP_LOG
done
#end of script

Script must be executable to work so it needs to be chmoded:

chmod +x backup-all

Files and folders can be excluded from backup. Just add some filters to backup-exclude file:
.trash
Trash
Cache
.thumbnails

2. Make a schedule

To enable daily backup, you need to add it to the Anacron. It can be modified in ‘/etc/anacrontab’. I wanted my backup to start every day, ten minutes after Linux is finished booting (login is not necessary). After the editing, my anacrontab file looks like this:

# /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron
# See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.
SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
# These replace cron's entries
1	5	cron.daily	 nice run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
7	7	cron.weekly	 nice run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
1	10	SystemBackup	/usr/local/bin/backup-all
@monthly	15	cron.monthly nice run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly

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