[HOWTO] Daily incremental backup with rsnapshot

[hayedid]

I was afraid of that. Thanks.

[julius]

Why do I have to use MD0_DATA when I can see the files when I go to /share/DocumentControl? Why does the backup contain "QNAP1\share\MD0_DATA\DocumentControl" directory instead of simply "DocumentControl"? I do understand that its giving the fully qualified path, but it's a lot of nesting that, I find to be inconvenient and unnecessary. Is there any way to prevent this?

Becuse the /share/DocumentControl/ is only a link, not the real date, the real date is stored into /share/MD0_DATA/DocumentControl/. You can use command "ls /share -l" to see the the detail. (eg. "lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin administ 17 Mar 29 11:30 Download -> MD0_DATA/Download/ " the 1st char is "l" means it is a link, and "Download -> MD0_DATA/Download/ " means the link name is "Download ", it links to "MD0_DATA/Download/").

So, when you use the rsnapshot, you should write "backup admin@qnap1:/share/MD0_DATA/DocumentControl/" into the config file.

[micke]

Why do I have to use MD0_DATA when I can see the files when I go to /share/DocumentControl?

You don't have to use MD0_DATA, but then you have to dereference the symbolic link yourself. For example, you could use the following (note the '.' at the end, which dereference the symlink)

Code: Select all

backup  admin@qnap1:/share/DocumentControl/.     DocumentControl/

/Mike

[Highend]

Stickied. Thanks for sharing and we'd like to see how it goes after running for a certain period of time and will consider adding to the current firmware.

Andy

Hi Andy ...

One Year ago and i think to me, it`s Time to add this wonderful " Tool " in one of the next Firms.

Please give us a sign of life.



Best Regards

[crushdepth]

Can anyone tell me if rsnapshot works on the 809 and other x09s? I don't own one so can't test. Thanks.

[pebcac]

I have an 809 Pro and plan on deploying rsnapshot today. I'll let you know how it goes after the installation.

[pebcac]

Ok, I can confirm that this method does work on the 809 Pro module. Works like a charm! Thanks crushdepth, your work on this is greatly appreciated. Now if we can get Qnap to include a gui....

[crushdepth]

Great Thanks for the feedback.

[DasUli]

Hi,

i´m having kind of trouble restoring backupped files from hard links. I´m quite new to linux, so i was already happy to get rsnapshot to work. Backups are stored periodically on an external USB drive attached to my TS-110. But now i´m not really sure how to restore files that only exist as hard links. Copying the hard links under windows from the backup folder to the original one resulted in having a 0Kb versions of the files. It was the same with using WinSCP or the cp command in putty.

Can any one help me how to restore hard linked files under windows?

Thanks, Uli

[micke]

Backups are stored periodically on an external USB drive attached to my TS-110.

What file system is used on the USB drive?

But now i´m not really sure how to restore files that only exist as hard links.

That sentence doesn't make sense. A hard link is (using a very simple explanation) essentially a name assigned to a file, i.e. you could create different names that all refer to the same file.

Copying the hard links under windows from the backup folder to the original one resulted in having a 0Kb versions of the files.

And the files in the backup directory are actually there and not only empty shells (i.e. 0Kb)?

You have to be more specific about the problem in case you are actually using incorrect terminology (i.e. is the problem really "hard links").

/Mike

[DasUli]

Hi Mike,

thanks for the quick answer. As i said, i´m no expert in linux, so some terms i use might be incorrect.
With hard links i meant files that already exist in the first backup, and weren´t altered so far. I read in the HOWTO that those files won´t be duplicated in later backups, but stored as "hard links", that do not require any disk space. So i.e. i have two backups. My backup hourly.0 contains mainly files with 0Kb size (when i look at it with WinSCP for example) whereas hourly.1 (my first backup) contains the "real" files. So far correct, because most of the files weren´t changed. Now i want to restore backup hourly.0, but when i copy it, the target directory contains the 0Kb versions, instead of the linked ones from hourly.1! Puh, i hope i made myself clear somehow

But the tip with the usb drive´s file system might be good...i´m currently using NTFS on it...might that be the reason why the hard links somehow don´t work?

Besides that, is WinSCP an adequate tool to manage the rnsapshot backups under windows?


Thanks again for help!

[micke]

My backup hourly.0 contains mainly files with 0Kb size

And that seems to be wrong (unless NTFS has a brain-dead implementation of hard-links). If the file has a size of 0Kb then it isn't the same file as the one in hourly.1, is it?

(when i look at it with WinSCP for example) whereas hourly.1 (my first backup) contains the "real" files. So far correct,

No, it doesn't seem to be correct.

But the tip with the usb drive´s file system might be good...i´m currently using NTFS on it...might that be the reason why the hard links somehow don´t work?

I have no experience with rsnapshot on an NTFS filesystem; it doesn't appear to work that well, though. Maybe someone that uses rsnapshot with NTFS can provide more insight...

/Mike

[DasUli]

thanks for the tip...i found various sources that state that rsnapshot doesn´t work with NTFS...i will try this.

[DasUli]

Just for the record, i formatted the usb drive with ext4, now it´s working fine. The problem was the NTFS file system. Thanks for input, Mike!

[Bedlore]

I'm wanting to implement versioned backups so glad I found this thread. Its a shame BackupPC isn't in available as a package, but I note that bacula is, has anybody tried using it? Looks like some nice web GUI's are available for it. Just trying to work out which advantages/disadvantages there are.