[rdiff-backup-users] New User Seeking Some Clarification

[Chris Young]

I am a new user and have a couple of questions I hope someone will be willing to take the time to answer.

 

I have read all the documentation I can find but I want to be sure I understand how rdiff-backup works.

 

As I understand it, rdiff creates a mirror directory which is not compressed or altered in any way from the source with the exception of adding the incremental information in sub-directories.

 

Then as I subsequently run rdiff it automatically updates the main file list with the latest files and then moves or copies previous versions of those files to the sub-directories containing the incremental data which is compressed.

 

And then I have the option of telling rdiff to go and delete incremental data from a certain point in time if I choose.

 

If that is it in a nutshell then this seems pretty easy to use and maybe I am trying to make it harder than it really is.

 

Assuming that is all correct here are my questions (please correct me if I have made any incorrect statements).

 

1. Is there a way to "archive" incremental data instead of just deleting it. Say if I am running out of room on my backup server I might want to just store the incremental data on CD ROM or yet another hard drive?

 

2. Can you restore to the file level or just the directory level? And can you backup to the file level or just the directory level?

 

3. It seems that rdiff doesn't need any special runtime parameters to do an incremental backup. It seems automatic. Is that correct? I just backup from the same source to the same target as my first backup?

 

4. I am backing up web servers to a remote backup server with this so I need daily backups with at least a week worth of incrementals. This seems to easy. Does anyone have any practical advice for this type of scenario? Anything I need to take precaution of or anything special I should do. I am worried that until I have a fatal crash I won't really know how good or bad my backup solution is.

 

5. I have Plesk (a web server administration software package) installed if anyone knows what that is. It has a dump utility with it but I would have to come up with my own rotation scheme to work out incremental backups. Anyone have any experience comparing dumps with rdiff.

 

Thanks.

 

Chris Young

Synergy Point

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