[TriLUG] copying files

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:37:28 -0700 (PDT), Joseph Mack NA3T said:
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2012, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:

> http://everythinglinux.org/rsync/
> 
> you need an rsyncd running at the other end
> 
> As it turns out it takes about 75 secs for rsync to sync up 
> the two ends before it starts copying. cp -auv --parents or 
> Jeff's cpio are faster. rsync is simpler to use, you don't 
> have to find the files to copy first.

Hi Joe,

The 75 second figure doesn't at all reflect my experience. My
experience is that it starts up within 1 second, and that within 75
seconds I've already checked/copied several trees with few changes, and
then taken a fairly big byte out of the job of transferring my home
directory, which always has tons of changed stuff.

The following is my script for backing up my home directory:


=================================
RSYNC_RSH="ssh -c arcfour -o Compression=no -x"
rsync -vaHx --progress --numeric-ids --delete  \
    --exclude-from=slittbup_backup.excludes  --delete-excluded \
    slitt at 192.168.100.2:/home/slitt/ /backupserver/stevebup/rsync/slitt/
=================================

The preceding command runs on my backup server, meaning most of the
processing is done on that lightly loaded server, not on my heavily
used daily driver.

And here's my slittbup_backup.excludes:
=================================
lost+found/
mail/Maildir/
junk/
tmp/
mp3/
pool/
ifest/
.thumbnails/
.spamassassin/bayes_journal
.spamassassin/bayes_toks
.cache
.local/share/Trash
.local/share/akonadi
.claws-mail/imapcache
=================================

The mail/Maildir/ tree is a different partition, for Dovecot IMAP, and
is backed up by a different (but very similar) script.
The .claws-mail/imapcache directory is a cached duplicate of
mail/Maildir that I wish didn't exist in the first place.

My experience tells me that compared to various forms of copy, cpio and
the like, rsync is a rocket-sled.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
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