mcfly
A really simple rsync script to make backups based on any system with support for hard links, works like Time Machine.
My selfish goal is to have realiable backups that can be created and read in OSX and GNU/Linux with nothing but the most basic UNIX tools.
My current use case, besides safe keeping photos and documents, is snapshotting complex video projects as they go. It is kinda of my very own, and extremely low tech, git for FinalCut.
You will notice that the default configuration is very OSX friendly, but it works as easy with GNU/Linux.
This is constantly tested on Debian unstable and OSX Snow Leopard.
How it works
McFly uses rsync to create snapshot backups that do not duplicate unmodified files, instead these files are just hard-linked to the already existing data in the backups directory.
It runs on any system with bash and rsync.
Example
I want to backup my home directory on Debian, my user is diego and my hostname is bellota, because I like the word.
diego@bellota:~$ ./mcfly.sh /home/diego/ /media/diego/backup-drive/
This will create the directory: /media/diego/backup-drive/McFly/bellota-diego/
With these files:
2013_01_21T05_10_21.log
current -> 2013_01_21T05_10_21/
2013_01_21T05_10_21/
My next call to mcfly.sh would create something like this:
2013_01_21T05_10_21.log
2013_01_21T05_10_21/
2013_01_22T15_42_10.log
2013_01_22T15_42_10/
current -> 2013_01_22T15_42_10/
Both backups are fully browsable and restorable. But they are sharing any data that has not been modified.
Extra credit
I humbly suggest that you install brew, and then brew install rsync.
- Get homebrew: http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/
- Add the rsync recipe: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-dupes/
I'm considering porting this to Python, just because I like Python. Please tell me about any problem, bug, or idea.
- Diego