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I had been using rsnapshot successfully for years to backup my Ubuntu notebook computers to my Ubuntu server. I recently decided to switch to using the sync_first option on the server and an anacron job on my notebook to get more consistent backups since my notebook isn't always on. In case it matters, I had also been backing up by notebook hourly but switched to daily when I tried to enable sync_first. I'm now running into two problems:

  • the daily runs on the server are MOVING the .sync folder instead of copying it, leading to resultant syncs from the notebook being a full-backup every time
  • the anacron job on the notebook is not running consistently (seems to only run the first time after a reboot but then never runs again)

Here are my relevant files:

/etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf (on the server)

config_version  1.2

snapshot_root   /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/

cmd_cp          /bin/cp
cmd_rm          /bin/rm
cmd_rsync       /home/josh/bin/rsync
cmd_ssh /usr/bin/ssh
cmd_logger      /usr/bin/logger
cmd_du          /usr/bin/du

cmd_postexec    /usr/bin/rsync -az -P -H --numeric-ids --delete --rsync-path="sudo /rsync-3.1.1" --rsh="ssh -p 30535 -i /home/ssh_Backups/.ssh/id_rsa" /backups/rsnapshot/happycomputer/DaysA$

retain          daily           7
retain          weekly  4
retain          monthly 12
retain          yearly  10

verbose         2
loglevel        3
lockfile        /var/run/rsnapshot.pid

rsync_short_args        -azH
rsync_long_args --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded --rsync-path="sudo /rsync-3.1.1"
ssh_args        -p 30535 -i /home/ssh_Backups/.ssh/id_rsa

exclude         *.log
exclude         *.tmp

link_dest       1
sync_first      1
use_lazy_deletes        1

backup  ssh_Backups@josh-notebook:/     ./

/etc/cron.d/rsnapshot (on the server)

15   1 * * *    root    /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf daily   >> /backups/rsnapshot/_logs/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.log 2>&1
15   2 * * 0    root    /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf weekly  >> /backups/rsnapshot/_logs/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.log 2>&1
15   5 1 * *    root    /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf monthly >> /backups/rsnapshot/_logs/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.log 2>&1
15   8 1 1 *    root    /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf yearly  >> /backups/rsnapshot/_logs/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.log 2>&1

/etc/anacrontab (on the notebook)

# /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
HOME=/root
LOGNAME=root

# These replace cron's entries
1   5   cron.daily  run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
7   10  cron.weekly run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
@monthly    15  cron.monthly    run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly

1   30  ssh_Backups sudo -u ssh_Backups ssh -p 30535 ssh_Backups@happycomputer "sudo /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf sync" >/tmp/ssh_Backups.errors 2>&1

When I run sudo /usr/bin/rsnapshot -t -c /etc/rsnapshot_josh-notebook.conf daily on the server, it outputs:

echo 5246 > /var/run/rsnapshot.pid 
mv /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/daily.4/ \
    /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/daily.5/ 
mv /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/daily.3/ \
    /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/daily.4/ 
mv /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/.sync/ \
    /backups/rsnapshot/josh-notebook/daily.0/

Based on some Googling, I think that last line ought to be a cp -al instead of an mv, which is why my .sync folder ends up gone and the client has to do a full backup each time it runs.

Can any of you please tell me if you see anything wrong with my configuration? Before enabling sync_first, it was doing backups just fine...

janos
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Josh
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1 Answers1

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Removing the line "link_dest 1" in the rsnapshot.conf file eliminates the problem of rsnapshot doing mv instead of cp -al on the .sync directory, at least in my version (rsnapshot 1.4.2 on OpenSuse 15.1).

Since I only back up my data files, not system files, I run rsnapshot on my own account on both laptop and backup server. On my laptop I use kalarm to schedule the rsync to the backup server, and on the backup server I use systemd timers., i.e. files rsnapshot-"interval".service calling rsnapshot "interval" and rsnapshot-"interval".timer scheduling the execution of the corresponding .service, in /etc/systemd/system, for each "interval" (daily, weekly,monthly,yearly). Once the files are there one has to do: sudo systemctl enable rsnapshot-"interval".timer for each "interval" to activate the timers

Steve
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