time machine style backups with rsync

readme.md

Time Machine backups with Rsync

Usage

make-backup special-content special-content-backups

Will create the following directory structure:

special-content/
    dir1/
        file1
    file2

special-content-backups/
    ${YEAR}_${MONTH}_${DAY}T${HOUR}_${MINUTE}_${SECOND}/
        special-content/
            dir1/
                file1
            file2
    latest -> ${LATEST_BACKUP_DIRECTORY}

The second time you run it, it will place content in a new directory under the current date/time, but use hard links for those files that haven't changed, thereby being very space efficient.

Limitations

Currently only works on local file systems, i.e. won't copy files to other servers via SSH. I accept patches though ;).

make-backup

#!/bin/sh

source=$1
backups=$2
date=`date -u "+%Y_%m_%dT%H_%M_%S"`

mkdir -p $backups

if [ -e $backups/latest ]
then
    previous=`readlink $backups/latest`
    rsync -avvh --link-dest=../$previous $source $backups/$date/
else
    rsync -avvh $source $backups/$date/
fi

rm $backups/latest
ln -s $date $backups/latest