My favorite free backup utility is by far rsync. You can quickly and reliably synchronize two directories. The utility has very little over head and perfect for backup scripts. I want to start by writing a little tidbit about how to install the daemon mac os client.
Mac RSYNC Daemon Installation
The rsync daemon requires two files rsync.conf and rsync.secerts. These files can be store anywhere but do have special permission requirements.
Examples rsync.conf File
uid = root
gid = admin
max connections = 4
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
[BACKUP]
path = /Volumes/Backup
comment = XXPATH
auth users = tridge, susan
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets
The file above contains the basic rsync information and one module. Think of modules as volumes or mount points. The modules name is BACKUP and the path is /Volumes/Backups. These can be adjusted to your own specifications. The last line references the secrets file. This file will contain your password must not be readable by anyone besides the owner. (root or the user launching the rsync daemon)
Example rsync.secerts file
john:rsyncpass steve:stevepass
By Apples default theses file should be stored in /etc/bin/
Once you have created those files you can give the daemon command.
rsync –daemon (suggest running it as root)
You will now see a serivce called rsync and notice with a port scan port 873 is open.
You have successfully configured the daemon! This only needs to be done on the server side. The client is freely to connect to any server without any config files.
Let start by syncing some files to the new rsync server
rsync -a –delete –password-file=/Library/Application\ Support/john/backup/.backup /MyDocuments john@BACKUPS.mybackupserver.com::backups/MyDocuments
Lets breakdown the command above
-a flag will make an archive this will keep a majority of the users
–delete This removes the files from the server end if the client side has deleted them. If you do use this all files that are removed from the host will not be removed from the sync.
–password-file=/Library/Application\ Support/john/backup/.backup This is what allows you to script this backup in a cron or launchd. This file must be only readable by root our the user executing the rsync command.
/MyDocuments The files you are syncing to the server. (client side)
john@BACKUPS.mybackupserver.com::backups/MyDocuments This is the destination path. (Server side) you can see the username first then the module, server address and destination path on the remote server.
This section is more for personal use.
Bash scripting tools.
Remove whitespace sed -e ‘s/^[ \t]*//’
| sed ‘s/\”/\\”/g’ remove ”
| sed ‘s/\//\\\//g’ remove /
| sed ‘s/\//\\\\\//g’ escapase /
| sed s/\,/\\\\,/g escapase ,
| sed ‘s/\”/\\”/g’ escapase ”
| sed “s/’/\\\’/g” escapase ‘
| awk ‘{gsub(/\’/,”\\'”)}; 1’
AWK
awk ‘{gsub(/”foo”/,”bar”)}; 1’
Field Separators
awk ‘BEGIN { FS = “\”” } ; { print $1 }’
SED
substitution
sed s/day/night/
Remove whitespace
sed -e ‘s/^[ \t]*//’
Delete Empty lines
sed ‘/^$/d’
Delete lines at the top of a page
awk ‘FNR>2’ Change 2 to the amount of lines
IF then statement
#!/bin/bash
if [ “foo” = “foo” ]; then
echo expression evaluated as true
else
fi