These scripts provide a simple way to run rsync and rotate the backups to keep copies of modified files.

The rotation is done with hardlinks, which means that the disk space is only used for multiple copies of an unchanged file in multiple backup sets (daily, monthly, yearly). Only changed files contribute to the disk space.

Before using this script, you should have a functional SSH connection for the user you're planning to use for the backup (can be root) using keys for authentication. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SSH/OpenSSH/Keys provides good information about how to setup SSH key authentication.

rsync

backup-rsync
    -e /etc/excludefile     # (optional) path to excludefile, default is /root/.excludeliste-rsync
    -o extra rsync options  # (optional) additional rsync parameters (see "man rsync")
    -p /backup/path         # (optional) path to backup, default is "/home/backup"
    <fqdn-servername>       # fully qualified domain name of the server to be backed up

rotate

backup-rotate
    -p /backup/path         # (optional) path to backup, default is "/home/backup"
    <fqdn-servername>       # fully qualified domain name of the server to be backed up

The backup will be written into the directory /backup/path/<fqdn-servername>/daily.0/

Excludefile sample

+ /etc
+ /var/
+ /var/www
- /var/www/backup
+ /var/vmail
- /var/*
- /*
- @*
- *.bak

Busybox / Synology systems do not have bash installed (by default), but "ash". To execute the scripts, you simply have to call ash to execute the scripts.

Example to run script on home Synology to backup web server:

ash /volume1/data/bin/rsync-backup-and-rotate/backup-rsync -e /volume1/data/bin/server-backup.excludelist -p /volume1/data/Data my.server.com &> /volume1/data/Data/server-backup-rsync.log

This script can be scheduled and executed via Task Scheduler (Control Panel/Task Scheduler, Create "User-defined script").

The original version of these scripts have been created by Heinlein Support and were published to the German Linux Magazine 09/2004. https://www.heinlein-support.de/howto/backups-und-snapshots-von-linux-servern-mit-rsync-und-ssh