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Using rsync for backups, because it's not shiny and new (tinkerbetter.tube)
submitted 10 months ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
143 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You might not even like rsync. Yeah it's old. Yeah it's slow. But if you're working with Linux you're going to need to know it.

In this video I walk through my favorite everyday flags for rsync.

Support the channel:
https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/

Here's a companion blog post, where I cover a bit more detail: https://vkc.sh/everyday-rsync

Also, @BreadOnPenguins made an awesome rsync video and you should check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eifQI5uD6VQ

Lastly, I left out all of the ssh setup stuff because I made a video about that and the blog post goes into a smidge more detail. If you want to see a video covering the basics of using SSH, I made one a few years ago and it's still pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKsdbjzBcc

Chapters:
1:18 Invoking rsync
4:05 The --delete flag for rsync
5:30 Compression flag: -z
6:02 Using tmux and rsync together
6:30 but Veronica... why not use (insert shiny object here)

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[-] vga@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's not bad if you don't need historical backups. I kinda think I do, so I use https://github.com/rustic-rs/rustic becase rust

Restic is probably a better choice if you're not a rust-freak like me.

[-] harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago

Rustic scares me. I will 100% forget what tool I used to backup after 5 years and be unable to recover my files.

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

I use rsync + ZFS for backups which includes historical backups

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Yup, just configure a snapshot policy and you can recover deleted and modified files going back as long as you choose. And it is probably more space efficient than both/restic too.

this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
559 points (97.0% liked)

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