The program itself is very easy to use, but installing it on Mac OS X can be a bit tricky if you aren't familiar with building source code or installing unstable Fink packages. Instead, read on for an easy way to install it using DarwinPorts.
- Download and install DarwinPorts. [5.0MB direct download link]
- After running the DarwinPorts installer, add the following to your ~/.profile file:
The lines above assume you are using a bash shell (the default in a new install of Mac OS 10.3 and OS 10.4). If the .profile file doesn't exist, create it. If you are using a C shell (OS 10.2 and some 10.3/10.4 installs that upgraded from 10.2), instead add this to your ~/.cshrc file:export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin export MANPATH=$MANPATH:/opt/local/share/man export INFOPATH=$INFOPATH:/opt/local/share/infoset path=($path /opt/local/bin) - To load the changes you just added to your .profile, type source ~/.profile in the Terminal.
- Update your DarwinPorts installation to the latest version by running this command in the Terminal:
sudo port -d selfupdate; port sync - Finally, install rdiff-backup by running this command in the Terminal (this takes a few minutes):
sudo port install py-rdiff-backup
rdiff-backup /Users/MyUserName /Volumes/external_drive/MyUserName
You can also use it to make backups to/from a remove server using ssh. To recover the latest version of a file, you can just copy it back over from the backup directory. To get an older version of a file, for example as it existed 10 days ago, you can do this:
rdiff-backup -r 10D /Volumes/external_drive/MyUserName/file \
/Users/MyUserName/file
[robg adds: I installed DarwinPorts and rdiff-backup on my PowerBook, which went well. The selfupdate and port sync commands, however, failed (message: "invalid gid nobody"). I'm trying to get to the bottom of that, and I'll post an update here if/when I do. Nonetheless, the rdiff-backup install went just fine (though the compile is time-consuming!), and a test backup of my user's home folder seems to have worked perfectly.]

