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remote backup
Authored by: SOX on May 18, '04 02:22:15PM

rsync, rdiff, and cpio all have a problem with HFS+ and that is resource forks and metadata are destroyed. For 99% of your osx files this makes no difference but you will end up regretting it eventually. macosxlabs' RsyncX instead of the built in rsync takes care of HFS+, but is like rysnc plagued with silent malloc failures on deep directory trees that make it unsuited for unattended usage. If you actually check your error logs to notice those sorts of failures then RsyncX is probably the single best solution.

RsyncX is pretty close to your only choice if you cannot mount the remote volume on your local computer.

if you are able to mount the remote volume (as opposed to ssh-ing to the remote computer) and it's an hfs volume you could use Ditto or cpMac with the copy resource flag enabled.

If you are mirroring things that mostly dont change then the above two methods are inefficient. Instead use rysncX (with the caveat I noted.) Personally I use psync which is also more efficient and which does not have the deep path failure mode. It is slightly slower than rsyncX and wont work on things you cannot mounton the local machine.

Also for things you can mount you can use silverkeeper (free) from Lacie and (free) CarbonCopy Cloner (which uses a variety of methods under the hood including psync). Both of these are fast and work well. It's very easy to automate silverkeeper and maintain exclude lists using its GUI interface. I've had severe problems with silverkeeper but most people I know report complete success. But it does not fail silently.

psync has a nice feature of being able to stash your metadata and protection factors when you are stroring on a remote volume that is not HFS aware. They can be restored later.

with psync its:
mount remote disk
pysync the local to the remote directory


then as an added bonus on the remote machine I normally execute
find /mybackup | cpio -dpl /backup.1
before I run psync. this gives me a snapshot of the previous generation backup that takes almost no added disk space. you can keep as many of these as you want for weekly, monthly backups....the only storage space it uses is to store the differences.




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remote backup
Authored by: SOX on May 18, '04 02:24:42PM

note that while cpio has problems with meta data, oddly enough this is not a problem for the prescribed usage of making hard links. this only affects the primary copy. that is dont use CPIO to make a backup copy. use it to make a hardlink image. make the bakcup copy with something else.



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remote backup
Authored by: greebly on May 18, '04 02:35:28PM

Hmmm. Perhaps I will have the backup performed to my other Mac with an HFS+ volume, and make .dmg's of that volume from time to time.

I don't think it's going to be a HUGE problem though. Most of the important data is backed up, and those are documents, etc. which, as you say, are part of that 99% of files that won't be affected.

---
--++-- Aaron Mildenstein --++--

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons,
for you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup.



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remote backup
Authored by: SOX on May 18, '04 06:59:36PM

still will lose the creator code if the suffix is missing.



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remote backup
Authored by: greebly on May 18, '04 02:57:56PM
According to this post, the metadata problem has been solved in recent versions of rdiff-backup.

That's been my experience so far as well. I haven't had a problem with my backups, having checked the logs.

---
--++-- Aaron Mildenstein --++--

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons,
for you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup.

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