Re: backing up with rsync

[Anne Possoz <Anne Possoz vtxnet ch>]

On saturday may 3rd, Jochen Kchelin wrotäe:

> what services must run on a machine
> which I wan't to backup with rsync tunneling
> through ssh? Do I need rsyncd running on this machine?
> When I backup my RedHats everything works fine but
> when I try to backup a SuSE 7.2 I get an error!
> Something like "...bytes do not match...."!
> I have no access to this machine at the moment so I
> can't remember the error message in detail.
> 
> Maybe there's a problem with different ssh versions?
> 
> I use the following:
> 
> rsync -avz -e ssh user host:/path/to/backup/* /backup/

There are 2 ways to use rsync. The one you suggest is perfetcly ok.
I prefer the equivalent writing:
rsync -avz --rsh=ssh user host:/path/to/backup/* /backup/

Some suggestions would be:

1) always make a check before rsyncing, usin the -n option
rsync -avzn --rsh=ssh user host:/path/to/backup/* /backup/

2) learn the difference between the last / in the "from" part:

rsync -avz --rsh=ssh src:/backup dest:/backup/
will rsync the directory backup as a directory, with everything
it contains; in this example, you would result with
dest:/backup/backup/... in the "to" dir.

rsync -avz --rsh=ssh src:/backup/ dest:/backup/
will rsync all the content of src:/backup but not the directory
itself; the result would be dest:/backup/...

rsync -avz --rsh=ssh src:/backup/* dest:/backup/
will rsync part of the content of src:/backup (the files starting
with a . will not be rsynced).

You don't need any rsyncd for these commands.
The rsync server is used while using "::" instead of ":" and
refer to the /etc/rsyncd.conf file on the corresponding server.
But that's another story.

But all that does not explain what happens when you try to rsync
from a SuSE system.
If you are sure of your command line, you might have a problem
with ssh. You should first check that you can ssh to
user host  The sshd should run on the SuSE computer.

				Anne