Backing up

• Note that the first time you use a save directory (repository), you'll need --init-savedir.
• Below are 7 examples of backshift backups, from simple to relatively complex:
  1. To back up / with a pretty accurate progress report. This one is based on the lengths of files (--progress-report full+poststat is default):
     • find / -xdev -print0 | backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset slash --init-savedir
  2. Back up your root filesystem (absent ZFS, which breaks find's -xdev), with less-precise, file-count-based progress, creating the repository if it does not yet exist:
     • find / -xdev -print0 | backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset slash --init-savedir --progress-mode moderate
  3. To back up / with a pretty accurate progress report (assumes your find supports -printf). This one is again based on the lengths of files, however it's faster than the example without --progress-report, especially on large collections of many small files:
     • find / -xdev -printf '%s %p\0' | backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset slash --init-savedir --progress-report full+prestat
  4. To back up / with a minimal progress report - this one does not do a big inhale of filenames at the beginning:
     • find / -xdev -print0 | backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset slash --init-savedir --progress-report minimal
  5. To back up / with no progress report at all - this one is usually best in cron jobs:
     • find / -xdev -print0 | backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset slash --init-savedir --progress-report none
  6. This one backs up /movie with a progress report, keeping the progress report pretty accurate despite a previous incomplete backup by using randomize --preserve-directories. Note that this example splits one logical line into multiple physical lines in the manner of POSIX shells and *csh, by using backslashes on all but the last line:
     • find /movie -xdev -print0 | \
     •    ~/src/home-svn/backshift/trunk/randomize -0 -v --preserve-directories --skip-size | \
     •    /usr/local/pypy-1.4.1/bin/pypy ~/src/home-svn/backshift/tags/0.94/backshift \
     •      --backup \
     •      --save-directory /mnt/backshift-incremental-test/save-directory \
     •      --subset movie
  7. To pull from an sshfs (sshfs flattens filesystems into a single filesystem) to a local filesystem (but writing to a remote filesystem is faster than reading from one - if you have the choice), not creating the savedir (note that backing up a ZFS could be done similarly):
     • cd /ssh/fs/base
     • find . -xdev \( \( \
     •    -path ./sys -o \
     •    -path ./dev -o \
     •    -path ./var/run -o \
     •    -path ./var/lock -o \
     •    -name .gvfs \) -prune -o -print0 \) | \
     •    backshift --save-directory /where/ever/save-directory --backup --subset fullsave