Remember to boost the verbosity of rsync's output with more -vv to get more information when things don't work correctly, and use the --dry-run option for test-drives. man rsync is thorough and detailed, and a bit of Web searching will find hundreds of articles and tips about rsync.

rsync gurus like to add all manner of complexities and refinements, which of course you are welcome to do as well. What we did in this series was take advantage of universal Linux utilities (OpenSSH, rsync, scripting, and udev) to create a simple, portable backup method that we can easily replicate on any Linux system. And perhaps even more important, the backed-up files are easily recoverable- you can plug your backup drive into any Linux or Windows PC to access them.

This also works for a dedicated backup server, though there are better and more secure methods for those that we'll get to sometime down the road.

Resources

• rsync
• OpenSSH
• Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync
• My very own Linux Cookbook has a good chapter on backup and recovery

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