[GTALUG] What Not To Backup

[Alvin Starr]

On 12/23/2016 12:11 PM, John Moniz via talk wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine 
> tune the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to 
> bother to backup on the /home directory.
>
> I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out 
> the man page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the 
> following on my exclude_list.txt:
> (Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each 
> line in the file only has one item)
>
> tmp* TMP*
> .cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
> .cookies* cookies*
> Trash Trash* TRASH*
> Junk* junk*
> .gvfs
> Backups backups
> Crash*
> .xsession-errors*
> .macromedia
> .thumbnails
> .mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
> *.corrupt
> minidumps
> .local/share/gvfs*
>
> I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a 
> backup to rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.
>
> Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of 
> /home? I am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make 
> it easier to recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
Take a look at rdiff-backup I prefer it over rsync because it keeps a 
history as diffs from the current backup.
Backups are not just disaster recovery sometimes you need to go back a 
week to find that file you accidentally deleted.

As a rule I do full backups because I have been burned by backing up 
just the "critical" information only to find that there was other 
information pushed all over the system.

Database backups need to be handled somewhat special because most 
databases do not guarantee that the binary file backup will not be 
corrupted  if the server is active while the data is being backed up.

I will exclude things like /tmp and /var/tmp but I make sure I keep the 
/var/log/* files because the log files are the first thing someone who 
compromises your system will delete.

-- 
Alvin Starr                   ||   voice: (905)513-7688
Netvel Inc.                   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
alvin at netvel.net              ||

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