On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 7:42 AM, Craig Sanders via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 01:09:46AM +0700, Robert Parker via luv-main wrote:

> > Thanks Rick, I actually rsync everything to an local external drive
> > daily
> >
> > Well I hope you are not doing it with the -delete option in place
> > because
>
> if you are it will faithfully remove from your backup set everything
> that has gone missing from your source drive.

more importantly, using rsync's --delete option won't leave cruft from
uninstalled packages and other deleted files strewn all over your
filesystem.

i made the mistake of forgetting to use --delete on an rsync transfer
of one of my systems' OS disk to a new disk once, didn't discover it
until after i'd made the final swap to the new disk. left me with an
enormous mess that took over a year of gradual cleanups plus a final
concerted effort involving find and several custom scripts to process
/var/lib/dpkg/info/* files to tidy up the mess. even now i'm not 100%
sure i've got it all.

and yes, all that cruft did cause numerous problems. inevitable, really,
with extra crap like partial packages, obsolete libs and binaries.


don't try this at home, it'll suck.

Too true Craig.

I do my regular backup without the --delete option but then log what would have been deleted otherwise.
From time to time I follow that by viewing the log with the cache crap filtered out and when I am happy that the potential deletions are what I intended I run rsync using --delete to get rid of the nonsense.

Bob
 


craig

--
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
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The Bundys, Cliven, Ted and Al. Great guys to look up to.