Comments on: Backups, rsync, and –link-dest not working

By: Will

Will — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:14:19 +0000

Very late reply, that you may never read, but … thank you for “ignore ownership”. My god you have put an end to a number of wasted hours.

Thank you.

By: GH

GH — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:40:02 +0000

Another item I am trying to find is how to modify the word boundaries for text selection.. in iTerm, I can specify what characters make up words I want to click on to select. for example, if I have /dev/nst0 and click on that string “/dev/nst0″ in Terminal, it only selects “dev” or “nst0″, I need it to select “/dev/nst0″ so I can copy/paste. Any ideas on this for macs Terminal.app? I like Terminal better, but as a UNIX admin, I really like the old X11 text cursor selection -> copy to buffer -> middle click action… any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

By: Clemens

Clemens — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:42:02 +0000

You can turn off the “Ignore ownership on this volume” setting from the command line (i.e. via ssh) by:

vsdbutil -a /Volumes/[Volumename]

and check the current status with:

vsdbutil -e /Volumes/[Volumename]

You need superuser rights to do this, so prepend sudo. More info reveals vsdbutil’s manpage and http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108006

Thanks for your hint in the first place.

By: Edgar Ostrowski

Edgar Ostrowski — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:43:46 +0000

The hint about the “Ignore ownership on this volume” setting saved — not my life, but my backups I’m using rsync both on Windows and on my Mac and was on the verge of despair when I found this page after dozens of google searches.
Thanks a lot!!

By: Rsync Backups and Hard Links on Mac OS X External Drives | Slaptijack

Rsync Backups and Hard Links on Mac OS X External Drives | Slaptijack — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:41:12 +0000

[…] a bit of administrivia right here. A little Googling shows that Terminal.app ran into the same problem and used the same fix. Miguel’s post goes into some additional […]

By: Miguel Arroz

Miguel Arroz — Tue, 29 May 2007 09:20:03 +0000

Hi Rodolfo! If you consult the /var/log/system.log file immediately after running rsyncx, you will find out why. rsyncs uses some deprecated methods to access special Mac file data, like resource forks and extended attributes. As any deprecated method or API, it may stop working when Apple decides to. So, it’s better to stay away.

By: Rodolfo Gouveia

Rodolfo Gouveia — Tue, 29 May 2007 08:55:39 +0000

I had problems with tiger builtin rsync with the option “–delete”, so I’m using rsyncx.
I’m curious to know about why shouldn’t I use it on tiger.
Thanks.

By: Miguel Arroz

Miguel Arroz — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:31:59 +0000

Hi!

That’s also a nice approach!

I use the –link-dest method because it not only keeps the deleted files, but also because you happen to end up with snapshots of your data in certain timepoints (I got used to the “snapshot” concept because Retrospect uses it heavily). So, for example, if you server is hacked today, or if someone deleted files by mistake two days ago, you can just grap the backup before that day, and you know that you have an exact copy of the original file system X days ago. I have a backup script that keeps a backup of every first day of each month, the last four “Saturdays” and the last 7 days, I think. Everything is rotated automatically, except the monthy copies that are stored forever (or until we think it’s safe to throw away). I may post it here in some days.

But if for some reason (space, whatever) you cannot have multiple snapshots od your data, Arno’s script looks like a nice alternative way to achieve safe backups. Thanks for the link!

Miguel Arroz

By: Eduardo Farias

Eduardo Farias — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:11:55 +0000

Hi,

I use the Arno’s SmartBackup Script (http://rocky.eld.leidenuniv.nl/page/smartbackup/index.html) it also uses rsync but as some features build in, like keeping the deleted files, etc…

Check it out.

Eduardo Farias