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- Rsync Incremental Backup
- Best Rsync Options For Backup Macos Windows 10
- Best Rsync Options For Backup Macos Download
- Apr 02, 2020 6. Rsync is another feature-rich backup solution available for Linux. It allows for incremental backups, update whole directory tree and file system, both local and remote backups, preserve file permissions, ownership, links, privileges, automated scripts and much more.
- Rsync is a command-line tool built-in to Mac OS X that allows you to synchronize files between two folders on a machine or between two machines on a network. Rsync is an incredibly useful tool that has been used by Unix administrators for many years.
Syntax: rsync options Source Source. Destination. Perhaps the best way to explain the syntax is some examples: rsync.c foo:Source/. Related macOS commands: rsync.samba.org - Download latest version (plus docs). Cp - Copy files. Install - Copy files and set attributes. Dec 04, 2018 Backblaze integrates very well with macOS, more so than most other backup services out there (of which there are plenty). There’s not even an app to manage, as it will install to a preferences pane in your settings. It’s incredibly easy to set up and manage even for the inexperienced user.
- Created: 26 January 2005
- Updated: 18 December 2005: added note for Mac OS X 10.4 and general clean up.
- Updated: 18 February 2006: added note about using -x switch to reduce need for specified excludes. From suggestion by Mike Bremford.
Author: Matthew Phillips
I begin by showing you the basics of getting around the Mac. Tutor for macOS MojaveLearn how to get the most our of macOS Mojave, the latest operating system for your Mac. I’ll guide you through macOS Mojave with more than 80 video tutorials and more than 8 hours of video instruction.
This document describes how to setup a system for automatically backing up a Mac (OS X 10.2 or later) to an external drive using the freely available
rsync
utility. This applies to any kind of external drive including FireWire, USB and network drives. It does not apply to CD-R or DVD-R media. It also does not apply if you want to implement an incremental backup system.Rsync Incremental Backup
If you've already set up the external drive you'll be backing up to, you can skip to the next section. Wd ntfs driver for mac.
To create a partition on the disk drive, connect the drive and wait for Mac OS X to offer to run
Disk Utility
to initialise it.The details of how to use
Disk Utility
are beyond this HOWTO and are well covered by the Mac's online help: just run help and search for 'Partitioning a hard disk'.Below is a screenshot of a partitioned drive in
Disk Utility
. In this example I've chosen to create two partitions, named OSX
and Data
, one for backing up the core system and user accounts, and one for large data files such as music and movies. These appear as drives on the desktop and as folders in the /Volumes
folder. If you're not sure what you want, just create a single OSX
partition.When you've created the partitions, you'll see them appear as empty drives in the Finder and on the Desktop.
For some reason Mac OS turns off permissions management for new partitions by default, which will result in 'chown' errors from
rsync
if not rectified.To enable permissions, select the partition in on the Desktop and show its information page by hitting Command+I. Expand the 'Ownership & Permissions' section and make sure that 'Ignore ownership on this volume' is not checked as shown below.
Note to users of Mac OS X 10.4 and later: Apple extended the version of
rsync
shipped with Mac OS X 10.4 to directly support resource forks, so if you don't want to use the GUI provided by rsyncx
, you can skip the software installation and go to the Advanced section.You only need one piece of software to backup your Mac that's not already part of Mac OS:
rsyncx
. Although Mac OS X comes packaged with bog-standard Unix rsync
, rsyncx
is needed in order to preserve Mac-specific resource forks. While Apple is no longer recommending applications use resource forks, some classic Mac apps still rely on them. rsyncx
also comes with a graphical front end that can make it much easier to get started.You can download rsyncx from VersionTracker (version 2.1 was current when this document was last updated). More information about rsyncx and its developer, Kevin Boyd, is available here.
To install
rsyncx
, simply extract the rsyncx
archive and find the installer package inside it which will be called something like RsyncX_v2.1.pkg
. Double-clicking this will install the rsyncx
GUI and the command line program /usr/local/bin/rsync
(it will not delete the built-in rsync
).If you just want to create a backup of your entire Mac hard disk (and optionally make it bootable), then this section is for you. If you want to back up only some of the drive or use multiple partitions, see the Advanced section.
The simplest way to use
rsyncx
is to use the graphical front end: just select RsyncX
from the Applications folder. Below is a screenshot of how to set up the application to back up the entire Mac hard drive to the external drives' OSX
partition and make it bootable.Tips
- The 'Remove Unmatched' checkbox tells
rsyncx
to delete any files on the external drive that have been deleted since the last backup. Coupled with Archive mode (which preserves all file modification times, ownerships, etc), this will produce an exact copy of the drive.Note: this option will also mean that any files you may have accidentally deleted will also be deleted from the backup too, making it possible to lose a file permanently if you don't notice its deletion in time. - Although it's not obvious, you can resize the window by dragging the right corner which displays more than one 'Source' path. You can use this to select several specific folders rather than the whole drive.
- If you're using FileVault to encrypt your home folder, you may want to consider backing up the system from another account. This is because if you run the backup while you are logged in, the backup process will copy your unencrypted home folder's contents. The simplest way to do this is to create a special 'Backup' user and, when you do a backup, log off from your account and log back in as Backup to run the backup process. This will result in your home folder also being encrypted in the backup (it appears as a single, large, encrypted
.sparseimage
file). The one downside of doing it this way is that you'll also need to grant the backup user admin rights as described in the advanced section.In fact running the backup while logged in as another user can be a good idea even if you're not using FileVault, since it reduces the likelihood that processes will modify files while they're being copied.
Obviously the best way to test whether the backup will work in an emergency is to boot from it. To do this, restart the Mac and hold the Option key down while it boots. You will be presented with a screen that allows you to choose the boot drive. If you can successfully boot and login from the external drive, then you can be fairly confident of being able to recover from a disaster by simply booting from backup and using
rsync
in reverse to restore the system.If you want to do more funky things like backup different parts of the drive to different partitions, exclude certain files from backup or any other sort of customised stuff, then you may want to write some scripts to drive
rsync
from the command line. This section contains some tips on doing this. It assumes you know Unix-type stuff like vi
.Mac OS X 10.4 users
As of 10.4 Apple's shipping
rsync
supports resource forks by specifying the -E
flag on the command line. The example script allows switching to the OS X built-in rsync
by swapping commented definition of RSYNC
at the top of the script.Below is the text of a script called
backup.sh
that can be used to backup all of the main hard disk, with a specified set of exceptions listed in a file called backup_excludes.txt
.You can copy and paste this text into a new new and then execute
chmod u+x backup.sh
to make it into an executable command.The file
backup_excludes.txt
contains a list of files to exclude. An example is shown below — this list can be used as the default set of directories that should not be backed up which you can add to as needed.Tips
- You can run the backup script with the
-n
option to test it. In this modersync
will run through the motions but not make any actual changes. Adding-v
will causersync
to print out all the files it will be changing. - If you're running the backup as the 'backup' user as recommended in a previous tip, you will need to grant the backup user the ability to run the
rsync
andbless
commands as root. To do this you need to run 'sudo visudo
' as an admin user and add the lines highlighted in green to make it look like the example below. - The fact that the command line version of
rsyncx
has the same name as the built-inrsync
carries the danger that you may not be using the right one. The standard rsync that comes with Mac OS X is in/usr/bin/rsync
and, since/usr/local/bin
is usually used before/usr/bin
, the extended rsync should be what you get. If you want to be sure, run 'rsync 2>&1 | head -n 3
' and if you see 'HFS+ filesystem support for OSX (C)2004 Kevin A. Boyd' as the last line, then you're usingrsyncx
.
To use Time Machine to make a backup of your Mac, you need any of these types of storage devices:
- External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
After setting up the storage device, you can use Time Machine to make a backup of your Mac. And after making your backup, you can use Time Machine to restore files from your backup.
External drive connected to your Mac
Time Machine can back up to an external drive connected to a USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire port on your Mac.
External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
Best Rsync Options For Backup Macos Windows 10
Time Machine can back up to an external USB drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule.
Best Rsync Options For Backup Macos Download
- Make sure that the USB drive is formatted for Time Machine.
- Connect the drive to a USB port on your AirPort base station, then turn it on.
- Open AirPort Utility, then select your base station and click Edit to view its settings.
- Click the Disks tab in the settings window.
- Select your backup disk from the list of partitions, then select ”Enable file sharing”:
- If more than one user on your network will back up to this disk with Time Machine, you can use the Secure Shared Disks pop-up menu to make sure that they can view only their own backups, not yours. Choose ”With accounts” from the menu, then click the Add (+) button to add users.
- Click Update to restart your base station and apply the settings.
AirPort Time Capsule
Time Machine can back up to the built-in hard disk of an AirPort Time Capsule on your network.
Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
To use another Mac on your network as a Time Machine backup destination, complete these steps on the other Mac:
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Sharing.
- From the list of services on the left, select File Sharing.
- From the list of Shared Folders on the right, Control-click the folder that you want to use for Time Machine backups.
- From the shortcut menu that opens, choose Advanced Options.
- From the Advanced Options dialog, select ”Share as a Time Machine backup destination.”
When setting up Time Machine on your other Mac computers, you should now be able to select the shared folder as a backup disk.
Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
Many third-party NAS devices support Time Machine over SMB. For details, check the documentation for your NAS device.
How to format a disk for Time Machine
Time Machine supports all Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formats and Xsan formats. If the disk isn't using the correct format, Time Machine automatically prompts you to erase it when you connect it to your Mac:
If you need to erase the disk manually, use the Disk Utility app to erase using the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
Time Machine can't back up to an iOS device or disk formatted for Windows. And if your disk uses the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme, some of its partitions might not be available for use with Time Machine.
Sample mobileconfig profiles for macos download. Our objective in this tutorial is to display a custom message on the user login screen for macOS devices with the custom “Loginwindow” configuration profile. As an aside, there are a couple good resources to check first when looking for references of available configuration profiles. Aug 07, 2013 The first step is to create and export your configuration profile as a.mobileconfig file. These files can be created on a computer running OS X Server, using Profile Manager. For more details on creating and downloading configuration profiles, see Apple’s Profile Manager Help documentation.