Linux Daily Backups

Incremental Backup Script

This Bash script performs incremental backups using rsync and allows you to specify the source and destination directories.

Usage

./dailybackup.sh <source_directory> <destination_directory>

Replace <source_directory> and <destination_directory> with the actual paths you want to use for the backup.

Features

• Incremental Backups: Uses rsync to perform incremental backups, saving disk space.
• Timestamped Backups: Each backup is timestamped for easy identification.
• Latest Symlink: Maintains a 'latest' symlink pointing to the most recent backup for quick access.
• Optional Old Backup Removal: Removes old backups based on a configurable retention policy.

Setup

1. Navigate to the script directory:

  cd path/to/script/

2. Make the script executable

  chmod +x dailybackup.sh

3. Run the script

  ./dailybackup.sh <source_directory> <destination_directory>

You will most likely want to be able to schedule this script! You can use crontab to achieve this.

Schedule the Script To Run at 2am daily

1. Open Crontab

  crontab -e

2. Add cron entry pointing to your script path

  0 2 * * * /path/to/script/dailybackup.sh <source_directory> <destination_directory>

Acknowledgements

I certainly can't take a lot of credit for this one. I had help from ChatGPT! Thanks #OpenAi 🙏