Mirror change tracking

From FBSD_tips

Keeping deleted or changed files from a mirror source using rsync.

Sometimes I want to have copies of the changed or deleted files from a filesystem I am mirroring with rsync, and keep track of when they were altered or over-written. Here is a script snippet to accomplish this.

First I grabthe date, in separate pieces :

YR=`date "+%Y"`
MN=`date "+%m"`
DY=`date "+%d"`

Then let's make the directory that will hold the changed files :

mkdir -p /mirrors/mitrror1/changes/${YR}/${MN}/${DY}

Then use the --backup and --backup-dir options of rsync to populate it while we (re)sync the mirror :

rsync -avP \
--backup \
--backup-dir=/mirrors/mitrror1/changes/${YR}/${MN}/${DY}
--delete \
rsyncuser@[remote host]:/ /mirrors/mitrror1/root/ 

Rsyncuser is talked about in this article Rsync mirror without root.

Replace [remote host]:/ with the host and file system you are mirroring.

Now the live mirror will be in /mirrors/mitrror1/root/ and daily changes (assuming that you run this daily) will be in a hierarchy sorted by year / month / day starting at /mirrors/mitrror1/changes/.

Gongo 20:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)