Rsync

See Archwiki:rsync and rsync(1) - Linux man page

Getting Started

rsync -a <src> <dst> --info=progress2

Flags

• -a archive mode (recursive, preserves symlinks, permissions, times, group, owner, devices)
• --no-i-r or --no-inc-recursive scans all files at the beginning rather than during the transfer
• --progress shows per-file progress
• --info=progress2 shows overall progress during the transfer

System Backups

• Create a script and add it to your crontab -e

Basic Backup

#!/bin/bash

TARGET_FOLDER=<your target for backup>
EXCLUSIONS='--exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"}'

sudo rsync -aAXq ${EXCLUSIONS} / "${TARGET_FOLDER}"

Flags

• -a archive mode
• -A preserve ACLs (access control lists)
• -X preserve extended attributes
• -q quiet

Exclude

Add --exclude to your call.

Notes

• Exclude typically uses a pattern. If you want to exclude from the root of the transfer, prepend /.

  E.g

  rclone --exclude "/project/node_modules" project /some/other/dir/

• Add --exclude before --stats and --delete if you want it to work.

You can also use --exclude-from and point to a text file list of exclusions.