[Discuss] rsnapshot vs. rdiff-backup

[Richard Pieri]

John Abreau wrote:
> I've never liked the way rsnapshot handles the additional levels of
> snapshots. As I recall, the most recent weekly was several weeks old, the
> most recent monthly  was always several months old, etc.

This suggests to me that the scheduling is off. It could be due to 
incorrectly staggered cron jobs or runs overlapping. Overlaps /will/ 
wreck the rotation cycles so it's important not to set your backup runs 
too close together. Despite the name, the "hourly" increments aren't 
necessarily hourly; I typically run them 3-6 hours apart.

Tedious, like I originally wrote. :/

> Also, when I used rsnapshot to back up dozens of servers, I found that if
> only one portion of one server's backups failed, it would roll back
> everything, and I'd lose backups for all servers.

I discovered this the hard way. It's more reliable if each node runs its 
own installation and pushes to a unique directory on the backup target. 
Trying to glom many nodes together in a single rsnapshot run is not a 
good way to do it.

-- 
Rich P.