RSync

Basic Rsync Backup rsync -av source/ destination/ To/From Remote rsync -av -e ssh source/ username@remotemachine:/path/to/destination/

Trailing Slashes Do matter... Sometimes

Rsync cares about trailing slashes on the source argument. For example, let a and b be two directories with the file foo initially in a: rsync -a a b produces b/a/foo whereas rsync -a a/ b produces b/foo. A trailing slash on the destination has no effect.

Incremental Backups using Rsync

Needs rsync v.2.5.7 or later

rm -rf backup_folder.1
mv backup_folder.0 backup_folder.1 # Obviously, can have as many backups copies as you want
rsync -a --delete --link-dest=../backup_folder.1 source_directory/ backup_folder.0/

If running an older rsync:

mv backup_folder.1 backup_folder.tmp
mv backup_folder.0 backup_folder.1
mv backup_folder.tmp backup_folder.0
cp -al backup_folder.1/. backup_folder.0
rsync -a --delete source_directory/ backup_folder.0/