backups with rsnapshot

a centralized backup server can easily be set up with rsnapshot. This program can pull specified remote folders with rsync.

1. install rsnapshot
2. edit the config file /etc/rsnapshot.conf . The default config is well documented and one has only to modify the given lines. The man page is also of great help (link). I found the following to fit my needs (the path need should be adjusted to each one's needs)
   [code language="bash" collapse="true" padlinenumbers="true" title="/etc/rsnapshot.conf"]
   config_version 1.2
   snapshot_root /mnt/USBBkupDisk/rsnapshot
   cmd_cp /bin/cp
   cmd_rm /bin/rm
   cmd_rsync /usr/bin/rsync
   cmd_ssh /usr/bin/ssh
   cmd_logger /usr/bin/logger
   cmd_du /usr/bin/du
   retain hourly 4
   retain daily 7
   retain weekly 4
   verbose 5
   loglevel 3
   lockfile /tmp/rsnapshot.pid
   include_file /home/bkuper/DarkTower.include
   exclude_file /home/bkuper/DarkTower.exclude
   backup DarkTower:/home/paul/ paulTower/
   backup DarkTower:/data/paul/ paulTower/
   [/code]
3. the in-/exclude files are the usual one from rsync , e.g. something like this:
   [code language="bash" collapse="true" padlinenumbers="true" title="/home/bkuper/DarkTower.include"]
   /home/paul/.*
   /home/paul/.*/
   /home/paul/bin
   /home/paul/Downloads
   /home/paul/VirtualBox VMs
   [/code]
   one needs to note here, that the order of include/exclude files is important! the first pattern which matches a file takes effect.
4. the user (here bkuper) needs to be able to sign into the client machine such that it can pull the backup. (ssh-copy-id...)
5. the interval which were defined above (retain hourly 4 retain daily 7 retain weekly 4) will be applied with a cronjob:
   [code language="bash" collapse="true" padlinenumbers="true" title="crontab"]
   $ crontab -l
   # do hourly backups at 9,13,19,23h
   0 9,13,19,23 * * * /usr/local/bin/rsnapshot hourly

   # do daily backups at 22:50
   50 22 * * * /usr/local/bin/rsnapshot daily

   # do weekly backups at mondays 22:40
   40 22 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/rsnapshot weekly
   [/code]