[X-Unix] rsync help

[Eric F Crist]

On Jan 24, 2008, at 10:06 AM, Craig Hoffman wrote:

> Hi There,
> I'm trying to backup my music directory to a network drive.  The  
> music directory is quite large (176.81GB).   My plan is write a  
> AppleScript and schedule it in iCal.  I've done this before and it  
> works well.  I've been experimenting with rsync and I can't seem to  
> get it work correctly.  It brings over the directories but none of  
> the files.  I also receive this error message: failed: Operation not  
> supported (45)
>
> Sample:
> rsync -xrlptgoEv --ignore-existing /Volumes/Twilight/Music/ /Volumes/ 
> teakettle/Music
>
> Any help would be great.  I'm open to other ideas too.
>
> Thanks,
> Craig

Craig,

I do something similar for my entire home directories on the laptops  
in our house.  I actually use cron to schedule the backups, which  
occur every hour (when the laptop isn't sleeping).

My rsync script does a bunch of extra logging stuff I'll leave out  
here, but this should point you in the right direction:
rsync -av --delete ~/ --exclude="Caches" --exclude="*.cdr" -- 
exclude="*.iso" --exclude=".Trash" --exclude=".Spotlight-V100" -- 
exclude=".Trashes" <hostname>:<destination_dir>

The above script makes an *exact* copy of what's in my home directory,  
and doesn't transfer the few big files I may have, including .cdr  
and .iso images.  I'm also excluding the .Trash and .Trashes  
directorys (why transfer my garbage?)  Caches, .Spotlight-V100 are  
also ignored, as this data can be easily regenerated upon a restore.   
The av options being passed are really all you should need.

All that being said, I would sum up your script with:

rsync -av /Volumes/Twilight/Music/ /Volumes/teakettle/Music

If you, or anyone, want to see my entire script and the cron entry,  
I'd be willing to share.
-----
Eric F Crist
Secure Computing Networks