REOBACK.PL(1)REOBACK.PL(1)NAME
reoback.pl - A simple backup solution.
SYNOPSIS
reoback.pl [OPTION] [CONFIG-FILE]
DESCRIPTION
Pronounced as "Ray-o-back", REOBack is a simple backup solution
designed for Linux Users AND System Administrators. It is designed to
be simple to set-up and and easy to use. Great as a quick solution for
those who procrastinate about backups.
Backups are performed by reading the user supplied configuration files
and creating tar/gzip archives of the files defined. REOBack is devel‐
oped to support nightly backups runs and as such, its first run is
always a full backup. That is, archive every file regardless of its
modification stamp.
REOBack keeps track of what type of backup to perform by storing backup
information in the "datadir" directory defined in the configuration
file. Therefore, deleting all files in the "datadir" directory will
cause REOBack to perform a full backup on its next run.
REOBack can keep backups for any number of days. The variable "backup‐
days" in the configuration defines this number. For example: a set‐
ting of "7", will cause REOBack to keep seven days of backup. It will
then delete old backups after reaching the next "7" days. Here's an
example:
Assume we want to keep 7 days worth of backup, that is keep a history
of any file for 7 days.
backupdays = 7 (set in the configuration file)
DAY BACKUPTYPE | DAY BACKUPTYPE
-------------------------------------------------------
1 FULL | 8 FULL
2 INC | 9 INC
3 INC | 10 INC
4 INC | 11 INC
5 INC | 12 INC
6 INC | 13 INC
7 INC (Delete 8-14) | 14 INC (Delete (1-7)
Notice that it keeps 14 days (backupdays x 2) worth of backup before it
deletes the old backups. That is because we don't want to delete the
old backups until the next full backups are finished.
When running a FULL backup, REOBack will archive ALL files and directo‐
ries defined. INCREMENTAL backups on the other hand only archives
files that changes since the last full backup. This means that if you
added or modified files in a directory defined for backups, after the
last full backup time, they will be picked up in every run until the
next full backup time passes.
OPTIONS-v, --version
display version information.
-h, --help, --usage
display help information.
CONFIG-FILE
this file is distributed as settings.cfg but can be named what‐
ever you want.
NOTES
If you want to run reoback.pl on a cron job, a file named
run_reoback.sh is provided (see sources) for convenience. It includes
basic instructions on how to set-up your crontab.
COPYRIGHT
reoback.pl is Copyright (c) 2001 Randy Oyarzabal.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER‐
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Library
General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
BUGS
Please report bugs on the project website located at: http://source‐
forge.net/projects/reoback/
AUTHORS
Randy Oyarzabal <techno91@users.sourceforge.net>
CONTRIBUTORS
Richard Griswold and Nate Steffenhagen
REOBack 1.0 September 2001 REOBACK.PL(1)
