README
¶
rincr
rsync-based incremental backups.
Note: This project was previously called kbackup. See this issue for more information.
Installation
Grab the right binary for your OS and Architecture from Github. For Linux on x86:
curl -L https://github.com/thekashifmalik/rincr/releases/latest/download/rincr-linux-amd64 > rincr
For MacOS on ARM:
curl -L https://github.com/thekashifmalik/rincr/releases/latest/download/rincr-darwin-arm64 > rincr
Make sure it is executable and then place it anywhere in your $PATH:
chmod +x rincr
mv rincr ~/bin/rincr # Use whatever location you put your user binaries in.
Test that it works:
rincr --version
Note: This software is not yet stable; there may be backwards-incompatible changes before v1. Use at your own risk.
About
A reimplementation of the ideas in rsnapshot built with the composibility and simplicity of rsync in-mind. This
utility is meant to compliment rsync for backups. While rsync can be used to make mirrored backups rincr can be
used to make incremental backups which consist of a mirror and historical snapshots of the target data. These
snapshots are taken whenever data is backed up and this can be done as often as needed as it is cheap both in time and
space. rincr can also manage these snapshots, restore files to earlier versions and encrypt backups (NOT IMPLEMENTED
YET).
Features
rincr is built on top of rsync and borrows heavily from rsnapshot.
Incremental
Whenever rincr is run a copy of the last backup is stored in .rincr. Backups are fully browsable.
Differential
rincr uses rsync so only the actual differences between files are sent over-the-wire.
Deduplicated
rincr uses the same hard-link mechanism that rsnapshot uses so unchanged files between snapshots do not use any
storage space.
Bidirectional
rincr can backup from (pull) or to (push) a remote location, just like rsync.
Encrypted
rincr uses rsync and ssh so all communication is encrypted. Addtionally backups can be encrypted on disk
(NOT IMPLEMENTED YET).
Quickstart
rincr supports a similar interface to rsync:
rincr [[USER@]HOST:]SRC... [[USER@]HOST:]DEST
When this command is run rincr checks to see if there are existing backups at the destination. If there are, a copy of
the latest backup is created using hard links. Then new changes (if any) are synced from the source.
Incremental backups are kept at DEST/SRC/.rincr. They are fully browsable and take no extra space for files that have
not changed between versions. Each file acts as a full-backup and can be copied back out manually to restore data to an
older version.
Push Backups
Create an incremental backup of ~/mydata at the remote location myserver:~/backups/mydata:
rincr ~/mydata myserver:~/backups
Pull Backups
We can also back up locally from remote locations:
rincr server1:~/mydata server2:~/otherdata ~/backups
This will create incremental backups in ~/backups/mydata and ~/backups/otherdata.
Pruning
If you also want to clean up older backups, pass the --prune option:
rincr --prune ~/mydata myserver:~/backups
This will apply the default retention rules and delete extra backups. Pruned backups will be printed out. The default retention rules are:
- 24 hourly backups
- 30 daily backups
- 12 monthly backups
- 10 yearly backups
If you just want to prune backups without syncing new data, you can use:
rincr prune myserver:~/backups/mydata
Note: When pruning data you have to provide the path to the actual backup destination which includes the target name
mydata.
Restoring Files
To restore files from a backed-up repository, we can use:
rincr restore --latest myserver:backups/mydata path-to-restore output-path
rincr will check backups from latest to oldest until it finds a matching path. It will then copy that path recursively
into the output location. We can restore single files or full directory trees this way. Since rsync is used for the
the underlying transfer, only necessary files are transferred. Mutiple paths can be restored in one go:
rincr restore --latest myserver:backups/mydata file-1 file-2 output-path
Any paths that are not found will skipped. We can also configure how old of a file we want to fetch [NOT IMPLEMENTED YET].
Demo
$ ls -A ~/mydata
README.md new-file.txt
$ ssh desktop-1 ls ~/Backups/mydata
README.md .rincr
$ ssh desktop-1 ls ~/Backups/mydata/.rincr
2024-01-12T09-12-32 last
$ rincr ~/mydata desktop-1:~/Backups
...
$ ssh desktop-1 ls ~/Backups/mydata
README.md new-file.txt .rincr
$ ssh desktop-1 ls ~/Backups/mydata/.rincr
2024-01-12T09-12-32 2024-01-23T18-26-10 last
Unimplemented
# Overriding default rentention
rincr --rentention 30d ~/mydata myserver:~/backups
# Configurable file restore
rincr restore --from 1w myserver:~/backups/mydata/file ~/mydata/file
# File encryption - supports deduplication but less secure
rincr --encrypt ~/mydata myserver:~/backups
# Folder encryption - no deduplication but completely secure
rincr --encrypt-folder ~/mydata myserver:~/backups
Directories