Backup by rsync command

The rsync command will create an exact copy of your information in a new location based on what has changed. It functions in a way to synchronize two directories or drives. The format for using rsync is:

command options what_to_backup where_to_backup

Note that if you only want files, not the directory container itself to be backed up the end the directory to be backed up with a “/”.

Compression
If you want to make your transfer smaller then use the -z option to compress your transfer.

rsync -avz /home/office /bk

Archive Mode -a
This will ensure that all symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships,etc. are preserved and transferred. This is the same as rlptgoD

Verbose -v
This will provide you with information.

Get Stats on Transfer –stats

rsync -avz --stats /home/office /var/bk

Here is an example of the stats you will have available.
Number of files: 324352
Number of files transferred: 70613
Total file size: 20610660916 bytes
Total transferred file size: 11504455981 bytes
Literal data: 11504455981 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 17670110
File list generation time: 37.718 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 11527010557
Total bytes received: 1887490

sent 11527010557 bytes received 1887490 bytes 21212323.91 bytes/sec
total size is 20610660916 speedup is 1.79

File size Transferred
11.5 MB

Create an exclude file.
If you have a number of extensions you want to exclude, create a file and then tell rsync where the file is so that these extensions or patterns will not be transferred.

rsync -avz --exclude-from=/root/scripts/exclude --stats /home/office /bk

Here the file containing the patterns is listed by using –exclude-from= followed by a path to the file. As you can see the patterns in the file are not transferred.

home/office/exclude file contents, one pattern on each line.
*.rpm
*.bz2
*.tar