How to configure rsnapshot on OpenMandriva 2013

OpenMandriva 2013 already equipped with rsnapshot by default. Rsnapshot is a backup tool which is very powerful, can do automatic incremental backup on Linux system. Rsnapshot does not have GUI so we must do the configuration via command line. This tutorial is trying to give you a brief basic how to configure rsnapshot on OpenMandriva 2013. After that, you can setup you own automatic backup using rsnapshot.

Ok, first, open Konsole and login as root

su

Now, install nano since nano is not available on OpenMandriva default installation. If you are not familiar with nano, you can use your favorite text editor. Now edit the file /etc/rsnapshot.conf. If you use nano, you can simply execute this command on Konsole.

nano /etc/rsnapshot.conf

Now, find the following line

#snapshot_root   /home/.snapshots/

Remove the # and now it should be like this

snapshot_root   /home/.snapshots/

That line will setup where the backup will be saved. You can change the directory to your own. For example:

snapshot_root   /mnt/external_disk/

Make sure you use Tab button to separate between text "snapshot_root" and the desired directory. Otherwise it won’t works.

Next, we must configure the backup interval. Find the section below

#interval       hourly  6
interval        daily   7
#interval       weekly  4
#interval       monthly 3

Delete or add # to the interval you don’t want to use. Daily 7 means the backup will be performed once a day and 7 times a week. Weekly 4 means it will be backup on weekly basic and 4 times a month. You can change this value as you like.

Next we must specify which directories we want to backup. Find the backup points like the one below.

# LOCALHOST
#backup /home/          localhost/
#backup /etc/           localhost/
backup  /usr/   localhost/
#backup /var/log/rsnapshot              localhost/
#backup /etc/passwd     localhost/
#backup /home/foo/My Documents/         localhost/

You can add your own directories using the format as above. For example I want to backup /var/www directory. So I need to add a line:

backup /var/www/      localhost/

Make sure you separate using Tab, not space. At this point we are finish setting up the rsnapshot configuration file. Now close nano using CTRL+X and save it. Now test the configuration using command

rsnapshot configtest

It should returned something like this and no error displayed.

30245 (process ID) old priority 0, new priority 19
Syntax OK

Now start the first backup (on this example I use daily backup).

rsnapshot daily

That’s it. Next time I will post how to automate rsnapshot so it can be automated.

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