Re: Using rsync to disk on the system being backed up?

[Robert Nichols]

On 2/15/23 14:33, EricZolf wrote:
> On February 15, 2023 7:41:25 PM UTC, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 15, 2023 01:24:16 PM ewl+rdiffbackup@lavar.de wrote:
> > > rdiff-backup (rdiff is something different) actually uses the
> > > patching/delta approach of (lib)rsync also locally to store less data.
> >
> > I guess I should have given more context (or clarity) to my questions.
> >
> > Part of my question was intended to be: if I don't have rdiff-backup available
> > (for whatever reason), can I use fairly standard tools (e.g., patch) to
> > retrieve older versions that I've backed up.
>
> Short answer: no.

And to expound upon that, even restoring the most recent version by copying a file from 
the mirror fully works only when the two filesystems are feature-compatible. As a fairly 
extreme example, if the archive is stored on a Microsoft Windows filesystem, copying the 
file will not recover the original permissions and other attributes the file might have 
had on a Linux filesystem. Since rdiff-backup stores those attributes in its own 
database, they will be recovered properly by a "restore" operation.

--
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                Do NOT delete it.