Hi all, I'm attempting to build a backup system using rsync and subversion. I have a samba share which I would like to replicate via rsync. The replicated copy is under subversion control to store a 'history'. This appears to work well until a directory is removed on the primary (non-backup) file system. The rsync command which I assumed would do the job: $ rsyc -zrv --delete --force --exclude=".svn" SRC DEST Since the destination folders are under subversion control, each folder has a ".svn" folder holding the versioning information. I would prefer these not be deleted each time rsync ran, hence the --exclude=".svn" flag. However, when a folder is removed on the source machine I would like that folder to disappear on the destination machine, ".svn" subdirectory and all. Reading the short description of "--force", it appears this flag should do the trick - further investigation reveals this is not quite so. Furthermore, the output of the "-v" flag doesn't imply that the directory can be deleted, except when doing a dry run: $ rsync -rvz --delete --exclude=".svn" --dry-run ~/TestA ~/testme/TestB building file list ... done deleting TestA/TEST/ <------- TestA/blerg.txt TestA/file with space.txt TestA/file2.txt TestA/sync.sh $ rsync -rvz --delete --exclude=".svn" ~/TestA ~/testme/TestB building file list ... done TestA/blerg.txt TestA/file with space.txt TestA/file2.txt TestA/sync.sh I was wondering, short of moving the subversion server to the source machine, or running rsync twice and doing some output matching, how this might be accomplished? Cheers, Andrew
On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 16:20 +1100, Andrew Crouch wrote:> I'm attempting to build a backup system using rsync and subversion. > [...]Are you sure you want to be using Subversion and not some other mechanism? If I understand correctly, during each backup, you rsync an ordinary file tree into a Subversion working copy and then commit the working copy to the repository. The trouble with this arrangement is that Subversion almost always needs to be notified when files in a working copy are created, moved, or deleted (with `svn add', `svn move', and similar) in order for committing to work correctly. I imagine you have an automated script that runs some `svn ___' commands to add and remove files from version control, but deletion of directories is probably one of several cases that it cannot handle. (Not to mention, what happens if a Subversion working copy is among the things you are backing up?) A common incremental backup package such as rsnapshot or rdiff-backup would probably do a better job of keeping a "history" than Subversion. Either of these tools will let you send the data from the source machine to a repository of incremental backups in one step instead of having to move it to the backup machine and then "check it in" somehow. -- Matt McCutchen, ``hashproduct'' hashproduct@verizon.net -- mysite.verizon.net/hashproduct
On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 04:20:09PM +1100, Andrew Crouch wrote:> Reading the short description of "--force", it appears this flag > should do the trick - further investigation reveals this is not quite > so.The --force option doesn't do anything extra if --delete was already specified (--force would allow a file to replace a directory without the --delete option). When you tell rsync to protect some files, rsync will not remove the containing directory that holds the protected files.> Furthermore, the output of the "-v" flag doesn't imply that the > directory can be deleted, except when doing a dry run:Yes, because --dry-run is not smart enough to know that the directory's deletion is being prevented by the preservation of some excluded content.> I was wondering, short of moving the subversion server to the source > machine, or running rsync twice and doing some output matching, how > this might be accomplished?You could always run a simple perl script on the resulting dirs and let it remove any directory that only contains a .svn dir (which would allow you to run an svn delete command at that time). For instance, this script finds these empty dirs and runs "rm -rf" on them: #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; my %dirs; open(IN, 'find /dest/path/foo |') or die $!; while (<IN>) { next if m#/.svn/#; chomp; my($path, $name) = m#^(.*)/([^/]+)$#; if ($name eq '.svn') { $dirs{$path} += 0; } else { $dirs{$path}++; } print "$path = $dirs{$path}\n"; } foreach (reverse sort keys %dirs) { if ($dirs{$_} == 0) { system "rm -rf '$_'"; # Handle a nested sequence of dirs going empty. my($path) = m#^(.*)/#; $dirs{$path}--; } } ..wayne..