Hi all. I need to backup a server (actually web, dns and mail) placed on Internet, and write data on a computer inside the intranet of our company. I have read good things about rsync from the mailing list and the man pages, and I know that it can represent the solution for what I'm looking for. However, since I'm new to rsync, if you can give me your opinion about my configuration I would be glad ;-) I want say, as first that I have installed rsync via inetd, if this can matter. This is /etc/rsyncd.conf stored on the server: log file = /var/log/rsync # Avoid modules listing (security) list = false # Avoid client's uploads (security) read only = yes # User/Pass combination. auth users = paolo secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets # Allow rsync just from my own IP. max connections = 1 hosts allow = www.xxx.yyy.zzz hosts deny = * [all] comment = Module for whole disk backup. path = / And this is the command line lauched from root user on the client: rsync -avHz --password-file=rsync_password paolo@www.xxx.yyy.zzz::all /home/paolo/rsynced If I have understand correctly it must be launched by root in order to preserve the owner of original files. Are the switch correct to copy each kind of files, devices, links etc.? Another couple of things; on the server exists this file: -rw------- 1 root root 23 Aug 3 10:22 /etc/rsyncd.secrets containing the paolo:password line, and on the client -rw------- 1 root root 17 3 ago 10:13 rsync_password containing the password for the user paolo Thus, is this configuration correct and "secure", or I can do something further to improve some aspect of this backup task? I know that it is possible to use ssh combined with rsync, but probably this would require more resources (and time) on the side of server. Finally, among the various files that are on the server there are some of them that can't be backed up without stop the service that handle them. Is there a way to tell rsync to do a command before/after copying a certain file (such as stop the service and restart it after the copy)? Thanks for your attention, Paolo Dina