[NBLUG/talk] fear of rsync

[Bob Blick]

> Rsync is a one-way sync tool unlike some of the other tools like unison
> which are two way. Unless you pass rsync the --delete option, it will only
> add files that don't exist to the target (or rather, files that don't
> exist
> or updates files).

A hypothetical situation, then. Say I have successfully made a backup of a
directory. Then I modify a file and decide to rsync, but I type it wrong
and the direction is reversed, so my modified file gets un-modified?

> However, if you want to set up a backup scheme, I highly recommend trying
> out backuppc (http://backuppc.sf.net). It's Perl-based and can use Rsync,
> tar, or some other methods to backup both Linux, Windows, and Mac systems.
> I've been using for a little bit and have been really pleased. There are
> also .debs for it so if you use Debian you can just apt-get install
> backuppc.

It's shiny-looking! But I'd just like to find out more about what can go
wrong with rsync.

Cheerful regards,

Bob