rsync-time-backup VS pyznap

Hi Hacker News,

I'm excited to share my recent project, where I took on the challenge of porting a popular but untested 600+ line Bash script to Python. The outcome is [`rsync-time-machine.py`](https://github.com/basnijholt/rsync-time-machine.py), a Python implementation of the [`rsync-time-backup`](https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup) script. It provides Time Machine-style backups using rsync and creates incremental backups of files and directories to the destination of your choice.

The tool is designed to work on Linux, macOS, and Windows (via WSL or Cygwin). Its advantage over Time Machine is its flexibility - it can backup from/to any filesystem and works on any platform. You can also backup to a Truecrypt drive without any issues.

Unlike the original Bash script, `rsync-time-machine.py` is fully tested. It has no external dependencies (only requires Python ≥3.7), and it is fully compatible with [`rsync-time-backup`](https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup). It offers pretty terminal output and is fully typed.

Key features include:

* Each backup is in its own folder named after the current timestamp.

I'm excited to share my recent project, where I took on the challenge of porting a popular but untested 600+ line Bash script to Python. The outcome is rsync-time-machine.py, a Python implementation of the rsync-time-backup script. It provides Time Machine-style backups using rsync and creates incremental backups of files and directories to the destination of your choice.

Here's a script that someone made that simplifies the setup. I haven't used this script, but it looks pretty good: https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup

https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup or https://torsion.org/borgmatic/ could come in handy.

If you are interested, you can check it out here: https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup

I do most of my backups using some version of this script to (efficiently) keep a long backup history: https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup

Here is a scripted version. Honestly, I’d rather roll my own but it’s still helpful: https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup

Sanoid/syncoids been mentioned but honestly for once a week learning by doing . Pyznap also excellent when you want to automate. https://github.com/yboetz/pyznap

In contrast, zfs snapshots are immutable, and thus anything short of a hardware failure can be addressed with a simple zfs rollback command. This includes deliberate, accidental, and malicious actions. They can also be automated (I personally use pyznap but syncoid is also quite popular), creating what is effectively an incremental backup. I maintain - for each dataset - 24 hourly, 7 daily, 6 monthly, and 1 yearly snapshot. Additionally, I have a wholly separate server that wakes up once a day to ingest these snapshots via zfs send/recv, so even if I made a horrible mistake or suffered a catastrophic hardware failure, I could completely restore from the other server. This last point brings snapshots firmly into the realm of backups, IMO.

Another favorite option is Pyznap, which is python based and originally created to have have a few features and changes compared to sanoid. The author is also active here on reddit. I and not sure what the differences are anymore, it'll come down to trying them and preference.

I have two Supermicro X9 2Us, each with Proxmox. One has allegedly existed solely as a backup target, which wakes up daily to ingest ZFS snapshots using pyznap. Unfortunately, for reasons which are unclear, this particular node doesn't always like to see its boot device, which is an NVMe drive. It's the exact same board as my primary, with the exact same modified BIOS to allow booting from NVMe. It usually takes 2-3 cycles before it'll see it and boot.

I have two nearly identical systems, both running Proxmox, with Debian VMs. One is a backup, which (once this is worked out) will wake up daily to ingest incremental backups. I'm using pyznap to handle the backup strategy.

https://github.com/yboetz/pyznap/issues/1#issuecomment-351015432