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Comment by nathants

10 hours ago

Do something simpler. Backups shouldn’t be complex.

This should be simpler still:

https://github.com/nathants/backup

17 comments

nathants

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Too  27 minutes ago

Index of files stored in git pointing to a remote storage. That sounds exactly like git LFS. Is there any significant difference? In particular in terms of backups.

  • nathants  11 minutes ago

    Definitely similar.

    Git LFS is 50k loc, this is 891 loc. There are other differences, but that is the main one.

    I don't want a sophisticated backup system. I want one so simple that it disappears into the background.

    I want to never fear data loss or my ability to restore with broken tools and a new computer while floating on a raft down a river during a thunder storm. This is what we train for.

orsorna  9 hours ago

Is this a joke?

I don't see what value this provides that rsync, tar and `aws s3 cp` (or AWS SDK equivalent) provides.

  • nathants  9 hours ago

    How do you version your rsync backups?

    • somat  8 hours ago

      I use rsyncs --link-dest

      abridged example:

          rsync --archive --link-dest 2025-06-06 backup_role@backup_host:backup_path/ 2025-06-07/

      Actual invocation is this huge hairy furball of an rsync command that appears to use every single feature of rsync as I worked on my backup script over the years.

          rsync_cmd = [
      '/usr/bin/rsync',
      '--archive',
      '--numeric-ids',
      '--owner',
      '--delete',
      '--delete-excluded',
      '--no-specials',
      '--no-devices',
      '--filter=merge backup/{backup_host}/filter.composed'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--link-dest={cwd}/backup/{backup_host}/current/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--rsh=ssh -i {ssh_ident}'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--rsync-path={rsync_path}'.format(**rsync_params),
      '--log-file={cwd}/log/{backup_id}'.format(**rsync_params),
      '{remote_role}@{backup_host}:/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_params),
      'backup/{backup_host}/work/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_params) ]

      3 replies →

yread  9 hours ago

Uh, who has the money to store backups in AWS?!

  • PunchyHamster  8 hours ago

    Support for S3 means you can just have minio server somewhere acting as backup storage (and minio is pretty easy to replicate). I have local S3 on my NAS replicated to cheapo OVH serwer for backup