RSYNC to Remote Server

Hi-
Rsync is not technically incremental, because the destination files are overwritten with the most current versions, while something like a tape allows you to go back to a backup earlier than the latest.
With rsync, there is a risk that a file will be corrupted and/or deleted, and then the backup overwritten before you have a chance to restore it.
Now to answer your technical question, I would use rsync daemon mode, which would bypass your ssh problems. Do remember to use rsync's IP restrictions, or iptables to be sure you aren't creating a security abyss.
Good luck setting things up.

Regards,
Erek Dyskant
Unix consultant

 

would you be able to use this sort of method to maintain a completely real time backup of a server, something like using raid on hdd except for whole servers?

 

for incremental backups over a network, see http://rdiff-backup.stanford.edu/

About rsync: You can't use it to make a completely realtime mirror, but it can be close. You can set it up in the crontab so that it runs frequently, but obivously the more you run it the more bandwidth you consume.

There are filesystem based solutions, but I honestly don't know a lot about them.


Regards,
Erek Dyskant
Unix Consultant