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NAME

       mrb - manage incremental snapshots with rsync/make.

SYNOPSIS

       mrb command

DESCRIPTION

       mrb  is  a  simple aid to creating efficient incremental snapshots of a
       set, or sets, of directories whenever that may be required.  It may  be
       used  as  part  of  a  regular automated backup regime, or for manually
       checkpointing changes at convenient points in time.

COMMANDS

       The following commands are recognised (where ’MODULE’ is  the  name  of
       one of your snapshot definitions):

       new-MODULE
              Create a skeleton definition for a new snapshot ’MODULE’.

       dest-MODULE
              Create  the  destination  dir for ’MODULE’.  This directory must
              exist to create a snapshot.

       snap-MODULE
              Create a snapshot of ’MODULE’.

       sync   Create snapshots of all defined modules.  If run  as  root  this
              may be configured to include the modules of other users too (see
              MRB_SYNC_USERS in ~/.mrb/defaults).

       help   Show mrb’s own help text.

CONFIGURATION FILES

   Per-user configuration
       The  following  files  may  be  used  to  specify  global   and   local
       configuration options.

       /etc/default/mrb
              system default configuration.

       ~/.mrb/defaults
              per-user configuration.

   Per-user options
       The following options control behaviour for all of a user’s modules.

       MRB_SNAPSHOT_LOG
              An  optional  file path where transfer details will be recorded.
              If unset these details will not be logged.

       MRB_SYNC_USERS
              A space separated list of users whose modules should be included
              in  a  sync.   This  is mostly only useful for root, as mrb will
              assume the identity of each user before  creating  snapshots  of
              their  modules.  If unset, only the invoking user’s modules will
              be sync’ed.

       MRB_CONFDIR
              An space separated list of the directories to search for  module
              definition  (*.mrc)  files.   They will be searched in the order
              given, with new modules added by default to the last one listed.
              There should be few reasons to change the default value.

   Per-module configuration
       The default MRB_CONFDIR value will search for module definitions in:

       /etc/mrb/*.mrc

       ~/.mrb/*.mrc
              Those  created  by  new-MODULE  will  be  placed  in this latter
              location by default.

   Per-module options
       In each case module below is the name of the particular module that the
       value  set  should apply to.  These options should be defined in a file
       named module.mrc.

       module_SRC
              A space separated list of the files and (top level)  directories
              to include in the snapshots for this module.

       module_DEST
              The directory root where snapshots of module should be stored.

       module_INCLUDE
              An optional list of rsync(1) include patterns.

       module_EXCLUDE
              An optional list of rsync(1) exclude patterns.

       module_FILTER
              An optional list of rsync(1) filter patterns.

       module_FILTER_FILE
              An optional filename for rsync(1) dir-merge filtering support.

       module_RSYNC_OPTIONS
              Optional additional rsync(1) options to pass verbatim when it is
              invoked.

       module_PRECOMMAND
              An optional shell command to invoke just prior to creating a new
              snapshot.   If  the  command  does  not return a successful exit
              status, then the snapshot creation will  be  aborted  before  it
              begins.  It may be used to mount removable media or similar.

       module_POSTCOMMAND
              An  optional shell command to execute after making the snapshot.
              It will not be called if  the  snaphot  creation  failed  at  an
              earlier  stage,  and its return status may halt a sync operation
              if it fails with more modules still to process.  It may be used,
              for example, to unmount removable media again.

       module_USER
              An  optional  user  name  to check that mrb is running as before
              performing a snapshot.  This can be used to ensure you have  the
              correct  permisson to access the files being mirrored before you
              get too far.

SEE ALSO

       rsync(1), make(1).

AUTHOR

       mrb was written by Ron <ron@debian.org>.

                                 May  9, 2006