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NAME
     pdumpfs -- A daily backup system similar to Plan9's dumpfs

SYNOPSIS
     pdumpfs src-dir dest-dir [dest-basename]

DESCRIPTION
     pdumpfs is a simple daily backup system written in Ruby (ruby(1)), which is
     similar to Plan9's dumpfs that preserves every daily snapshot.

     Back  up  your  home  directory with pdumpfs, and you can retrieve any past
     day's snapshot of any file.

     pdumpfs constructs each day's snapshot in the  directory  named  YYYY/MM/DD
     under  the destination directory.	All source files are copied to the snap-
     shot directory for the first time,  and  on  and  after  the  second  time,
     pdumpfs  copies  only  updated  or newly created files and stores unchanged
     files as hard links to the files of the previous  day's  snapshot	to  save
     disk space.

     The    latest    version	 of    pdumpfs	  is	always	  available   at
     http://namazu.org/~satoru/pdumpfs/.

EXAMPLE
     To backup your home directory /home/yourname to /backup, run the  following
     command.

	   pdumpfs /home/yourname /backup >/backup/log 2>/backup/error-log

     On and after the second day, it is a good idea to invoke the backup command
     with cron(8) daemon.  Adding the following line to your crontab file allows
     you to back up your home directory at 5 a.m. everyday.

	   00	05   *	 *   *	 pdumpfs   /home/yourname  /backup  >/backup/log
	   2>/backup/error-log

     If the backup system works well, you can retrieve any given day's file with
     a file name like /backup/2001/02/19/yourname/...

LIMITATION
     -	 pdumpfs can only handle normal files, directories, and symbolic links.

     -	 pdumpfs may not work on systems other than Unix  because  pdumpfs  uti-
	 lizes hard links.

     -	 pdumpfs  is not suited for a directory containing large files which are
	 updated frequently.

     -	 If more than 31 day absence occurs, incremental  backup  would  not  be
	 performed.  So, back up your files on a daily basis.

     -	 With  pdumpfs, you can safely remove unnecessary files because the past
	 files can be retrieved at any time.  However, you  must  not  rely  too
	 much on pdumpfs.  It may have serious bugs.

TIPS
     -	 If  the  total  disk usage increases by 10 MB everyday, about 4 GB disk
	 space will be consumed every year.  It would not matter so much consid-
	 ering the recent evolution of computer resources.

     -	 Back up your files to a physically separated device.

     -	 On some systems, files can be made immutable.

	 To make all files in /backup immutable on Linux, run the following com-
	 mand as root:

	       chattr -R +i /backup

	 On 4.4BSD derived systems, run the following command as root:

	       chflags -R schg /backup

	 These commands will keep you from  accidentally  removing  your  backup
	 files with rm -rf.

AUTHOR
     pdumpfs   and   the  HTML	document  were	written  by  Satoru  Takabayashi
     <satoru@namazu.org>.

     This manual page was translated from the HTML document by Hiroyuki  Shimada
     <shimaden@din.or.jp>, and reformatted by Akinori MUSHA <knu@iDaemons.org>.

SEE ALSO
     chattr(1), chflags(1), crontab(5), cron(8)

				November 25, 2001		      PDUMPFS(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pdumpfs&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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