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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 snapshot 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  fol-
       lowing 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
	   utilizes 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	considering 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
	   command 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+15.0>

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