MRB(8)

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>.