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Gentoo rsynd install tutorial

Publish date 29/11/2010

This is a tutorial to install rsyncd on Gentoo.
rsyncd version: 3.0.7
gentoo kernel: 2.6.30-gentoo-r4

As Gentoo compiles everything it can takes some time. You might want to use screen, so you don't have to leave a console open.

To install on gentoo just emerge the necessary packages.
You might want to sync the emerge database first:

emerge --sync
Then emerge
emerge net-misc/rsync

As emerge compiles and installs everything, you only need to configure.

You should find the config-file in: /etc/rsyncd.conf.
You might need to create the /etc/rsyncd.secret file.
This holds the usernames and passwords.

Password-file

You can simply edit the password file with:
nano /etc/rsyncd.secret
The format is very simple:
backup_user:password
You don't have to use users from the system, Actually it is even better if they are totally different users.

As it is a password file make sure it is only readable by root!

ls -la /etc/rsyncd.secret -rw------- 1 root root 22 Nov 19 17:53 /etc/rsyncd.secret
You can adapt the permissions it with the following command:
chmod 600 /etc/rsyncd.secret

rsyncd-conf file

There are a lot of option you can set in the config-file.
Here is a short example: 

# This line is required by the /etc/init.d/rsyncd script
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
uid = root
gid = root
use chroot = yes

motd file = /usr/local/etc/rsync.motd
log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log
pid file = /var/log/rsyncd.pid
lock file = /var/log/rsyncd.lock
transfer logging = true


# Simple example for enabling your own local rsync server
#[gentoo-portage]
#       path = /usr/portage
#       comment = Gentoo Portage tree
#       exclude = /distfiles /packages

[backup]
path = /var/share/backup/
read only = no
list = yes
auth users = backup_user
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secret
comment = Rsync backup module
hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/24

There are 2 main section. The general section and 1 for each "share".
In the general section, you shouldn't change anything.
It config the user of the daemon and the loging, process-id-file, ...

Gentoo sets standard a share for portage. If you don't use it, you can comment it out, like I did.

The important part of the example is the following part: 

[backup]
path = /var/share/backup/
read only = no
list = yes
auth users = backup_user
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secret
comment = Rsync backup module
hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/24
Most of the settings explain themselves.
[backup]: is the name of the share. You can have several shares, but not with the same name.
path = /var/share/backup/: Is the directory on where all the files will be on the server.
read only = no: if the share/module needs to be read only. Because we want to backup to server, it is no in our case.
list: if it should be listed when clients ask for a list of available shares.
auth users = backup_user: Which users can access the share. User should be in "secrets file".
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secret: The location of the secrets file.
comment = Rsync backup module: A comment that explains what the share is about.
hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/24: which host(range) are allowed access.

Now we need to start the server:

#(Start the daemon now) /etc/init.d/rsyncd start #(Add the daemon to your default run-level) rc-update add rsyncd default

 

Now we have setup the server side. On the client side we only need rsync installed.

Client side

Linux

On a linux-machine it is easy to start the backup.
Of course we need to install rsync first:
on gentoo:

sudo emerge net-misc/rsync
On Ubuntu, Debian, ...
sudo apt-get install rsync

The simple command to start the backup:

rsync -a /home/username/ rsync://backup_user@192.168.1.1/backup/
The first time it can last a while, because everything needs to be copied.
But after that it goes really fast :-)

If you want to see what happens you can add -v.

rsync -va /home/username/ rsync://backup_user@192.168.1.1/backup/

You can also backup just a part. For example:

rsync -a /home/username/Documents rsync://backup_user@192.168.1.1/backup/Documents

You probably want to automate the backup task with a script.
Consider the option --password-file=pass.txt.
This allows to use a password, without storing it in your script. You still store it in a file on the client, so it isn't exactly save.

Windows

There are several windows version.
DeltaCopy, QtdSync, Syncrify and RsyncBackup (client only).

Try them and see what works best for you.

 

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