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zvault-backup(1) -- Create a new backup

SYNOPSIS

zvault backup [OPTIONS] <SRC> <BACKUP>

DESCRIPTION

This subcommand creates a new backup BACKUP from the data located at SRC.

The backup given by BACKUP must be in the format [repository]::backup_name as described in zvault(1). If repository is omitted, the default repository location is used instead.

The source data given by SRC can either be a filesystem path or the path of a tar archive (with --tar).

If SRC is a filesystem path, a reference backup is used (unless --full is set) to compare the data with and only store modified data and take the unmodified data from the reference backup. Unless a specific reference backup is chosen via --ref, the latest matching backup from the same machine with the same source path is used as reference.

When SRC is a filesystem path, a set of exclude patterns can be configured. The patterns can be given directly via --exclude or be read from a file via --excludes-from. Unless --no-default-excludes is set, a set of default exclude pattern is read from the file excludes in the repository folder. All exclude pattern given via any of these ways will be combined.

If --tar is specified and SRC is -, the input is read from stdin.

Unless --xdev is set, zVault will not traverse into subfolders that are on a different filesystem, i.e. mount points will not be included.

When zVault fails to read a source file, either because of file permissions, filesystem errors or because the file has an unsupported type, it will print a warning message and continue with the backup process.

zVault will store all file attributes including extended attributes except for creation time and access time as creation time can not be reliably set on restore and access times change by reading files.

OPTIONS

-e, --exclude <PATTERN>...:

Exclude this path or file pattern. This option can be given multiple times. Please see EXCLUDE PATTERNS for details on pattern.

This option conflicts with --tar.
--excludes-from <FILE>:

Read the list of excludes from this file. Please see EXCLUDE PATTERNS for details on pattern.

This option conflicts with --tar.
--full:

Create a full backup without using another backup as a reference. This makes sure that all files in the source path (except excluded files) are fully read. The file contents will still be deduplicated by using existing backups but all files are read fully.

This option conflicts with --ref.
--no-default-excludes:

Do not load the default excludes file from the repository folder. Those excludes are pre-filled with generic pattern to exclude like pseudo filesystems or cache folders.
--ref <REF>:

Base the new backup on this reference backup instead of automatically selecting a matching one. The backup given as REF must be a valid backup name as listed by zvault-list(1).

This option conflicts with --full.
--tar:

Read the source data from a tar archive instead of the filesystem. When this flag is set, the SRC path must specify a valid tar file. The contents of the archive are then read instead of the filesystem. Note that the tar file contents are read as files and directories and not just as a single file (this would happen when SRC is a tar file and --tar is not set).

This option can be used to import a backup that has been exported using zvault-restore(1) with the --tar flag.

This flag conflicts with --exclude and --excludes_from.
-x, --xdev:

Allow to cross filesystem boundaries. By default, paths on different filesystems than the start path will be ignored. If this flag is set, the scan will traverse also into mounted filesystems. Note: Please use this option with case. Some pseudo filesystems contain arbitrarily deep nested directories that will send zVault into an infinite loop. Also it should be avoided to include the remote storage in the backup.
-q, --quiet:

Print less information
-v, --verbose:

Print more information
-h, --help:

Prints help information
-V, --version:

Prints version information

EXCLUDE PATTERNS

Exclude patterns can either be absolute patterns or relative patterns. Absolute patterns start with / and must match from the begin of the absolute file path. Relative patterns start with anything but / and can also match any portion of the absolute path. For example the pattern /bin only matches the system directory /bin but not /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin while the pattern bin matches them too.

Exclude patterns must match full path components, i.e. the pattern bin will match any path that contains bin as as component (e.g. /bin and /usr/bin) but not paths that contain bin only as substring like /sbin.

Wildcards can be used to match also substrings of path components:

? matches any single character.
* matches any string not containing /, i.e. * only matches within a path component but does not span components. For example /usr/*bin matches /usr/bin and /usr/sbin but not /usr/local/bin.
** matches any string, even spanning across path components. So /usr/**bin will match /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and also /usr/local/bin.

If a pattern matches on a filesystem entry, that entry and any child entry (in the case of directories) will be left out of the backup.

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