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I just got a new backup device, and I wanted to start using it with rsync, so I back things up, and the system decides to completely not boot at all. (Here's that question: link)

But I solved that problem by omitting the /var directory, but I need to backup things in /var like the www/ directory and other things. How would I go about doing that?

Here's my current rsync code: 

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found","/BTSync","/home/cloud7/torrent"} / /mnt/backup/cloud7
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  • Why the downvotes, people? It seems a perfectly reasonable question to ask, even if it does appear to be a strange situation. Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 8:55

2 Answers 2

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I fixed it myself, I excluded /var/run (which was a link to /run) and /var/lock (same deal).

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  • Do you know why tickling these directories should cause your system to fail to boot? Is it a causal relationship or just coincidence? Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 8:56
  • Because the system is constantly accessing these files, and with rsync, its possible that upon reading a file that something else is writing to, the file could get corrupted. Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 9:11
  • There's no way that reading a file will corrupt it. And Linux systems don't mandate reader/writer locks so the act of reading won't prevent writing. You might get a corrupted backup for rsync if the file is being update at the instant the read is happening, but that wouldn't cause a boot failure. Hence my curiousity to understand what's going on. Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 9:36
  • I know it's strange, but a few sources actually say this. I also kept getting this email when I ran commands on the system after rsync backup: cloud7-media : Sep 25 21:43:31 : cloud7 : unable to open /var/lib/sudo/cloud7/3 : Read-only file system ; TTY=pts/3 ; PWD=/home/cloud7 ; USER=root ; COMMAND=smartctl -A /dev/sdc Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 11:57
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Rather than exclude specific paths, exclude mount points. It doesn't make sense to back up non-stored filesystems such as tmpfs (used for /tmp, /dev, /var/run, etc. on most modern systems), procfs, sysfs, etc. This also excludes external media.

rsync -aAX -x -v --exclude={/lost+found,/BTSync,/home/cloud7/torrent} / /mnt/backup/cloud7

If your system has multiple partitions, you'll need to back them all up. For example, if /home is a separate partition:

rsync -aAX -x -v --exclude={/lost+found,/BTSync,/home/cloud7/torrent} / /mnt/backup/cloud7/
rsync -aAX -x -v --exclude={/lost+found,/BTSync,/home/cloud7/torrent} /home/ /mnt/backup/cloud7/home/
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