this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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You might not even like rsync. Yeah it's old. Yeah it's slow. But if you're working with Linux you're going to need to know it.

In this video I walk through my favorite everyday flags for rsync.

Support the channel:
https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/

Here's a companion blog post, where I cover a bit more detail: https://vkc.sh/everyday-rsync

Also, @BreadOnPenguins made an awesome rsync video and you should check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eifQI5uD6VQ

Lastly, I left out all of the ssh setup stuff because I made a video about that and the blog post goes into a smidge more detail. If you want to see a video covering the basics of using SSH, I made one a few years ago and it's still pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKsdbjzBcc

Chapters:
1:18 Invoking rsync
4:05 The --delete flag for rsync
5:30 Compression flag: -z
6:02 Using tmux and rsync together
6:30 but Veronica... why not use (insert shiny object here)

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[–] suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

If you want a “time travel” feature, your only option is to duplicate data.

Not true. Look at the --link-dest flag. Encryption, sure, rsync can’t do that, but incremental backups work fine and compression is better handled at the filesystem level anyway IMO.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Isn't that creating hardlinks between source and dest? Hard links only work on the same drive. And I'm not sure how that gives you "time travel", as in, browsing snapshots or file states at the different times you ran rsync.

Edit: ah the hard link is between dest and the link-dest argument, makes more sense.

I wouldn't bundle fs and backup compression in the same bucket, because they have vastly different reqs. Backup compression doesn't need to be optimized for fast decompression.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Snapper and BTRFS. Its only adjusts changes in data, so time travel is just pointing to what blocks changed and when, and not building a duplicate of the entire file or filesystem. A snapshot is instant, and new block changes belong to the current default.