Ubuntu Rsync Daemon Configuration Tips

I understand that this isn't the standard and some frown upon it; however, sometimes you just have to buck the trend because you have to.

I recently ran across a situation where my home NAS system, a Iomega ix4-200d, had a fantastic backup job feature that I wanted to use for my Ubuntu systems at home. While the NAS could be configured as an rsync server, the copy job feature uses a configuration-less (if thats a word) rsync copy command that essentially goes out to your specific Linux hosts and compares files in a backup location on the NAS to changes on your remote Linux box.

In order to get this to function properly, I had to learn more than I ever wanted to learn about the rsync daemon and how to configure excludes for it.

It took a bit of trial and error; hopefully, someone can benefit from what I learned.

Once you have completed the rsync daemon configuration at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/rsync, then make the following changes to exlude specific files from your rsync daemon presents. Make sure that you have installed the following packages - rsync, xinetd and ssh onto your system.

1. Edit the file /etc/rsyncd.conf and add your exlude filter configuration location. I put my exclude file under my user home directory to ensure that it gets backed up during any rsync backups (Note - Do not include the section between the ** 😞

Example /etc/rsyncd.conf

max connections = 2

log file = /var/log/rsync.log

timeout = 300

*share* - The ** should be brackets but the blog system replaces them, so I had to change to ** so you could see it.

comment = Public Share

path = /home/share

read only = no

list = yes

uid = nobody

gid = nogroup

auth users = user

secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.secrets

exclude from = /home/USERNAME/LOCATION *(My location is /home/ecrossley/rsync.exludes)*

2. Create a file and list your excludes or includes in that file. This is the file that the rsync daemon will read and use to determine what files and locations to "show" to the remote rsync connection. In the example below, I have opted not to present my Music, Pictures, Videos, Internet browser, etc. to the rsync client. I did this because my media files (Music, Videos and Pictures) are already stored on a centralized NAS and I use NFS to mount these locations in Ubuntu. By excluding them, I ensure that I'm not backing up my NAS media files as part of my Ubuntu backups. The way I have chosen to "exlude" items is backwards from other's in that I want everything visible but WHAT I tell it to hide. Most others "exclude" everything and only "include" what they want visible. I don't have the time to keep up with changes on my system and track them in a filter file, so I keep it simple. My system is secured behind a firewall and anything internal can access anything on the box by design so I'm not concerned about security.

(For those of you not in the know, NFS presents your remote drives in Ubuntu as Directories on your local system. Ubuntu treats them as file folders with content and shows them as such. As I sync many systems, I want to minimize file irregularities across them and therefore NFS mount specific locations to make sure that any files I update, add, change are all presented to all of my Ubuntu systems the same.)

Example /home/ecrossley/rsync.exludes

- Music/

- Pictures/

- public/

- Videos/

- *Xauthority

- EMCSohoClient/

- .juniper_networks/

- .cache/

- .config/

- .mozilla/

- .local/share/Trash/

With exludes, it's important to note that you and use wildcards if you so desire. There are many references on what the wild cards are and how to use them. From above you can see that * is a global wildcard and anything following the * would be excluded (both files and directories).

3. Verify your rsync daemon shares to ensure that what you told it to exlude are exluded. You can do this with the following command in terminal:

sudo rsync USERNAME@HOSTNAME::share *Replace USERNAME with the configured username you put into your /etc/rsyncd.secrets file and by using your Ubuntu system's Hostname*

That's it. Have fun playing with excludes. I'm attaching my rsync.conf and rsync.excludes files for your reference.

admin · ‎10-26-2010

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Ubuntu Rsync Daemon Configuration Tips

Ubuntu Rsync Daemon Configuration Tips