Comment by somat

I use rsyncs --link-dest

abridged example:

    rsync --archive --link-dest 2025-06-06 backup_role@backup_host:backup_path/ 2025-06-07/

Actual invocation is this huge hairy furball of an rsync command that appears to use every single feature of rsync as I worked on my backup script over the years.

    rsync_cmd = [
      '/usr/bin/rsync',
      '--archive',
      '--numeric-ids',
      '--owner',
      '--delete',
      '--delete-excluded',
      '--no-specials',
      '--no-devices',
      '--filter=merge backup/{backup_host}/filter.composed'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--link-dest={cwd}/backup/{backup_host}/current/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--rsh=ssh -i {ssh_ident}'.format(**rsync_param),
      '--rsync-path={rsync_path}'.format(**rsync_params),
      '--log-file={cwd}/log/{backup_id}'.format(**rsync_params),
      '{remote_role}@{backup_host}:/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_params),
      'backup/{backup_host}/work/{backup_path}'.format(**rsync_params) ]