YOURAPP IconSetting your options for each backup set

 

Selecting the type of backup in the Setup window.

There are several options that affect your use of backuplist+. You first need to select which kind of backup you want. This will dictate which of the options are available in the Settings pane.

Regular Backup

This choice will use rsync to simply copy files from source to destination. Each succeeding backup will copy just the changed files. This will keep the files on the destination exactly the same as on the source. You can select options in the settings panel (see below.)

Incremental backup

Incremental backups create a complete snapshot of your source files in a dated folder on the destination. This is similar to time machine so you can go back to retrieve files from a certain date. Each backup only takes up the space of the actual changed files while the other files are copied as hard links to the originals (which take up very little space.) This means that the destination files appear exactly as the source files did at the time of backup. You select the number of incremental backups and backupList+ will prune the earliest backup when it reaches that number - thus maintaining the desired amount of snapshots at all times.

Full System Clone

 

This option will use rsync to create a complete copy of your internal drive, or any other volume or disk, to another disk or partiton. Clones are great since if you have a drive failure you can be back up and running in no time with a complete fresh copy of your original System and personal files. Clones are also good when installing a new System or update as you can select the attached clone disk to migrate all your personal files from at the end of the System install process (you will be asked if you want to do that.)

Synchronize two folders

Does what it says. It will copy first source to destination and then in reverse, destination to source. This assure that the two folders are identical. Useful if you want to keep a folder in sync on another drive or network.

Read-Only Disk Image

This option uses the program diskutil to create a read only disk image of the source files on the destination. You can select options (see below) for the name, encryption password, or segment the image in the Settings Pane. You can also have backupList+ create a sparse bundle type of disk image which you set up under the options for regular or incremental backups (see below under Backing up to a sparse disk image.)

 

Once you select the type you then check the Settings window for any other options you will need

Regular Backup settings

 

Incremental Backup settings

 

Full System Clone settings

Backing up to a sparse disk image

You can have backupList+ create a sparse disk image, mount the image and then copy the source files into it. You can do this with regular, incremental or clone type backups.

Sparse disk image: Sparse images grow in size to the maximum you enter in the text field. With this option backuplist+ will create the sparseimage, mount it and copy the source files into it. The next time you run this backup set, backuplist+ will mount the image and update the source files with any new changes.You must enter a size for the initial disk image. This should be the maximum size you think the sparse image will need. It will however only occupy the disk space of its contained files which is very nice.

 

 

Synchronize two folders settings

 

Read Only Disk Image settings

Read Only disk image: This will create a read-only disk image from the files/folders you have listed in your backuplist+ source list. It will use a moderate form of compression. This kind of disk image is created exactly for the source files and can not be written to. You can use it to restore from.The above options for Name and Encryption can be used as well. You can select to segment the image and enter a size (in MB) for each segment. The segments will then be copied to your destination and can be restored by clicking on the first one. This can be useful if you want to break up some large files/folders into smaller pieces to store on dvd's.

 

Other settings for backup sets

Using the Exclude list

Using the Exclude List

The exclude list is available for each backup set you use. You must check the "Use exclude list" check box to edit the list and enable the exclusions for the backups. The list items apply to the items listed in the main list window.

Note: backuplist+ will only add exclude items if they reside within one of the source files you have listed in the main window. Obviously there is no point in excluding items that are not in the list of items to backup!

You can also check the "Delete excluded" checkbox which will ensure any items on the destination that are listed in the exclude list will be deleted, even if they already exist there before the backup session. Warning! This is a destructive action and will cause loss of any data in the destination directory that is excluded in this list. You must know what you are doing with this choice or risk data loss.

 

Using the Automation options

Automation

Use this panel to configure before and after scripts and any other notifications you want about your backup session.

Before backup:

  1. Repair permissions of startup disk: This will repair the disk permissions of your internal hard drive prior to backup. This is only recommended if you are copying your whole system (Clone) or Certain System files. It will not affect any backup of your personal data.
  2. Run Applescript File: Enter the path of an applescript you want to run prior to backup, or use the "browse" button to find it.
  3. Run Shell command: Enter a shell command (not the path to a script!) to run prior to backup. Enter it as you would in terminal but use single quotes in place of double quotes to escape blank spaces in paths.

After backup:

  1. Run Applescript File: Enter the path of an applescript you want to run after to backup, or use the "browse" button to find it.
  2. Run Shell command: Enter a shell command (not the path to a script!) to run after to backup. Enter it as you would in terminal but use single quotes in place of double quotes to escape blank spaces in paths.
  3. Send Email notification: After the backup completes, backuplist+ will send an email with backup stats to the address you enter in the text field.
  4. Growl notification: If you install Growl, backuplist+ will display a cool transparent growl note on you desktop with the backup stats.
  5. Sleep computer: Puts computer to sleep after the backup completes.
  6. Play alert sound: Plays sound after the backup completes.
  7. Shutdown computer: Shuts down computer after the backup completes. I use this for my nightly backup that I start when going to bed and it turns off computer after it finishes (for those like me who do such things....)

 

Using theAdvanced options

Advanced options

  1. Rsync expert options: You can write your own command line options and they will be remembered for the particular backup set. You must be familiar with using rsync options or read the man page for this version of rsync for more details. "Delete" and "incremental backups" are available as check boxes on the "Settings tab" so you don't need to include those options. See the "glossary of rsync terms" at bottom of this document. The rsync_options file is included with this application or you can download it here.....
    http://homepage.mac.com/robdut/.Public/rsync_options.zip