storeBackup.pl Options

The following options can be used on the command line and in the configuration file (see section 5.1). There is a long option for the command line (like --sourceDir), sometimes also a shortcut for the command line (like -s) and the name of the term used in the configuration file (like sourceDir)).

--sourceDir / -s / sourceDir

The path to the directory you want to backup. You can only backup one directory with storeBackup.pl. If you want to backup more than one directory, you can use --includeDir, --excludeDir or the recommended option better --followLinks (see below).

--backupDir / -b / backupDir

The repository, where all your backups are stored. If you have one series of backups (eg. from one computer), this will normally be similar to the directory where your backups are. In this case, set the following option (series) to ``.''. Example:
backupDir = /backup
series = .
Then you will see your backups directly in /backup:
$ ls -l /backup
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 528 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.22_02.18.43
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 528 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.23_02.01.11
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 528 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.24_02.03.51
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 528 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.24_13.04.55

If you have different series of backups in your repository, you normally will create sub directories for each different backup series (perhaps from different computers) and configure series to these directory names. Let's assume, you have three different computers to backup, ``bob'', ``joe'' and ``bill''. Then you can create three different directories:
$ ls -l /backup
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 40 Aug 25 17:02 bill
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 40 Aug 25 17:02 bob
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 40 Aug 25 17:02 joe
Below these directories, you will find the individual backups for ``bill'', ``bob'' and ``joe''. Eg. for ``bill'' you will set:
backupDir = /backup
series = bill
Then you will see your backup in /backup/bill:
$ ls -l /backup
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.20_02.18.25
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.21_02.11.53
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.22_02.36.18
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.23_02.17.18
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.24_02.15.45
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 432 Aug 24 21:33 2008.08.24_13.17.21

--series / -S / series

see option backupDir above.
The default value for series is ``default''. To rename an existing series do the following:

• Run storeBackupUpdateBackup.pl so no unresolved lateLinks (see option lateLinks below) exists.
• Rename the directory below the directory specified with option backupDir to whatever name you want.
• Configure this option (series to the name of the directory you have chosen in the step before.

--tmpDir / -T /tmpDir

Directory for temporary files, the default value is picked from the environment variable $tmpdir. If it does not exist, /tmp is set as the default value.

--lockFile / -L / lockFile

storeBackup.pl uses a lock file to avoid it running multiple times. The default name of the lock file is /tmp/storeBackup.lock.

--unlockBeforeDel / unlockBeforeDel

Remove the lock file before deleting old backups. Default is to delete the lock file after removing old backups. This ``shortens'' the time for a backup from some perspective.

--exceptDirs / -e / exceptDirs

You can specify a list of directories to be excluded from the backup. It must be a relative path from the point specified with option sourceDir. You can also use wildcards. To give an example, if all your users reside below sourceDir/home and you want to avoid to backup the directory tmp in each home directory, you can say:
exceptDirs = home/*/tmp
For interpreting the wildcards, storeBackup.pl uses a shell. So if the resulting list of directories is too long (about 4K), then this will not work any more. Then you should use option exceptRule (see below).
If you want to specify a list of directories, in the configuration file simply write:
exceptDirs = home/*/tmp 'otherdir/temp'
On the command line, simply repeat the option:
-e 'home/*/tmp' -e 'otherdir/tmp'
Here, quoting home/*/tmp is important to avoid the expansion of the term by the shell.

--contExceptDirsErr / contExceptDirsErr

storeBackup.pl will continue to backup even if one or more directories specified with exceptDirs does not exist. Default is to print and error message and stop.

--includeDirs / -i / includeDirs

If this option is set, then only files which are in the directories specified here are backed up. StoreBackup.pl will only include files which are not in the exceptDirs and in the includeDirs.
This option can be used in the way as described for exceptDirs.

--exceptRule / exceptRule

If this rule matches, the affected file is excluded from the backup. The rules are executed on regular files. You can read more about rules in section 5.3.

--includeRule / includeRule

If a definition for this option exists then only files which match this rule are backup up. StoreBackup.pl will back up files which are not excluded by the backup and match the includeRule. You can read more about rules in section 5.3.

--writeExcludeLog / writeExcludeLog

This option tells storeBackup.pl to write a file with the names of files which have been excluded because of rules. The file will be stored in the top level of the actual backup with the name .storeBackup.notSaved.bz2. It's compressed with bzip2.

--exceptTypes / exceptTypes

Do not save the files of the specified type. StoreBackup.pl knows:
S -- file is a socket
b -- file is a block special file
c -- file is a character special file
f -- file is a plain file
p -- file is a named pipe
l -- file is a symbolic link
Sbc can only be stored if you have gnu-cp in your path and activate the ``gnucp´´ option (see below). If you specify
exceptTypes = Sbc
then files of these types will not be stored in the backup and no warning will be generated. This rule is evaluated before ``exceptRule'' and ``includeRule''. If you want to exclude some file types in general, use this option (it's faster and easier to use).

--cpIsGnu / cpIsGnu

If you choose this option, you will be able to backup (and restore) file of type Sbc (see above). For restauring with storeBackupRecover.pl, you also need gnu-cp. If you are using a linux system, your cp will be gnu cp.

--linkSymlinks / linkSymlinks

If you store your backups on a file system which supports hard links to symbolic links, you should activate this option. GNU/Linux does support this feature. Default is not to hard link symbolic links.

--precommand / precommand

You can define one command (or script) to be executed before storeBackup.pl starts the backup. It will only start after the lock file is checked. If the return value of this command / script is != 0, then storeBackup.pl will stop immediately. The output of this command to stdin is printed as a warning to the storeBackup.pl log file, the output to stderr is printed as an error.
The cli parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and normally has to be quoted. This means, you can use parameters, eg.:
precommand = /backup/pre.sh param1 param2
is the same as:
--precommand '/backup/pre.sh param1 param2'

--postcommand / postcommand

This command is executed after finishing the backup, but before starting the deletion of old backups. StoreBackup.pl reports, if the exit status is != 0.
The cli parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file, see option ``precommand''.

--followLinks / followLinks

If you want to backup more than one directory, you should use this option. For instance, if you want to backup /boot, /etc and /home/tom, then you should do (as root) something similar to:

# mkdir /backup
# cd /backup
# ln -s /boot boot
# ln -s /etc etc
# ln -s /home/tom home_tom
# ln -s . backup
# storeBackup.pl -g stbu.conf

Then you should configure your backup by editing file stbu.conf. Configure (among others):

# sourceDir = /backup
# followLinks = 1

This will tell storeBackup.pl to take the fist level of symbolic links below /backup like directories. With ``ln -s . backup'' you will get a sub directory inside of your backup which exactly reflects /backup.
``followLinks'' configures storeBackup.pl to treat n levels of directories or symbolic links as directories. Simply by adding or deleting a symbolic link to your backup directory, you can add or remove any directory in your file system to / from your backup.

--highLatency

Use this option if you are running storeBackup on line with a very high latency, like a vpn over the internet. This option will use more parallelisation at the cost of more cpu needed. If you use this option, then if will be a good idea to use --lateLinks and probably --lateCompress.
Don't use this option for regular backups to a another local disk or to nfs mounts on the local network.

--ignorePerms / ignorePerms

With this option, files in the backup will not necessarily have the same permissions and owners as the original ones. This speeds up the backup. Recovery with storeBackupRecover.pl will restore the permissions and owners correctly. There are several possibilities to improve performance, see section 3.4.3.

--lateLinks / lateLinks

This option will reduce your direct backup time at the cost of a second process you have to run later. For a local backup onto another disk, you will see an improvement of 30-50%. If you write a backup over NFS, you will see an improvement by a factor of 5 to 10. This value can vary depending on how many new files you have to backup and how fast your network is. Saving over a vpn over the Internet I measured an improvement with lateLinks by a factor of 70.
If you want to use ``lateLinks'' you have to read section 5.5.

--lateCompress / lateCompress

This option can only be used if ``lateLinks'' is set. Compression of files $\ge$ ``minCompressSize'' will be done later when starting storeBackupUpdateBackup.pl. See also section 5.5.

--checkBlocksSuffix

The configuration is similar to exceptSuffix, a list of suffixes which are checked for a match, eg. $\backslash$.vdmk for VMware images. They simply mean that the last part of the backup must be similar to what you define here.
The next options described here are only used if checkBlocksSuffix is set.
See blocked files for more information about the options with ``block'' in their name.

--checkBlocksMinSize

Only files with this minimum size will the treated as blocked files. You can use the same shortcuts as described in defining rules, eg. 50M means 50 megabytes. The default value is 100M.

--checkBlocksBS

Defines the block size in which the files which matches has to be split by storeBackup.pl. The format is equal to checkBlocksMinSize. The default value is 1M. The minimal value is 10k.

--checkBlocksCompr

Defines if the blocks are compressed. Possible values are yes or no, the default value is no. On the command line, use --checkBlocksCompr to switch to compression mode.
This flag only affects files selected with checkBlocksSuffix.

--checkBlocksRulei

The ith rule specifying files to treat as blocked files in the backup. You can define 5 rules, beginning from checkBlocksRule0 to checkBlocksRule4.
See blocked files for more information about the options with ``block'' in their name.

--checkBlocksBSi

The corresponding block size for the blocks in the backup. The default value is 1 megabyte (1M). The minimal value is 10k.

--checkBlocksCompri

If set to yes, the blocks will be compressed. The default value is no.

--checkBlocksReadi

Defines a filter for reading the specified file in sourceDir, eg. gunzip or gzip -d. This parameter is useful if you have to save an already compressed image file. (Using the ``blocked file'' feature of storeBackup with already compressed files compressed as a whole does not make sense.)

--checkBlocksParalleli

Read the files specified hier in parallel to the files not specified in checkBlocksRulei or checkDevicesi. This normally only makes sense if the files specified here are small or if the are on a separate device.
Default is no, which means not to parallelize.
You have to know, that files and devices specified in checkBlocksRulei or checkDevicesi are never parallelized.

--checkDevicesi

List of devices (eg. /dev/sdd2 /dev/sde1) to backup.

--checkDevicesDiri

Directory where the devices are stored in the backup (relative path). The image file will be restored in that directory also if you restore the backup with storeBackupRecover.pl (if you use default options). Into this directory storeBackup will create a subdirectory which name is generated from the parameters of checkDevices, eg. /dev/sdc will result in dev_sdc.

--checkDevicesBSi

Defines the block size in which the devices specified have to be split by storeBackup.pl. The format is equal to checkBlocksMinSize. The default value is 1M. The minimal value is 10k.

--checkDevicesCompri

If set to yes, the blocks will be compressed. The default value is no.

--checkDevicesParalleli

Read the devices specified hier in parallel to the files not specified in checkBlocksRulei or checkDevicesi. This normally only makes sense if the files specified here are small or if the are on a separate device.
Default is no, which means not to parallelize.
You have to know, that files and devices specified in checkBlocksRulei or checkDevicesi are never parallelized.

--saveRAM / saveRAM

Use this option if storeBackup.pl runs on a system with very low memory configuration. You will then see some dbm files in ``tmpDir''. This will slow down storeBackup.pl a little bit, so do this only if you run into problems without it. On modern computers, it should only be necessary to use this option if you backup millions of files.

--compress / -c / compress

The command, storeBackup.pl uses for compression. Default is bzip2.
The cli parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and normally has to be quoted on the command line. This means, you can use parameters, eg.:
compress = gzip -9
which is similar to:
--compress 'gzip -9'

--uncompress / -u / uncompress

The command storeBackup.pl uses for uncompressing the files in the backup with storeBackupRecover.pl. Default is ``bzip2 -d''. It must fit to the parameter of option ``compress''.
The cli parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and normally has to be quoted on the command line. This means, you can use parameters, eg.:
uncompress = gzip -d
which is similar to:
--uncompress 'gzip -d'

--postfix / -p /postfix

The postfix storeBackup.pl will use for compressed files. This should fit to option compress. Default is .bz2.

--noCompress / noCompress

Maximal number of parallel compression operations. With GNU/Linux, the default value is chosen automatically as the number of cores plus 1.

--queueCompress / queueCompress

Maximal length of a queue to store files before they are compressed. Default value is 1000.

--noCopy / noCopy

Maximal number of parallel copy operations. The default value is 1.

--queueCopy / queueCopy

Maximal length of a queue to store files before they are copied. Default value is 1000.

--withUserGroupStat / withUserGroupStat

Write statistics about used space in sourceDir by user and groups in the log file.

--userGroupStatFile / userGroupStatFile

Write statistics about used space in sourceDir by user and groups in this file. The file will be overridden each time.

--exceptSuffix / exceptSuffix

Do not compress files with these suffixes. On the command line, you can repeat this option multiple times. The default value is:

exceptSuffix = '\.zip' '\.bz2' '\.gz' '\.tgz' '\.jpg' '\.gif' '\.tiff'
    '\.tif' '\.mpeg' '\.mpg' '\.mp3' '\.ogg' '\.gpg' '\.png'

You should use a backslash ($\backslash$) to mask the dot. If you do not do so, the dot is interpreted as any character.
If you do not want to compress any file, you can use:
exceptSuffix = .*

--addExceptSuffix / addExceptSuffix

If you only want to add suffixes to the above, use this option. On the command line, you can repeat this option multiple times. See the examples above (option exeptSuffix) how to use it in the configuration file.

--minCompressSize / minCompressSize

Files with a size smaller than this value will not be compressed. The default value is 1024.
If you change this value from one backup to the next (eg. you make the fist backup with the default value and the second with 512), then this change affects only files which have a new content. Files with a content which exists already in the backup will be linked to the ones in the old backup. (So in the example a (new) file with 600 bytes will not be compressed in the second backup if there already were a file with the same content in the first backup.)

--comprRule / comprRule

As an alternative to options exceptSuffix and minCompressSize. If this rule is set, exceptSuffix, addExceptSuffix and minCompressSize are ignored. See defining rules to understand how to configure rules. You can eg. define a rule that the data of serveral uses will not be compressed for easier restore by the users itself.

The default rule generated from option exceptSuffix and minCompressSize above is:

comprRule = '\$size > 1024' and not
    '\$file =~
    /\.zip\Z|\.bz2\Z|\.gz\Z|\.tgz\Z|\.jpg\Z|\.gif\Z|\.tiff\Z|\.tif\Z|\.mpeg\Z|\.mpg\Z|
                                            \.mp3\Z|\.ogg\Z|\.gpg\Z|\.png\Z/i'

(The line break in the pattern is syntactically not correct. It's only printed for readability.)

--doNotCompressMD5File / doNotCompressMD5File

StoreBackup.pl stores information about each file in the backup in the top level directory of each backup in a file called .md5CheckSums. It normally is compressed with bzip2. Using this option avoids this compression. Use this, if your computer is very slow and has only one core. It will speed up things a little bit.

--chmodMD5File

Everybody who wants to use storeBackupRecover.pl needs to be able to read the file .md5CheckSums (see option above). Default permission on this file is 0600, which means only the one who generated the backup has access to it. With this option you can give access to other people. If you do so, this can be a kind of a security hole: for all files .md5CheckSums stores md5sum, times, uid, gid, mode (and some other information).

--verbose / -v / verbose

Generate verbose messages.

--debug / -d / debug

Generates debug messages:
0 -- no debug messages (default)
1 -- some debug messages
2 -- many debug messages
This option is especially helpful in combination with options exceptRule and includeRule

--resetAtime / resetAtime

Restores the access time in the backups (same as in source), but changes ctime (time of last modification of file status information). Normally, you will not use this option.

--linkToRecent

After a successful backup, a symbolic link to most recent backup of this series (that's the backup just done) is created with the name specified by this option. If an older symbolic link exists, it will be deleted. If you change the name of this symbolic link in the configuration, the old link will not be removed - you have to delete it manually.

--doNotDelete / doNotDelete

Do all checks what backups should be deleted, but don't delete anything. This option is useful in combination with storeBackupDel.pl which can read the configuration file of storeBackup.pl. StoreBackupDel.pl can delete old backups later asynchronously.
For understanding the rules what file should be deleted, see the ``keep$*$'' options below.

--deleteNotFinishedDirs / deleteNotFinishedDirs

Delete backups which have not been finished and are therefore not complete. StoreBackup.pl or storeBackupDel.pl will only delete unfinished backups if option ``doNotDelete'' is set to ``no'' (the default value) or is unset. If ``doNotDelete'' is set to "yes", nothing is deleted. "Backups which have not been finished" are those for which option lateLinks was used, but for which storeBackupUpdate.pl was not run yet.

--keepAll / keepAll

Keep all backups of a series for the specified amount of time. This is like a default value for all days in option keepWeekday (see below). Deletion of old backups is done after the actual backup is finished or with storeBackupDel.pl. The time range has to be specified in format ``dhms'', eg. ``10d2h'' means 10 days and 2 hours. To do so is useful if you want to specify 10 days, because if you define this exactly, then checking a few minutes or seconds before or later can result in 9 days. StoreBackups internal calculation is in seconds.
The default value is ``30d''.

--keepWeekday / keepWeekday

This option overwrites the settings of option keepAll for special days of the week. Mon,Wed:40d5m Sat:60d10m means:

• keep backups from Monday and Wednesday 40 days + 5 minutes
• keep backups from Saturday 60 days + 10 minutes
• keep backups from the rest of the weekdays like specified via option keepAll.

You can also use the ``archive flag'' which means not to delete the affected directories because option ``keepMaxNumber'' hits. Mon,Wed:a40d5m Sat:60d10m means:

• keep backups from Monday and Wednesday 40 days + 5 minutes + archive
  If you have more than ``keepMaxNumber'' backups, then Monday and Wednesday backups falling in this category will not be deleted.
• keep backups from Saturday 60 days + 10 minutes
  If you have more than ``keepMaxNumber'' backups, then Saturday Backups falling in this category will be deleted.
• keep backups from the rest of the weekdays like specified via option keepAll. If you have more than ``keepMaxNumber'' backups, then they will be deleted if they are falling in this category.

On the command line, the parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and therefore normally has to be quoted on the command line.

--keepFirstOfYear / keepFirstOfYear

Do not delete the first existing backup of a year. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--keepLastOfYear / keepLastOfYear

Do not delete the last existing backup of a year. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--keepFirstOfMonth / keepFirstOfMonth

Do not delete the first existing backup of a month. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--keepLastOfMonth / keepLastOfMonth

Do not delete the last existing backup of a month. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--firstDayOfWeek / firstDayOfWeek

Sets the first day of the week for the calculations depending on options keepFirstOfWeek and keepLastOfWeek.
Default value is ``Sun''.

--keepFirstOfWeek / keepFirstOfWeek

Do not delete the first existing backup of a week. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--keepLastOfWeek / keepLastOfWeek

Do not delete the last existing backup of a week. The format is a time period (see option keepAll) with a possible ``archive flag''.

--keepDuplicate / keepDuplicate

Keep multiple backups of one day up to the specified value. If it's older than specified here, delete all except the oldest backup of that day. Usage of the ``archive'' flag is not possible. The format is like described for option keepAll.
The default value is ``7d''.

--keepMinNumber / keepMinNumber

Keep that minimum of backups. Multiple backups of one day are counted as one backup. The default value is ``10''.

--keepMaxNumber / keepMaxNumber

Try to keep only that maximum number of backups. If you have more backups than specified here, the following sequence of deletion will happen:

• Delete all duplicates of a day, beginning with the oldest ones, except the last of every day.
• If this is not enough, delete the rest of the backups beginning with oldest, but never a backup with the ``archive flag'' or the last backup. See option keepWeekday for explanations of the ``archive flag''.

--keepRelative / -R / keepRelative

This is a alternative deletion scheme. If this option is set, all other keep$*$ options are ignored. On the command line, the parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and normally has to be quoted on the command line.
This backup deletion scheme allows you to specify the relative age of the backups you would like to have rather then the period over which a backup should be kept.
Imagine that you always want to have the following backups available:

• 1 backup from yesterday
• 1 backup from last week
• 1 backup from last month
• 1 backup from 3 months ago

Note that this is most likely not what you really want to have, because it simply means that you have to do daily backups and have to keep every backup for exactly 3 months. Otherwise you wouldn't always have a backup that is of exactly the requested age.
What you really want to have is therefore probably something like this:

• 1 backup of age 1 hour to 24 hours / 1 day
• 1 backup of age 1 day to 7 days
• 1 backup of age 14 days to 31 days
• 1 backup of age 80 days to 100 days

This is now a very common backup strategy, but you would have difficulty to achieve this with the usual keepFirstOf$*$ options, especially if you don't do backups with perfect regularity. However, you can implement it very easily using keepRelative. All you need to write is:
keepRelative = 1h 1d 7d 14d 31d 80d 100d
i.e. you list all the intervals for which you want to have backups. storeBackup will delete backups in such a way that you come as close as possible (if you don't do backups often enough, there is of course nothing that storeBackup can do) to your requested backup scheme.
Note that this may mean that storeBackup keeps more backups that you think it has to, i.e. it may keep two backups in the same period. In this case storeBackup "looks into the future" and determines that both backups will later be necessary in order to have a backups for all periods. This is also the reason why in the above example you have somehow implicitly specified the period 7 days to 14 days, although you didn't really want to have a backup in this period - in order to have backups in the next period (14 days to 31 days) you always need to have a backup in the period 7 days to 14 days as well. Therefore the syntax doesn't allow you to exclude some periods.
Finally you should be aware that storeBackup shifts all the intervals if it cannot find a recent enough backup: if your first intervals is from 10 days to 20 days, but your most recent backup is actually 25 days old, all subsequent periods will be extended by 5 days. This ensures that if you haven't made any backups over a large period, this period is not taken into account for your backup scheme. To give an example why this is useful: if you wanted to have backups 1, 3, 7 and 10 days old and then went on vacation for 14 days, it is pretty unlikely that you want all your backups deleted when you come back, hence storeBackup ignores these 14 days and keeps the backups appropriately longer.

--progressReport / -P / progressReport

Print a progress report after the specified number of files.

--printDepth / -D / printDepth

Print depth of actually read directories during the backup.

--ignoreReadError / ignoreReadError

Setting this option lets storeBackup.pl ignore read errors in the source directory -- not readable directories do not cause storeBackup.pl to stop processing. This option was implemented for reading shares from a windows server which sometimes generated such faults.
Normally, you should not use this option.

--suppressWarning / suppressWarning

Suppresses (unwanted) warnings that would normally be written to the log (and/or standard output). This is an advanced option. For normal use of storeBackup, you can ignore this option. In some situations, an advanced user may not want to see certain warnings. This option allows the user to turn those warnings off. This feature is only available for certain non-critical warnings: missing excluded directories, files changed during backup, and creation of the `default' series. ¹⁰

• Using the crSeries key suppresses the warning that storeBackup had to create a directory for the `default' series.
• Using the fileChange key suppresses any warning when storeBackup notices that a file has changed since the current backup began.
• Using suppressWarning with the excDir key suppresses the warning that an excluded directory does not exist.
• Using the hashCollision key suppresses the warning that storeBackup found a possible md5 hash collision.
• Using the fileNameWIthLineFeed key suppresses the warning if a filename contains a line feed.

--linkToRecent / linkToRecent

Name of the symbolic link. If this option is configured, storeBackup will automatically create a symbolic link pointing to the most recent backup in the series. This can be useful for some scripts and automated tools. It can also be used purely for convenience. Normally, the most recent backup is in a directory with a name based on the timestamp (e.g., 2009.05.02_02.15.01). One could find the last backup directory in a script with a line similar to this:

MOST_RECENT_BACKUP=`ls -d1 20??.??.??_??.??.?? | tail -1`

However, for users who, for various reasons, are not able to use a shell command such as that, using this option is an easy and convenient way to have a consistent path to the most recent backup. This option makes the last backup available via a symbolic link with the name defined in this option. Continuing the above example, if the parameter value used for this option is "mostRecentBackup", the symbolic link would look like this: mostRecentBackup $\longrightarrow$ 2009.05.02_02.15.01 When the next backup in the future is completed, this symlink will be automatically updated to point to the new (last) backup. If there is an error in the backup, this symlink will not be updated. It will continue to point the the last backup that was completed without errors. The default behavior (if this option is unused) is to not make this symbolic link (e.g., no link is created).

--logFile / -l / logFile

Name of the log file. Default is stdout.

--plusLogStdout / plusLogStdout

If option logFile is set, here you can configure storeBackup.pl to also print the log messages to stdout.

--supressTime / supressTime

Suppress the output of the actual time in the log file.

--maxFilelen / -m / maxFilelen

Maximal size of a log file. After reaching this size, the log file will be rotated (see option noOfOldFiles) or compressed (see option saveLogs).

--noOfOldFiles / -n / noOfOldFiles

Number of old rotated log files, default is 5. With default values, it will look like this:

$ ls -l /tmp/storebackup.log*
-rw------- 1 hjc  root  328815 30. Aug 12:12 /tmp/storebackup.log
-rw------- 1 root root 1000087 27. Aug 21:18 /tmp/storebackup.log.1
-rw------- 1 root root 1000038 20. Aug 19:02 /tmp/storebackup.log.2
-rw------- 1 root root 1000094 11. Aug 18:51 /tmp/storebackup.log.3
-rw------- 1 root root 1000147 11. Aug 18:49 /tmp/storebackup.log.4
-rw------- 1 root root 1000030 11. Aug 18:49 /tmp/storebackup.log.5

Older log files than *.5 have been deleted automatically.

--saveLogs / saveLogs

Save the log files with a time and date stamp instead of deleting them after rotating. (Setting this option overwrites the default value of option noOfOldFiles.)

--compressWith / compressWith

Specifies the program to compress the saved log files (eg. with gzip -9). Default value is bzip2.
On the command line, the parameter to this option is parsed like a line in the configuration file and normally has to be quoted on the command line.

--logInBackupDir / logInBackupDir

Write the log file (also) in the backup directory (default name is .storeBackup.log, also see option logInBackupDirFileName below). This log file as the case may be does not contain all error messages like the one specified with option logFile. (The backup directory must exist before any message can be written into this log file.)
This is useful for having a (historical) log file, while the ``global'' log file (from option logFile) is useful for monitoring.

--compressLogInBackupDir / compressLogInBackupDir

The log file in the backup directory will be compressed if you specify this option.

--logInBackupDirFileName / logInBackupDirFileName

File name of the log file to be stored in the backup directory. Default is .storeBackup.log.

...otherBackupSeries... / otherBackupSeries

On the command line, this is not an option; it is a list parameter. So you have to write on the command line eg.:

# storeBackup.pl <all_options> 0:server2 0-2:server3

In the configuration file this is similar to:
otherBackupSeries = 0:server2 0-2:server3
Here you can specify a list of other backup directories to consider for hard linking. The path to their backup directories must be a relative path from backupDir!
Format (examples):

otherSeries/2002.08.29_08.25.28 -> consider exactly this otherSeries

or

0:otherSeries -> last (youngest) in <backupDir>/otherSeries
1:otherSeries -> first before last in <backupDir>/otherSeries
n:otherSeries -> n'th before last in <backupDir>/otherSeries
3-5:otherSeries -> 3rd, 4th and 5th in <backupDir>/otherSeries
all:otherSeries -> all in <backupDir>/otherSeries

If you do not specify otherBackupSeries then automatically the youngest backup from all series in the top level directory you specified with option backupDir are considered.