I make a lot of backups. I do so on different disks, which are stored on different places. I am looking for a type of backup, but I can't find its name (which I need in order to figure out whether rsync or another ubuntu tool can help me with it).

Here is what I am trying to achieve.

• Always keep an identical copy of the current state of the home folder (in other words, the backup and the home folder are identical after each back up)


• On each backup every file that is changed or deleted in the home folder is taken out of the backup and is stored in a folder that contains all changed and deleted files on the particular day of the backup.

For instance,

Day 1

/home/joey/1.txt

/home/joey/2.txt

/home/joey/3.txt

Regular old-school Backup:

/media/backup/joey/1.txt

/media/backup/joey/2.txt

/media/backup/joey/3.txt

Day 2

/home/joey/1.txt

/home/joey/3.txt

# D /home/joey/2.txt is deleted

Backup with an exact copy of joey, but with a new diff folder:

/media/backup/joey/1.txt

/media/backup/joey/3.txt

/media/backup/day2-diff/joey/2.txt

Day 3

/home/joey/1.txt

/home/joey/3.txt # A /home/joey/3.txt was changed

/home/joey/4.txt

Backup with again an exact copy of joey, and with a diff folder for a changed file:

/media/backup/joey/1.txt

/media/backup/joey/3.txt # the new version

/media/backup/joey/4.txt

/media/backup/day2-diff/joey/2.txt

/media/backup/day3-diff/joey/3.txt # the old version of the backup is copied here

The logic is the following: currently I have so many backups that I need to delete them at some point. This is bad luck, because I want to keep at least the files that I deleted and that I changed. This type of backup would allow me to do so.

So I was thinking of

• a dry run rsync TARGET -> SOURCE to get a list of changed files from the perspective of the TARGET


• a script to copy these files to specific folders with the time and date in the folder name


• a regular rsync SOURCE -> TARGET

I know this is altering the backup, but I think that given the number of backups I have, this should not be a problem.

Is there a name for this type of backup (main question). If possible, how would one achieve it on ubuntu?

_{I am not sure whether a file that is deleted, should be part of every single diff afterwards. This is a bit a choice between a diff for each backup or one big diff that is incremental. Again, not sure about terminology.}