Backup from ext3 to vfat with rsync

by Martin Monperrus

Rsync is great for backuping data. However, it requires some advanced options to get a smooth backup from an ext3 filesystem to a vfat/fat16/fat32 one (e.g. a USB stick):

‘’rsync -a –no-o –no-p –no-g –safe-links –modify-window 1 –stats /home/source/ /media/sda1/dest/’’

’‘–no-o’’ because vfat does not support owners ’‘–no-g’’ because vfat does not support groups ’‘–no-p’’ because vfat does not support permissions ’‘–modify-window 1’’ because fat “represents times with a 2-second resolution” (rsync manual) ’‘–safe-links’’ because vfat does not support symbolic links

Also, note that vfat does not support filenames containing ‘%’ or ‘:’. To check where they are and whether they are not important: ’‘$ find . -name “%” -or -name ":’’

see also: [[backup from ext3 to vfat with qcow2 images]]

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