Monitoring Changes to a Backup Directory

It is possible to monitor what is being backed up by enabling the LBackup rsync session log. There is post action script bundled with LBackup to archive the rsync session log.

This means that LBackup may used to backup and monitor changes to a file system. However, please keep in mind that at present this system will not log deletions, only additions and modifications. If you need full trip wire functionality then it is recommended that you consider at dedicated trip wire tool.

If you want LBackup to provide information on modifications (including deletions) this this is possible using a compare of the current and most recent backup directories. It is possible to create a post action script which will provide detailed off line trip wire functionality. If an offline trip wire feature is of interest to you or your organization then please register your interest on the LBackup discussion mailing list or contact the core development team directly. If you have already implemented such a feature then please consider contributing a patch back to the LBackup project.

Assuming you have configured a backup the first step is to enable the rsync session log. To do this add the following directive into your LBackup configuration file :

enable_rsync_session_log="YES"

The next step is to enable archiving of the rsync session log which will be generated by adding this directive to the LBackup configuration file. There is an example post action script bundled with LBackup. To activate logging of the rsync session log file copy the script listed below into the appropriate post-action script directory :

/lbackup/example_backup_config/resources/exmaple-scripts/post-actions/BACKUP-BACKUP-800-ArchiveRsyncSessionLog.bash

This script may need to be modified to meet your requirements. By default you should not find that after LBackup has completed a dated rsync session log will be stored within the log_archive directory.

If you want to you could take additional steps to enable alerts when a certain file or any file within a directory is modified. Essentially, this allows LBackup to act not only as a backup system but also as a basic trip wire on a production system with minimal additional overheads.