storeBackup.pl Options

The following options can be used on the command line and in the configuration file (see section 7.1). 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). For options which can be used on command line only, see (previous) chapter 6.2.

--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 --includeDirs, --exceptDirs or better the recommended option --followLinks (see below).

--backupDir / -b / backupDir

The repository, where all your master backups are stored. In this document, this is often referred to as the master backup repository. You may have additional copies of your master backups in other locations (created via storeBackup's replication feature) but you normally run this program on the master backup repository. If you have one series of backups (e.g., from one computer), this parameter value will normally be 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''. E.g. 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.
This type of lock files does not work across multiple servers and is not designed to separate storeBackup.pl and storeBackupUpdateBackup.pl or any other storeBackup process in a separate PID¹² space. If you want to use lock files across multiple servers you should build your own solution (maybe on top of these lock files) or use an ``enterprise job scheduler''.

--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.
(In section ``Selecting Directories / Files to Backup'' you will get an overview about different options to include / exclude files or directories.)

--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, only files in 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.
(In section ``Selecting Directories / Files to Backup'' you will get an overview about different options to include / exclude files or directories.)

--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 7.4.
(In section ``Selecting Directories / Files to Backup'' you will get an overview about different options to include / exclude files or directories.)

--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 7.4.

--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 is 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).

--archiveTypes archiveTypes

Save the specified type of files in an achive instead of saving them directly in the file system. This is useful, if you want to backup those file types but your target file or transport mechanism (e.g. sshfs or non gnu-cp) system does not support those types of files. You can select the following types of files:
S -- file is a socket
b -- file is a block special file
c -- file is a character special file
p -- file is a named pipe

--specialTypeArchiver / specialTypeArchiver

Possible values are cpio and tar. Default option is cpio. See option archiveTypes described above.
Note: tar is not able to archive sockets; cpio is not part of the actual posix standard any more.

--cpIsGnu / cpIsGnu

If you choose this option, you will be able to backup (and restore) files of type Sbc (see above). For restoring 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, e.g.:
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 /backup from your backup.

--stayInFileSystem / stayInFileSystem

Only files and directories in file systems which are specified by option sourceDir of via the symbolic links of option followLinks are saved.

--highLatency / 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 it would be a good idea to use --lateLinks and probably --lateCompress.
Do not 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 5.4.3.

--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 7.6.

--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 7.6.

--checkBlocksSuffix

The configuration is similar to exceptSuffix, a list of suffixes which are checked for a match, e.g., $\backslash$.vdmk for VMware images. They simply mean that the last part of the file name 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, e.g., 50M means 50 megabytes. The default value is 100M.

--checkBlocksBS

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

--checkBlocksParallel

Read the files specified here parallel to the files not specified in checkBlocksSuffix. 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.

--checkBlocksCompr

Defines if the blocks are compressed. Possible values are yes, no or check; the default value is no.
This option only affects files selected with checkBlocksSuffix. If you set this option to check, every block is checked for compression (or not), see How to define if a file should be compressed.

--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

Defines if the blocks are compressed. Possible values are yes, no or check; the default value is no.
This option only affects files selected with checkBlocksSuffix. If you set this option to check, every block is checked for compression (or not). See How to define if a file should be compressed.

--checkBlocksReadi

Defines a filter for reading the specified file in sourceDir, e.g., gunzip or gzip -d. This option 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 here 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 (e.g., /dev/sdd2 /dev/sde1) to backup.

--checkDevicesDiri

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

Defines if the blocks are compressed. Possible values are yes, no or check; the default value is no.
If you set this option to check, every block is checked for compression. See How to define if a file should be compressed.

--checkDevicesParalleli

Read the devices specified here parallel to the files not specified in checkBlocksRulei or checkDevicesi. This normally only makes sense if the files specified here are small or if they are on a separate device.
Default is no, which means not to parallelize.
Please note 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. 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, e.g.:
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 the 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, e.g.:
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 the 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. The 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. This file will be overwritten 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.

--compressSuffix / compressSuffix

List of suffixes of files to be compressed (in exceptSuffix format). If you enter this value, then a rule will be generated depending on exceptSuffix, addExceptSuffix, minCompressSize and a special rule-function to theck if a compression of the files not affected by the suffix based criteria will be done or not. Easy examples and detailed explanations are presented in How to define if a file should be compressed.

--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 (e.g. if 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 was already a file with the same content in the first backup.)

--comprRule / comprRule

You can use this rule as an alternative to options exceptSuffix, minCompressSize, addExceptSuffix and compressSuffix. If this rule is set, the just mentioned options are ignored (this means that no rule is generated from these options). See defining rules to understand how to configure rules. You can e.g., define a rule that the data of serveral uses will not be compressed for easier restore by the users themself.

--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).
Direct access to files in the backup is independent of this option.

--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 (creation time). Normally, you will not use this option.

--doNotDelete / doNotDelete

Do all checks what backups should be deleted, but do not 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 yes or if this option is used on the command line. The default value for this option is no.

--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'', e.g. ``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.
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 do not 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 do not 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. If you want to get a message at least after a specific time frame, you may add that time frame separated by a comma, eg:
-P 1000,1m10s     on the command line or
progressReport = 1000,1m10s     in the configuration file.
There must be no white space in the parameter to that option. The syntax of the time frame is the same as with the keep$*$ options.

--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, e.g. missing excluded directories, files changed during backup, or creation of the `default' series. ¹³

• Using suppressWarning with the excDir key suppresses the warning that an excluded directory does not exist.
• Using the fileChange key suppresses any warning when storeBackup notices that a file has changed since the current backup began.
• Using the crSeries key suppresses the warning that storeBackup had to create a directory for the `default' series.
• 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.
• Using the use_DB_File key suppresses the warning if in your perl installation the CPAN module DB_File is not installed. If possible, you should install it - it helps improve performance and reduces memory usage.
• Using the use_MLDBM key suppresses the warning which is generated if you may use the rule functions MARK_DIR or MARK_DIR_REC in combination with option saveRAM and the perl CPAN module MLDBM is not installed on you computer.
• Using the use_IOCompressBzip2 key suppresses the warning that you should install the perl CPAN module IO::Compress::Bzip2 for better performance. Ignore / suppress this message if you do not use bzip2 as compression method.
• Using the noBackupForPeriod key suppresses the warning that there are no backups for certain periods when using the option keepRelative.

--linkToRecent

After a successful backup, a symbolic link to the 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.

--logFile / -l / logFile

Name of the log file. Default is stdout.

--plusLogStdout / plusLogStdout

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

--suppressTime / suppressTime

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 deactivates option noOfOldFiles.)

--compressWith / compressWith

Specifies the program to compress the saved log files (e.g., 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.

--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 e.g.:

# 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>/otherBackupSeries

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

To configure otherBackupSeries, you can use wildcards. More on that topic can be found at the beginning of section ``Using Wildcards for Replication''