Rsync Backup Made Easy (RBME)¶
RBME was created by Schlomo Schapiro in 2006 to have a simple backup using rsync per host and per day classified on the backup server.
ReaR 2.6 until 2.9 can only perform a recovery using RBME! Therefore, making backup with RBME needs to be done outside of ReaR.
However, we made a quick update to ReaR (v3.0 which is not released yet) to make a RBME backup via a rear -v mkbackup run.
Install RBME package¶
The rbme package is not available anywhere, therefore, you have to generate it yourself by cloning Gratien's rbme clone from Schlomo if you want to create a RMP package.
The installation of the rpm or deb package has to be done as root via the usual commands. As reminder, rbme relies on procmail, so have this installed if not present.
Configuring RBME¶
RBME comes with a /etc/rbme.conf configuration file. All details are nicely explained in this configuration file.
However, it is important to set the BACKUP_PATH variable correct!
# Where to create the backups in.
# Strongly recommended to be a separate filesystem !
BACKUP_PATH=/backup
Be aware, that RBME backup workflow will generate another configuration file which will overrule the main setting of BACKUP_PATH:
/etc/rbme.local.conf - path will be changed each time you run `rear mkbackup`
BACKUP_PATH=/var/tmp/rear.GfkC5WobMbH7DcV/outputfs
If you want to receive a mail report make sure that postfix is installed and configure also in /etc/rbme.conf:
# send result per email, separate multiple addresses by spaces
MAILTO=root
Before making the first backup with RBME we have to create an exclude list:
# cat /etc/backup-excludes.lst
/var/tmp
/tmp
/proc
/run
/sys
Configuring ReaR for using RBME¶
The following /etc/rear/local.conf file was used to make a backup with RBME via ReaR:
# cat /etc/rear/local.conf
# This file etc/rear/local.conf is intended for the user's
# manual configuration of Relax-and-Recover (ReaR).
#
#### Rsync Backup Made Easy ####
################################
# RBME backup: Finished in 8131 seconds (135 min) -for 2.9 Gb data
BACKUP=RBME
BACKUP_URL=nfs://192.168.122.1/apps/export/RBME
# Use the same IP address(es) of the this system to be activated in the rescue OS
USE_STATIC_NETWORKING="y"
# To be able to login via ssh
SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD="relax"
# To save space limit what we need within rescue image (no firmware and only the loaded kernel modules)
# The difference in size of the iso image is 800Mb with and 80Mb without.
FIRMWARE_FILES=( 'no' )
MODULES=( 'loaded_modules' )
PROGRESS_MODE="plain"
PROGRESS_WAIT_SECONDS="10"
Running ReaR/RBME¶
Now to make a ReaR image and a full backup of your system with RBME just run:
# rear -v mkbackup
....
Make a backup via RBME
Be aware, this may take a very long time to finish the first time you run RBME (more than 1 hour).
You could also run during the day rear mkbackuponly to just execute rbme without creating an iso image. This will take only a few seconds now.
For example, on our backup server we see the following inside the archive directory:
dr-xr-xr-x. 18 root root 4096 Nov 6 10:35 2025-11-07
dr-xr-xr-x. 18 root root 4096 Nov 6 10:35 2025-11-13
dr-xr-xr-x. 16 root root 4096 Nov 6 10:35 2025-11-17
dr-xr-xr-x. 14 root root 190 Nov 6 10:35 2025-11-18
-rw-------. 1 root root 202 Nov 18 15:58 README
-rw-r--r--. 1 qemu qemu 69658624 Nov 18 15:58 rear-alma.iso
-rw-------. 1 root root 127954 Nov 18 15:58 rear-alma.log
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 866234368 Nov 13 15:35 rear-alma-rbme.iso
-rw-------. 1 root root 267 Nov 18 15:58 VERSION
Recover the system with RBME¶
Boot the iso image and once you have a prompt run the command: rear -v recover