How To Install rdiff-backup on Debian 10

Learn how to install rdiff-backup on Debian 10 with this tutorial. rdiff-backup is remote incremental backup

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install rdiff-backup on Debian 10.

What is rdiff-backup

rdiff-backup is:

rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, modification times, extended attributes, acls, and resource forks.

Also, rdiff-backup can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like rsync. Thus you can use rdiff-backup and ssh to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, rdiff-backup is easy to use and settings have sensible defaults.

There are three methods to install rdiff-backup on Debian 10. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install rdiff-backup Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install rdiff-backup using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install rdiff-backup

Install rdiff-backup Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install rdiff-backup using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install rdiff-backup

Install rdiff-backup Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install rdiff-backup using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install rdiff-backup

How To Uninstall rdiff-backup on Debian 10

To uninstall only the rdiff-backup package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove rdiff-backup

Uninstall rdiff-backup And Its Dependencies

To uninstall rdiff-backup and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 10, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove rdiff-backup

Remove rdiff-backup Configurations and Data

To remove rdiff-backup configuration and data from Debian 10 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge rdiff-backup

Remove rdiff-backup configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove rdiff-backup configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge rdiff-backup

Dependencies

rdiff-backup have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install rdiff-backup package on Debian 10 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.