How to combine Backup and Sync in one cron script

Troubleshooting
1

Hi fellas,

I was wondering if it was possible to combine a backup with a sync.

I would like to do both one after the other via a script (unattended) launched daily or weekly.

I am aware there are plans to merge dietpi-backup and -sync but as this isnt there yet, I am looking for other ways to backup my dietpi and sync the result from one HDD to another.

I am also aware of the option to enable daily sync within the options of the dietpi-sync but I am afraid that this will collide as cron jobs are triggered in parallel. So the backup via a script within cron.daily (Taken from another forum post) might run at the same time as sync which might lead to incorrect results.

I guess my question is can I combine dietpi-backup and dietpi-sync in one script I put into cron.daily?
I tried but the logfile I try to write to doesnt update which makes me think I am overseeing something and the commands cannot bei combined easily.

Thanks in advance!

2

You could add both command calls to the same crontab/script, like:

#!/bin/dash
/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1 || exit 1
/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-sync 1 || exit 1
exit 0

So the correct order and no concurrency is guaranteed.
Daily sync of course needs to be disabled then for dietpi-sync.

3

Excellent.

I will give this a try a report back.

Thank you very much in advance.

4

Test was successful.

Works like a charme. :slight_smile:

5

Hello, I want to expand a little bit more the initial question, if possible.

Both dietpi-backup and dietpi-sync tools are using daily cron to be scheduled.

After reading the thread I checked the content of /etc/cron.daily/dietpi and I found the following order for the mentioned tools:

[...]
	# DietPi-Backup daily
	if [[ -f '/boot/dietpi/.dietpi-backup_settings' ]] && grep -q '^[[:blank:]]*DAILY_BACKUP=1' /boot/dietpi/.dietpi-backup_settings
	then
		/boot/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1
	fi
	#----------------------------------------------------------------
	# DietPi-Sync daily
	if [[ -f '/boot/dietpi/.dietpi-sync_settings' ]] && grep -q '^[[:blank:]]*SYNC_CRONDAILY=1' /boot/dietpi/.dietpi-sync_settings
	then
		/boot/dietpi/dietpi-sync 1
	fi
[...]

Also on my DietPi I want to use dietpi-backup with a target disk A and then I want to copy the content of disk A to disk B with dietpi-sync.

Can I assume that dietpi-backup and dietpi-sync are executed sequentially ‘by design’ and rely on this behaviour for my purpose?

Thank you,
all the best for the new year

6

theoretically yes. However, it would be better to follow @MichaIng suggestion creating an own cron job. Simply to prevent a failed backup from being copied via sync.

7

Thank you @Joulinar :slight_smile:

If I get the suggestion correctly, to use custom cron job to combine backup and sync, I’ve to disable both cron jobs managed by DietPi itself.

Am I right?

8

correct

9

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