Purrsync is an rsync wrapper for syncing files based on package collections.

The simplest invocation is: Synchronizing from a MAINFILE (file list) everything from SRC to DEST.

purrsync -m $MAINFILE $SRC $DEST

Here is a realistic example of the above.

mkdir -v /tmp/etc
cd /etc
find . > /tmp/mainfile
purrsync -m /tmp/mainfile /etc /tmp/etc

An ignore file list can be used.

cd /etc
find . > /tmp/mainfile
find -iname \*.key > /tmp/ignorefile
purrsync -m /tmp/mainfile -i /tmp/ignorefile /etc /tmp/etc

Instead of creating files, purrsync can run the commands for you.

cd /etc
purrsync --main-exec "find" --ignore-exec "find -iname \*.key" /etc /tmp/etc

The main goal of this script was to sort backup configurations for packages on a per-package basis. On Gentoo this can be achieved with the following.

purrsync -p -o -x "find /etc" -e "qlist {}" -L "qfile /etc | awk '{ print \$1 }'" / /tmp/etc

• The -p flag is required for package sorting.
• The -o flag is for creating a special directory for orphaned files (without packages).
• The -x flag is synonymous with --main-exec.
• The -e flag runs "qlist {}" for every package, where {} is replaced with the package name.
• The -L flag runs "qfile /etc | awk '{print \$1 }'" on /bin/sh to get a list of the relevant packages. These names are fed into qlist {}.

Only the set intersection between -x and -e are synchronized into the package destinations.

Arguments can be passed to rsync.

purrsync -m FILELIST --rsync-args="-v" / /tmp/root

The path to the rsync binary can be specified,

purrsync -m FILELIST --rsync-bin="/usr/bin/rsync" / /tmp/root

by default purrsync uses the which command to find the location of rsync.

A backup directory can be given to purrsync relative to the main, pkg and orphan directories in the destination.

purrsync --backup-dir="backup-dir" -m FILELIST / /tmp/root

This can be used to create incremental backup snapshots.

purrsync --rsync-args="-u" -b "$(date +%F-%I%M%p-%Z)" -m FILELIST / /tmp/root

The rsync -u option specifies to only update the destination if files are newer on the source.

The destination directory is structured as follows.

• destination
  • main
    • root
    • backup-dir
  • orphan
    • root
    • backup-dir
  • pkg
    • package_name
      • root
      • backup-dir

The destination passed to rsync always ends in root.

I hope this has been a helpful guide.

If you have any suggestions, comments or would like to submit a PR, please be in touch.

Have a nice day! :)