Full Rackspace cloud server backup to local

Question

I want to rsync my entire Rackspace cloud server disk to a local drive. The command I am currently using is:

rsync --dry-run --archive --xattrs --compress --partial --progress --exclude={/proc/*,/sys/*,/tmp/*,/run/*,/mnt/*,/media/*,/lost+found} / user@remote_server:/backup_dir

I figure I should not exclude /dev/ because my root partition is on /dev/xvda1.

However, when I run this, I get no output and it exits immediately. The exit code (checked with echo $?) is 0. What could be going on?

Also: if there is a better way to do this, or more appropriate command line flags, do tell me.

Answer 1

Have you tried using the --verbose option? Hopefully this will make rsync tell you something about what's going on.

Side note: If it were me, I wouldn't be backing up the whole of /. Even with the exclusions you've listed, you'll still be backing up a lot of (pretty large) files that don't need backing up, like /usr and /bin. It's probably easier to sync just the directories you do need rather than excluding than the ones you don't.