Tutorial: Automate remote system backup with rsync

In this article we explain how to automate the backup of files on remote machines to a centralized server using rsync.

rsync is a command line utility that is used to synchronize files between two computers over a network to synchronize files between two filesystems. It was written as a replacement for rcp but with many new features. For example it uses an algorithm that will only transfer files that have been modified. SSH will be used to authenticate between the machines and to encrypt the network traffic.