Duplicity

Introduction

Duplicity backs directories by producing encrypted tar-format volumes and uploading them to a remote or local file server. Because duplicity uses librsync, the incremental archives are space efficient and only record the parts of files that have changed since the last backup. Because duplicity uses GnuPG to encrypt and/or sign these archives, they will be safe from spying and/or modification by the server.

The duplicity package also includes the rdiffdir utility. Rdiffdir is an extension of librsync's rdiff to directories---it can be used to produce signatures and deltas of directories as well as regular files. These signatures and deltas are in GNU tar format.

Installation

After the installation of the duplicity's package, you need to do some steps before lauching your first backup:

• GPG: you will need to pass --gpg-binary=/usr/local/gnupg/bin/gpg2 to the duplicity's command, as GPG is already available in DSM, but at an older version.
• GPG config: you may also need to create a file gpg-agent.conf in /root/.gnupg containing only the line allow-loopback-pinentry to make duplicity work.
• Archive and temp dirs: you may pass --archive-dir=/volume1/homes/whatever/ and --tempdir=/volume1/homes/whatever/ to duplicity's command, because these directories will grow up, and space is scarce on /.