8.4.1 Differential backup with rdiff

rdiff-backup offers nice and simple backup with differential history for any types of files, including symlinks. To back up most of ~/ to /mnt/backup:

     $ rdiff-backup --include ~/tmp/keep --exclude ~/tmp  ~/ /mnt/backup

To restore three-day-old data from this archive to ~/old:

     $ rdiff-backup -r 3D /mnt/backup ~/old

See rdiff-backup(1).