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I am doing backups of a directory with a simple:

cp -R /production/directory /backups/location

Sometimes I need to restore a backup, but doing:

cp -R /backups/location/* /production/directory

or

cp -RT /backups/location /production/directory

has the unwanted (in my case) effect, of keeping files present in /production/directory but not in the backup, while I want them removed, to get things in the exact same state as when the backup was done.

Is there any magic switch, or other simple command, to perform that, or do I need to manually remove the whole directory first ?

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  • You could use rsync as follow rsync -r --delete-during /backup/location /production/directory which will scan directories while syncing and put the same content of /backup/location/ to /production/directory
    – Valentin Bajrami
    Jan 14, 2015 at 14:55
  • This will create an additional directory (location with your command, or directory if I add that to source), inside the /production/directory.
    – Gnurfos
    Jan 14, 2015 at 15:18
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    so include the trailing slash. Use the following: rsync -r --delete-during /backup/location/ /production/directory
    – Valentin Bajrami
    Jan 14, 2015 at 15:32
  • Thanks, this works perfectly. I was searching for an option and missed the trailing slash trick in the manual. Can you turn it into an answer ?
    – Gnurfos
    Jan 14, 2015 at 16:23

2 Answers 2

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You can use rsync to achieve what you want.

rsync -r --delete-during /backup/location/ /production/directory

For more on see man rsync

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Well there is a command called rm -R that removes a whole directory. So you start your restore with rm -R /production/directory, followed by the restore command.

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  • Thanks for the suggestion. I mentioned manual remove in my question though, as a last resort. I was searching for something more elegant (I think rsync is probably faster too).
    – Gnurfos
    Jan 14, 2015 at 18:16

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