I use rsync to backup my wifes home directory across a modem link each night. The cron job looks like this #!/bin/sh cd ~susan { echo date dest=~/backup/`date +%A` mkdir $dest.new find . -xdev -type f \( -mtime 0 -or -mtime 1 \) -exec cp -aPv "{}" $dest.new \; cnt=`find $dest.new -type f | wc -l` if [ $cnt -gt 0 ]; then rm -rf $dest mv $dest.new $dest fi rm -rf $dest.new rsync -Cavze ssh . samba:backup } >> ~/backup/backup.log 2>&1 note that most of this script isn't anything to do with rsync, it just creates a daily backup of Susans work in a ~susan/backup/ directory so she can retrieve any version from the last week. The last line does the rsync of her directory across the modem link to the host samba. Note that I am using the -C option which allows me to add entries to .cvsignore for stuff that doesn't need to be backed up.