Few days back I had a task to automate backup from one server to another using rsync and I wrote the script as below

#!/bin/sh

# This script does personal backups to a rsync backup server.

# directory to backup
BDIR=/home/$USER

# excludes file - this contains a wildcard pattern per line of files to exclude
EXCLUDES=$HOME/cron/excludes

# the name of the backup machine
BSERVER=Homeserver.org

# your password on the backup server
export RSYNC_PASSWORD=123456

########################################################################

BACKUPDIR=`date +%A`
OPTS="--force --ignore-errors --delete-excluded --exclude-from=$EXCLUDES
 --delete --backup --backup-dir=/$BACKUPDIR -a"

export PATH=$PATH:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

# the following line clears the last weeks incremental directory
[ -d $HOME/emptydir ] || mkdir $HOME/emptydir
rsync --delete -a $HOME/emptydir/ $BSERVER::$USER/$BACKUPDIR/
rmdir $HOME/emptydir

# now the actual transfer
rsync $OPTS $BDIR $BSERVER::$USER/current