I am looking for a method of backup that will allow me to have backups in the same way that OS X's Time Machine does (raw backup filesystem access, symlinks for same files) without a GUI, and strictly command-line and cron based. I have searched, but couldn't find one without a GUI. I would also like for these to be transferred to a different machine without the backup being stored locally, due to filesystem size restrictions, etc.

Isn't this basically what dirvish does?

http://www.dirvish.org/