Setup backup

[idiotkiwi]

There is much discussion about backing up before making changes. Coming from Windows, the process in Linux seems complicated.

I have installed Simple Backup and would like to backup to a separate partition so I can reinstall the OS if necessary. I tried following the instructions as if for a separate Home (which had worked for me in Bianca) but failed. I can backup to var OK and could copy from there but there must be a better way. Googling brought up some very (to me) complex routines.

Two questions - Is simple Backup a reasonable choice?
- What is the best way to put it on to its own partition.

Thanks

Euan

[Husse]

The only thing I use Windows for now is to let Acronis True Image Workstation make backups of my partitions. I paid some 80 € for it and it is really good.
And while it does its job I play "Spider"
If you want to do backups as diskimages there are some in Synaptics but they need to be run with the disks unmounted so you must boot from CD

[scorp123]

Coming from Windows, the process in Linux seems complicated.

Nonsense!

For a idiot-proof backup all you need is tar and gzip .... these two programs are installed per default on every Linux distribution and on every Live CD I know in this Universe

Please remember these important words:

Every backup procedure is only as good as the restore procedure to get your data back!

In other words: Installing third-party add-on products is highly useless and not helpful when disaster strikes as getting your data back will obviously be a complicated affair!

My advice: Stick to the built-in tools of the system! They can do what you want and restoring data is simple for the needed programs are easily available on every distro and every Live CD! Apply the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep it simple and stupid.

That link you were given above is all you need.

[newW2]

I must agree. scorp123's discussion on another post has worked well for backing up home and / or parts of home (like those huge music directories that you may not find pleasure in re-establishing after the crash). The commands are simple and so useful to me that I keep a Tomboy - how to note on hand, for those senior moments.

scorp123 wrote:

...as root: ...
Code:
cd / && tar -pczvf Home_Backup.tar.gz /home
... and then unpack everything again when you need it (as root !!): ...
Code:
cd / && tar -pzxvf /path/to/archive.tar.gz

These commands should create OK copies of your /home ... The tar method has the advantage that you get to keep a nice archived backup copy of your /home that you could use on other systems too ... or you could use it again and again and again in case of re-installations ... Wink

and adding --exclude/whatever directory (like a large music collection) makes everything fit on one disk.

[idiotkiwi]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the advice.

Messages taken to heart.

KrazyPenguin. I had read that Ubuntu forum. 32 pages of comment was what made me think it was complicated.

Regards

Idiotkiwi.

[Boo]

I agree if a solution can not be found in 1 or 2 pages then it is not worth reading further.

If a thread needs to go for 32 pages then it should be broken up into different questions/threads.

am i off topic yet?

[Husse]

f a thread needs to go for 32 pages then it should be broken up into different questions/threads
am i off topic yet?

Slightly but you have a very valid point. Why do you think I split posts and (gently I hope) ask people to start a new thread for a new question
That some people feel offended by that I'll have to accept

[idiotkiwi]

Hi Lavs23

sbackup is, I am pretty sure, exactly the same program as my original inquiry.

See http://sbackup.sourceforge.net/HomePage.

"Welcome to SBackup Wikka site!

This site is the concentration of all documents related to Simple Backup Suite, a.k.a. SBackup. "

Regards

[blogger]

scorp123 wrote:
Quote:
Apply the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep it simple and stupid.

...as root: ...
Code:
cd / && tar -pczvf Home_Backup.tar.gz /home
... and then unpack everything again when you need it (as root !!): ...
Code:
cd / && tar -pzxvf /path/to/archive.tar.gz

These commands should create OK copies of your /home ... The tar method has the advantage that you get to keep a nice archived backup copy of your /home that you could use on other systems too ... or you could use it again and again and again in case of re-installations ... Wink

Ok fellows,
I tried the Scorp 123 formula above. It works very well! But I did it the 'stupid way' --- I left my home network connection on!
So, I backed up so much stuff that my root partition could not take it (3.6GB).
I am trying to delete the /Home_Backup.tar.gz from my computer, but I am denied permission to do it.
Can somebody help me get rid of this tar file?
Please give step by step instructions, since I am not very apt with shell commands.
How about it Scorp123?

Thanks in advance,
Blogger

[scorp123]

Use sudo?

Code: Select all

sudo rm /path/to/offending/file.tar.gz

[scorp123]

Taken from my posting here:
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... 1808#21808

Quote from there:

Is there any intuative backup software, with a GUI, that I could download and use for back up.

And how do you mean to perform a restore if disaster strikes? Every backup procedure is only as reliable as the restore procedure. Sure, there are GUI backup tools and you can install and use them ... But what if your system all of a sudden won't boot anymore? How do you then plan to get into that GUI tool ... ? And if you can't get into that GUI tool, how do you plan to get your data back?

You'd be better of to learn the super-duper powerful shell tools such as tar and gzip .... They work, GUI or not, and the tools are installed per default everywhere and will happily operate even from the most minimal live CD you can get.

I myself backup my stuff on external USB harddisks ... if disaster strikes again (and it already did several times) I can get my stuff back anywhere, anytime and I don't have to rely on GUI tools I probably won't be able to get into in the first place when the worst case happens

Code: Select all

sudo su -
cd /path/to/USB/disk
tar --one-filesystem -pzcvf BootFS_backup.tar.gz /boot
tar --one-filesystem --exclude=/tmp/* --exclude=/dev/* --exclude=/proc/* -pzcvf RootFS_backup.tar.gz /
tar --one-filesystem --exclude=/var/tmp/* -pzcvf VarFS_backup.tar.gz /var
tar --one-filesystem -pzcvf UsrFS_backup.tar.gz /usr
tar --one-filesystem -pzcvf HomeFS_backup.tar.gz /home 

Of course, above code snippets need to be adapted, e.g. there is no point backing up /boot or /usr if you don't have those directories on separate mount points (in that case it would all be on the " / " file system).

[blogger]

Use sudo?

Code: Select all

sudo rm /path/to/offending/file.tar.gz

Thank you Scorp123,
With your help, I managed to remove the Home_backup tar file and freed my root partition from a few GBs.

Cheers,
Blogger

EDIT, June 26, 07
Why so much talk about backup schemes?
Could there be a simpler and easier way than Scorp's tar and gzip method?
One question though. The tar file is by default installed in the root File System. How can we install it elsewhere; a disk partition, a flash stick etc?
Thanks

[JAK]

Use sudo?

Code: Select all

sudo rm /path/to/offending/file.tar.gz

Thank you Scorp123,
With your help, I managed to remove the Home_backup tar file and freed my root partition from a few GBs.

Cheers,
Blogger

EDIT, June 26, 07
Why so much talk about backup schemes?
Could there be a simpler and easier way than Scorp's tar and gzip method?
One question though. The tar file is by default installed in the root File System. How can we install it elsewhere; a disk partition, a flash stick etc?
Thanks

This might be of interest to you:

http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page
http://www.partimage.org/Screenshots

You can also search for "partimage" in synaptic

Having image backups is a must. You never know when your system will get trashed by a program or a hard drive crash. I make a complete image backup of my WindowsXP installation using Acronis Image every night while I sleeping. If anything ever goes wrong, I'm covered and I won't get that sick feeling in my stomach from loosing everything. Speaking from experience!
.

[scorp123]

Having image backups is a must.

Hmmm. Having a complete system backup is a must, yes. But image backups have a few drawbacks: You not only backup your stuff (e.g. those portions where the data is located) but also the empty parts of the harddisk. That's overhead in my opinion. Also: what if you change disks or partition your disks differently? Having things in relatively "simple + stupid" archives has the advantage that you can unpack your stuff relatively quickly and uncomplicated wherever and whenever you want. Not all disk imaging software can match that as far as I know.

[JAK]

Having image backups is a must.

Hmmm. Having a complete system backup is a must, yes. But image backups have a few drawbacks: You not only backup your stuff (e.g. those portions where the data is located) but also the empty parts of the harddisk. That's overhead in my opinion. Also: what if you change disks or partition your disks differently? Having things in relatively "simple + stupid" archives has the advantage that you can unpack your stuff relatively quickly and uncomplicated wherever and whenever you want. Not all disk imaging software can match that as far as I know.

You're probably right; there is more flexibility creating archives rather than images. It would seem to me the only thing needing backup are all the .conf files, maybe a few other non-.conf configuration files and everything under the /home directory. As far as everything else goes, a clean install and restoring the archives should be sufficient.

[linuxviolin]

And how do you mean to perform a restore if disaster strikes? Every backup procedure is only as reliable as the restore procedure. Sure, there are GUI backup tools and you can install and use them ... But what if your system all of a sudden won't boot anymore? How do you then plan to get into that GUI tool ... ? And if you can't get into that GUI tool, how do you plan to get your data back?

Just for the record, Acronis Tue Image has a boot CD. Booting with it you take in the GUI for restoring (or creating images) your partition(s), so even with a system which don't boot, no problem with the CD and its GUI.

[JAK]

And how do you mean to perform a restore if disaster strikes? Every backup procedure is only as reliable as the restore procedure. Sure, there are GUI backup tools and you can install and use them ... But what if your system all of a sudden won't boot anymore? How do you then plan to get into that GUI tool ... ? And if you can't get into that GUI tool, how do you plan to get your data back?

Just for the record, Acronis Tue Image has a boot CD. Booting with it you take in the GUI for restoring (or creating images) your partition(s), so even with a system which don't boot, no problem with the CD and its GUI.

And it just so happens it's a Linux boot CD. I'll have to give it a shot, but I never tried using Acronis to backup a Linux system. I'll get back to you on that.
.

[scorp123]

What scorp's simple solution does not provide "out of the box" is an incremental backup capability (ie, "backup only what changed since last time I did a backup").

I agree here - my solution doesn't provide that. On purpose. As you correctly said -- feeding 'tar' with the right parameter would be easy. But experience has taught me that incremental backups --while being a time-saver when making backups-- can cost you twice that time again when you have to restore things especially if things go seriously wrong, e.g. when for some stupid reasons you don't remember anymore important files are missing from the incremental backup but some moron --maybe even yourself?-- deleted the last good full backup ... Murphy's Law: if things can go wrong they sure as hell will go wrong and you'll be the one banging his head against the table.

This has happened to me. Bad luck is a b*tch but one hell of a good teacher -- you'll never again forget the lesson.

So for me it's full backups. Yes, they take longer and yes, they use up more space than incremental backups. But unless a nuke explosion's EM pulse wipes my disks clean I am quite confident that I will get my data back somehow.

Scorp's approach has a lot of merit. ... Especially when a system has crashed down to the point that all you have is a shell.

Thanks for that. That's *exactly* the point of it. It happened often enough to me that when things seriously go wrong the shell is your very last best friend and your last and only hope. So you better know how to talk to it and how to tell it to get your data back and bring life back into this dead metal chunk of computer hardware.

Maybe I am a bit old-fashioned. That's possible.

[scorp123]

... {many words of wisdom} ...

Excellent posting!

[JAK]

So getting back to the original notion of doing a full system backup. I downloaded "remastersys" from the Romeo repo and installed it. I keep getting an error telling me it's looking for the original LinuxMint CD at the /dev/hdb when it's mounted at /media/LinuxMint 3.0 (or something like that). I tried to force the CD to mount at /dev/hdb, but then I got other errors.

What I would like to do is make an installable "backup" of my current setup. That way if something does go wrong I can reinstall LinuxMint just the way I like it configured.

Are there any other solutions like remastersys that actually work, or there some config file I can edit to have remastersys look for the original LM CD at /media/LinuxMint ?
.