How to make work Mondo Resuce or an easyer alternative

[particlefeever]

Hi! I have a custom boot in my Linux Mint that I wish to keep safe among with my backups. Thought the way of doing this is with Clonezilla, but it is a live app that I need to burn a disc to boot and make it all by hand (yes, simple live USB wont work, a custom USB boot is needed). I need and app like Carbon Copy Cloner for macOS, so I have researched and people recommend this Mondo Rescue.

Mondo Rescue is for a skilled Linux user, not my case. I have looked for install instructions and maybe I could installed it, not sure. Here is the last move:

Code: Select all

gustavopinent@MacminiLinuxMint:/tmp/MondoRescue-3.3.0$ sudo make install
[sudo] senha para gustavopinent:          
Manifying 12 pod documents
Manifying 7 pod documents
Installing /usr/bin/mr-net-get-config
Installing /usr/bin/mr-kernel-get-modules
Installing /usr/bin/mr-distro-getparam
Installing /usr/bin/mr-device-mounted
Installing /usr/bin/mr-analyze-lvm
Installing /usr/bin/mr-label
Installing /usr/bin/mr-mkiso
Installing /usr/bin/mr-disk-type
Installing /usr/bin/mr-process-ldd
Installing /usr/bin/mr-check-lvm
Installing /usr/bin/mr-getparam
Installing /usr/bin/mr-disk-list
Installing /usr/bin/mr-read-all-link
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Inventory.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Net.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Base.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Disk.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Version.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/LVM.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/File.pm
Installing /usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/Kernel.pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-net-get-config.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-check-lvm.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-distro-getparam.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-label.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-getparam.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-mkiso.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-device-mounted.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-analyze-lvm.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-disk-list.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-read-all-link.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-disk-type.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man1/mr-process-ldd.1p
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::Base.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::LVM.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::File.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::Net.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::Inventory.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::Disk.3pm
Installing /usr/share/man/man3/MondoRescue::Kernel.3pm
MondoRescue 3.3.0-r3762 will be installed under
install -m 755 -d /usr/local/etc/mondorescue /usr/local/var/cache/mondorescue /usr/local/share/mondorescue
cp etc/mondorescue.conf /usr/local/etc/mondorescue/mondorescue.conf.dist ; install -m 755 -d  /usr/local/share/man/man5 ; perl -p -e 's/^# //; s/^#//' etc/mondorescue.conf | pod2man --name=mondorescue.conf --release=3.3.0-r3762 --section=5 > /usr/local/share/man/man5/mondorescue.conf.5
(cd /usr/local/etc/mondorescue/ ; md5sum mondorescue.conf.dist > /usr/local/etc/mondorescue/mondorescue.conf.dist.md5)
if [ ! -f "/usr/local/etc/mondorescue/mondorescue.conf" ]; then echo "# Local configuration file for Mondorescue" > /usr/local/etc/mondorescue/mondorescue.conf; echo "# Adapt content taken from the distribution conf file mondorescue.conf.dist which should remain untouched" >> /usr/local/etc/mondorescue/mondorescue.conf ; fi
cp lib/MondoRescue/DynConf.pm //usr/share/perl5/MondoRescue/

I have executed those last steps with sudo but nothing changes in my linux, can't find how to start with Mondo Rescue. I decide to ask here, maybe I am close or maybe is time to move on... Any ideas?

[AndyMH]

Try foxclone (I developed it) or rescuezilla. Both require you to download an iso, burn it to a usb stick and boot from it. foxclone was designed to be as simple as possible to use.

[sanmig]

… and both, foxclone and Rescuezilla, work on a Ventoy boot stick, just drag the .iso to the Ventoy drive.
I’m a big fan of that method, just one boot stick for plenty boot systems:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
(site requires JavaScript without giving a notice, what a useless waste of … )

[particlefeever]

Try foxclone (I developed it) or rescuezilla. Both require you to download an iso, burn it to a usb stick and boot from it. foxclone was designed to be as simple as possible to use.

Thanks, I will download and try your foxclone, but will keep looking for a solution that does not requires any reboot. Is kinda hard to find it, why? Is there some particular difficult in the task?
In the case of Carbon Copy Cloner, I have tested a freeware alternative that didn't work well and also the OS own app have some issues, so I decided to pay for the CCC. As macOS is a "brother in law" of Mint (is it?), maybe won't be easy to do such successful software. Hope you can in the future...

… and both, foxclone and Rescuezilla, work on a Ventoy boot stick, just drag the .iso to the Ventoy drive.
I’m a big fan of that method, just one boot stick for plenty boot systems:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
(site requires JavaScript without giving a notice, what a useless waste of … )

I didn't have a nice expretience with Ventoy in the past, but there is a recent release, so I will try it.

[mikeflan]

but it is a live app that I need to burn a disc to boot

Clonezilla is live booted to run it, like the other applications. I think the reason is because Clonezilla needs full access to the drive/partition with no changes being made while it is running. The typical way to backup is to create an image directory that looks like this:

Code: Select all

2021-01-27-18-img$ ls -la
total 90312464
drwxr-xr-x 2 mike mike       4096 Jan 27 13:37 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 mike mike       4096 Feb 14 10:23 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike       1254 Jan 27 12:12 blkdev.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        720 Jan 27 12:12 blkid.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike       4173 Jan 27 13:37 clonezilla-img
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        144 Jan 27 12:12 dev-fs.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike          4 Jan 27 13:37 disk
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike          0 Jan 27 13:37 efi-nvram.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike      23849 Jan 27 13:37 Info-dmi.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        187 Jan 27 13:37 Info-img-id.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike      49252 Jan 27 13:37 Info-lshw.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike      12181 Jan 27 13:37 Info-lspci.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        215 Jan 27 13:37 Info-packages.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        100 Jan 27 13:37 Info-saved-by-cmd.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike          5 Jan 27 13:37 parts
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:18 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.aa
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:24 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ab
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:28 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ac
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:31 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ad
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:34 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ae
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:36 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.af
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:40 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ag
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:43 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ah
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:46 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ai
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:52 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.aj
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 12:58 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ak
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:03 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.al
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:07 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.am
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:11 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.an
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:13 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ao
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:15 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ap
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:20 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.aq
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:23 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.ar
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:28 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.as
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:31 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.at
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:32 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.au
-rw------- 1 mike mike 4096000000 Jan 27 13:35 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.av
-rw------- 1 mike mike 2366660514 Jan 27 13:37 sda1.ext4-ptcl-img.gz.aw
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike         37 Jan 27 12:12 sda-chs.sf
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike    1048064 Jan 27 12:12 sda-hidden-data-after-mbr
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        512 Jan 27 12:12 sda-mbr
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        278 Jan 27 12:12 sda-pt.parted
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        250 Jan 27 12:12 sda-pt.parted.compact
-rw-r--r-- 1 mike mike        133 Jan 27 12:12 sda-pt.sf

That is it. You just store that directory. Your backup is completed. Then you can burn that image to a drive (the same size as the one you created the image from) if you want to for any reason.

You can expect your image directory to be about half the size of the used space on the drive or partition that you imaged.

If you want a live boot of the image you took, then you have to convert the image directory to an iso file and then burn the iso file to a DVD or USB with the linux dd command, or a program that simulates the dd command. But this last step is not needed for a simple backup.

I'm thinking macOS is not a "brother in law" of Mint. macOS is too different from Linux Mint to be described that way.

[AndyMH]

I will download and try your foxclone, but will keep looking for a solution that does not requires any reboot. Is kinda hard to find it, why? Is there some particular difficult in the task?

Clonezilla, foxclone, etc. are image backup utilities. They know nothing about files or folders, all they do is copy used blocks in a partition and save as an image file. The filesystem has to be locked to do this otherwise something might change during the backup corrupting it. You can't lock your system while it is running. That is why they all require you to boot from a separate operating system to run.

If you have software that backs up your running system, it is either:

• creating a RAM drive, building an OS in it and rebooting into it. I had the misfortune to use some win backup software recently. That's what it did - rebooted the PC into a version of windows PE to do the backup. Rebooted back into win when it was finished. This is a particularly difficult and complex task, not something you are likely to get in free software. The foxclone application is in the order of 5,000 lines of code (a lot of this is stopping the user from doing stupid things). On top of that you have to build your own operating system that is bootable from a stick - a challenging task in its own right. I don't want to think about what I would have to do to make it work the way you would like.

• or, it is working at the file level, not the block level.

In addition, think about it, your backup software is installed in your system and you trash it for some reason - how are you going to run your backup software to restore the image? You would have to reinstall your operating system, then install your backup software before you can do your restore. With the linux image backup utilities mentioned, you just keep a usb stick with it on and boot from it when necessary.

Image backup should be your last line of defence. I have timeshift and backintime installed in mint. These are running daily saving snapshots to an internal removable drive. I take an image backup every few months with foxclone. timeshift and backintime are file level backup utilities. Both are front ends for a terminal utility, rsync, timeshift takes care of the system, backintime looks after home.

[particlefeever]

When we work for so many years in an OS, the view, the way of working daily got imprinted in mind. By reading those comments, thought I will have to think different to work on Linux. Mint is the first Linux distributions that I truly have a good experience and wish to work with. But not even Mint is so friendly to outsiders, even with some experience I have difficulties, one is backup. I'm still struggling with the " Backup" tool to make it in my Google Drive. And without the possibility of a daily image of the system, I don't see it as reliable working tool, as long it might be a twisted view.

By the way, I never ever considered Windows a reliable system, with any backup system. I had recently a blue screen event and none of the all those rescue method have worked (returning point, backups, system recover, etc.). Off course, with the brand new 11 we will have a whole new OS, fast and stable, and we will just drag an icon back to the main SSD and will be all solved...

Back to Linux, I disagree with the perspective of heaving the system image as last line of defensive. In my experience, since 8-bit computers, there is nothing as just restore back the system and back to work. In the case of Carbon Copy Cloner, booting from external HD save me of losing weeks reinstalling everything back among with working files. I think there is a gap between people that make those recovery apps and the people that have the PC as a virtual office, made over the years.

Also, I think we should know more about this Mondo Rescue...

[mikeflan]

I'm still struggling with the " Backup" tool

It's widely agreed that the 'Backup Tool' in LM is not a very good option for "Personal data" backup, though it can perhaps be used. Only the "Software selection" should be used in 'Backup Tool', and maybe not even that. We suggest using Timeshift for system restore. And then also using BackinTime-gnome or FreeFileSync for /home/ and other personal file backups.