Full PC Encrypted Backups on Linux

[endalldisease]

Hey team,
I've been a windows user since the mid-90s, and have finally seen the light/made the switch to Linux Mint.
I'm brand new to this and could use your help.

Aim
I want to create scheduled encrypted backups of my entire computer so that if the hardware were to ever fail, I'd simply have to buy a new computer, then load the data onto it and I'd be back in business.

What's the best way to make automatic weekly encrypted backups of my entire linux file system?
FYI - I do pay for dropbox monthly, but am open to switching for something more secure, less expensive or better for some other reason.

Looking forward to your reply.
-Mark

[t42]

I want to create scheduled encrypted backups of my entire computer so that if the hardware were to ever fail, I'd simply have to buy a new computer, then load the data onto it and I'd be back in business.

Encrypted backups of entire operating system can be done with Clonezilla, a partition and disk cloning live OS based on USB. But you should schedule your actions using external OS. Otherwise the scheduled task would be limited to the data-only backup with too many solutions possible.

[mikeflan]

Encrypted backups of entire operating system can be done with Clonezilla, a partition and disk cloning live OS based on USB.

I think I don't understand "disk cloning live OS based on USB". I have a separate disk and partition in my computer with the live boot of Clonezilla on it. How do I automate the shutting down of my OS system, boot into the Clonezilla partition, then issue the long command Clonezilla gives me to image the whole OS drive?

[t42]

How do I automate the shutting down of my OS system, boot into the Clonezilla partition, then issue the long command Clonezilla gives me to image the whole OS drive?

No chance. As said above " you should schedule your actions using external OS"

[AndyMH]

And it will take a long time. None of the disk imaging tools, clonezilla, foxclone, rescuezilla understand LUKS. They will backup a partition but because they cannot determine used blocks they will backup the entire partition. On un-encrypted systems they only backup the used blocks in partitions, which is a lot quicker.

If you are new to linux I would avoid full disk encryption. You are adding a layer of complexity that can make it impossible to recover from if things go wrong. There are other alternatives to protecting sensitive information such as veracrypt containers.

[endalldisease]

Hey thanks for the information I appreciate it.

I guess I should've started with why.

My goal is to backup my linux laptop in such a way that if the hardware were to ever fail, all I'd have to do was buy a new laptop and then load the backup on there.

I want to avoid having to re-install all the software in the case of a system failure.

If that changes anything, what's the best way to make that happen?

[mikeflan]

I use Clonezilla full disk image for that. It's not guaranteed to work on the new hardware, but you might be surprised to find that is does work with little or no hiccups. To help this disk swapping work I do not use fstab to automatically mount my 3 auxiliary disks. I manually mount them with the Disks program on every startup. It only takes a few seconds.

[AndyMH]

You will find foxclone or rescuezilla a lot easier to use than clonezilla. But as I said earlier, none of them, including clonezilla understand LUKS.

[JoeFootball]

I want to create scheduled encrypted backups of my entire computer ...
What's the best way to make automatic weekly encrypted backups of my entire linux file system?

For clarity, is the source file system already encrypted? Or are you looking to have the resulting backups encrypted? Or both?

[Pierre]

the use of Full Disk Encryption can be problematic,
- there has been numerous post(s) on How to Recover from this Full Disk Encryption


you would be prudent in using an Standard Installation,
that can be more easily cloned .. using Foxclone, for any full disk backup,
and then using an veracrypt containers for your private files.