HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

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Gerd50

HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

In the forums i quite often read, had to reinstall after an upgrade after i installed a new graphics driver, after i tried this or that. Reinstall is not necessary if you Backup your system regularly.

qt4-fsarchiver is a gui version for the command line version fsarchiver. A howto for the cli version is available here:

http://www.fsarchiver.org/QuickStart

The gui version is available on sourceforge.net as deb packages and Live CD - http://sourceforge.net/projects/qt4-fsarchiver/files/

My version is an older one, german only. But in newer versions you can choose between german, english and russian. In order to
change the language go to "Einstellungen" -> "Basiseinstellungen" -> "Sprache" and choose Englisch or Russisch. Then hit the buttons "Einstellungen speichern" -> "Beenden" and restart qt4 to make en or ru effective. The same procedure you have to go, if you use
a Live CD.

The best way to work with qt4-fsa is, if you have two Ubuntu/Debian based systems installed. It also works with rpm based distros.
rpm packages are available here - http://sisyphus.ru/en/srpm/Sisyphus/qt4-fsarchiver/get -

If you don't have two Linux systems, at latest in order to restore partitions you need a Live CD. A Live Cd is available Ubuntu
Oneiric based:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qt4-fsa ... s/Live-CD/

ukbrian produced a rescue CD based on SalineOS. Thanks for it Brian :D

http://lin.me.uk/qt4-fsarchiver/qt4-fsa ... -01-24.iso

Save Partitions

qt4-fsarchiver must be run as root. If you start qt4-fsa from your menu and the terminal don't open in order to type in
your password, open a terminal and start fsa with:

Code: Select all

sudo qt4-fsarchiver
You can save your mounted /root, /home and data partitions after a warning note. You can work with your mounted partition -
webbrowsing, writing etc. but you shouldn't install new apps and not use Dropbox if you don't want to loose datas!

In order to save a partition go to Existing Partitions and choose the partition you want to save. qt4-fsa can handle ext3, ext4
and btrfs partitions. Save the MBR is possible. If Grub is the bootloader the PBR must not be saved or restored. It is not safe to use
the gui at present for ntfs backup and it's not possible to save encrypted partitions.

Then go to Backup Directory and choose a folder where you want to store your backup. Next step is Name the backup
and after it's done hit Save Partition. After about 12 minutes the work should be done if you choosed gzip standard
compression.

Restore Partitions

It is not possible to restore mounted partitions. If you have two Linux installations, install qt4-fsa in both. Then restore the
unmounted partition from your running Operating System. If you don't have two OS's, use a Live System (CD/Stick) and restore
from there. It is possible to restore an fsa clone to any partition of your choice on your system. A clone restored to another
partition than it was backed up from, gets the UUID and Label from the origin partition.

Warning:
DataMan wrote:

I can shed some light on the duplicate uuid situation from "first hand experience".... :shock:

I recently cloned through fsarchiver my production Mint Debian "/" & "/home" to new partitions. I re-directed a dedicated boot to the cloned install as well as a dedicated boot to the original install (dedicated GRUB legacy boot loader). It was driving me bonkers as I was randomly booting to one or the other. I knew this as I had set different distinct backgrounds in each ops.

So the long and the short of it is... if you crave a little bit of uncontrolled excitement in your life, definitely clone a complete Mint Debian to another partition and enjoy the uncertainty of where you will end up booting to.

:lol:

-DataMan
What means, don't forget to format the origin partition, if you restored to another!

In order to restore first mark Restore Partition with fsarchiver. In Existing Partitions choose the one to restore. In Backup Directory go to the folder where your backup is stored and choose the backup file you want to restore. For example LMDE-date.fsa. Then hit Partition restore.

Normally it's enough to backup once per week. But if you read in our forums the testing or sid breakage threads

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=67502

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=70230

and a dist-upgrade is noted as suspect, it's a good idea to create a fresh backup before you update.

For me sometimes it's fun to break my system with a suspect update and then try to fix it. If i don't find a fix, with a backup
i'm always on a safe side. I wish you fun with LMDE Testing or Sid and Backups :)

Note: if you can't backup a mounted partition and you don't have a second Linux OS with qt4-fsa installed, use a Live System!

Warning: if you use this program, and you use symlinks to the distro you are backing up, then nothing is going to work again until
you remount the partition because qt4-fsa will unmount the distro you are backing up and remount it to /tmp. I also VERY seriously suggest that if you use Dropbox across multiple distros that you switch it off before you start the backup and only switch it on again after you have remounted the partition.

Compressionoverview:

Mode/Level..................Compression Rate...................Needed Time
___________________________________________________________________
lzo..............................2.141.695.938 Byte...(1.99 GiB)...11 min 12 Sek
gzip fast.......................1.822.273.889 Byte...(1.7 GiB)...12min 11 Sek
gzip standard................1.695.248.687 Byte...(1.58 GiB)...12 min 49 Sek
gzip best......................1.688.266.397 Byte...(1,57 GiB)...23 min 52 Sek
bzip2 fast.....................1.660.019.964 Byte...(1,55 GiB)...26 min 11 Sek
bzip2 good....................1.637.605.954 Byte...(1,53 GiB)...28 min 23 Sek
lzma fast......................1.597.604.088 Byte...(1,49 GiB)...19 min 19 Sek
lzma medium................1.480.208.664 Byte...(1,38 GiB)...59 min 4 Sek
lzma best.....................1.461.640.213 Byte...(1,36 GiB)...67 min 0 Sek

Video help produced by ukbrian

Low resolution size 29MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver-low-res.mp4
Low resolution zipped size 21 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarch ... mp4.tar.gz

High resolution size 133 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver.mp4
High resolution zipped size 117 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver.mp4.tar.gz

If the Debian 6.0 package complaines about liblzma.so.2 not found, run:

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ln -sf /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5.0.0 /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Written with a little help by my friend YouTranslate and a lot of help by viking777. Thank you.

A big thanks to the developers for this useful and easy to use program.
Last edited by Gerd50 on Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.
DrHu

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by DrHu »

Gerd50 wrote:In the forums i quite often read, had to reinstall after an upgrade after i installed a new graphics driver, after i tried this or that. Reinstall is not necessary if you Backup your system regularly.
True but the only question I have is why this product is any better than any other image/partition backup software such as one that was on the partner advertising at Mint at one time,
http://www.r1soft.com/tools/linux-hot-copy/
http://www.r1soft.com/tools/linux-hot-c ... tips/#c852

Other images or backup programs..
http://www.acronis.com/backup-recovery/server-linux/
http://rsnapshot.org/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup_Programs

The other way to do it is to take a snapshot of the running system before applying any updates, and if there is a problem restore the snapshot and lose the updates..
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
rsync is a good and old standby method..
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page
  • Limitations
    Partimage does not support ext4 or btrfs filesystems.
    No defragmentation is performed during save or restore.
    Filesystem being backedup must be unmounted and inaccessible to other programs. This means that when backing up the "system" filesystem, the operating system is down.
    --another well known partition image program..
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10thin ... lities/895
a list of backup programs..
Open files are always a problem for any backup system: how well the program deals with open (running/loaded) files..

Provided you have an internet connection a cloud backup program might be of some use for system updates
--for your own data, you would have to decide if you wanted it outside your control (in the cloud), and make appropriate choices..
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup_Programs
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

DrHu wrote:
True but the only question I have is why this product is any better than any other image/partition backup software...
I think it's the wrong question. With backup software the question for me was, what is better for me. As LMDE user i searched
for a backup tool about one year ago. Among the available tools for me the best i could find was qt4-fsarchiver. I don't use
Windows. For me as Linux user qt4-fsa has the advantage easy to install, simple gui, easy to use.

Pros and cons we discussed here - http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 89&start=0 -
GeneC

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by GeneC »

Thanks for the How-To Gerd :)

I have been using Clonezilla, but always willing to try something new.
rdonnelly
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Posts: 528
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:38 pm

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by rdonnelly »

I tried to run the Live CD with the QT4 Maverick version and the new one that starts with an "O". They both complained about the kernel being corrupted and I never got no where? Can it even been run as a live CD?
Using Mint since 2008
*Mint 18.2 KDE
*ASUS 970 PRO GAMING/AURA AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1
*AMD FX-8370 with AMD Wraith cooler Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.3 GHz Turbo)
*G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3 SDRAM
*nVIDIA GEFORCE GT 610 2GB
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

Sorry Bob, i have no idea why the M & O Live Systems don't work for you. I don't have problems with both. Have you tried
ukbrians Saline based Live CD instead?

You find the link for it in the HowTo.
Last edited by Gerd50 on Fri Feb 03, 2012 10:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
rdonnelly
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 528
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:38 pm

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by rdonnelly »

Gerd50 wrote:Sorry Bob, i have no idea why the M & O Live Systems don't work for you. I don't have problems with both. Have you tried
ukbrians Saline based Live CD instead?

http://lin.me.uk/qt4-fsarchiver/qt4-fsa ... -01-24.iso
Bad Link.
Using Mint since 2008
*Mint 18.2 KDE
*ASUS 970 PRO GAMING/AURA AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1
*AMD FX-8370 with AMD Wraith cooler Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.3 GHz Turbo)
*G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3 SDRAM
*nVIDIA GEFORCE GT 610 2GB
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

For some reason i can't copy the http://lin.me.uk/qt4-fsarchiver/ link from the HowTo correctly. Please try the
link you find there. It works.
rdonnelly
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 528
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:38 pm

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by rdonnelly »

Gerd50 wrote:For some reason i can't copy the http://lin.me.uk/qt4-fsarchiver/ link from the HowTo correctly. Please try the
link you find there. It works.

Code: Select all

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /qt4-fsarchiver/ on this server. lin.me.uk
Using Mint since 2008
*Mint 18.2 KDE
*ASUS 970 PRO GAMING/AURA AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1
*AMD FX-8370 with AMD Wraith cooler Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.3 GHz Turbo)
*G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3 SDRAM
*nVIDIA GEFORCE GT 610 2GB
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

I wrote a pm to ukbrian in order to clear it. I can access to the server and don't know for now what is wrong :roll:
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

There is nothing wrong with ukbrians link. It was tested by several persons.
Gerd50

Re: HowTo Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver

Post by Gerd50 »

There is a english Ubuntu Oneiric version available now:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qt4-fsa ... s/Live-CD/
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