Easy-to-use backup software?

[kona0197]

Looking for an easy to use backup software solution. I want to back up the files I am using in Fedora to the NTFS Windows partition on my PC.

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by kona0197

Looking for an easy to use backup software solution. I want to back up the files I am using in Fedora to the NTFS Windows partition on my PC.

This is basic, but I back my whole home folder (copy to) a server disk - monthly. With sensitive files, I back up immediately. If anything goes wrong (and it has) with my Fedora install, and I remedy with a fresh Fedora install, then it is simply to copy over my (backed up) home folder. And I keep surf'n on with all my data

[kona0197]

So basically mount my Windows partition and copy over the hiome folder? That's all? Nice...

On the flip side this drive is dying and I don't have the means to buy another one or any other kind of backup media. It seems none of my friends has a spare hard drive lying around. What do you suggest?

[beaker_]

I've got 20GB IDE HD's comming out of my a##. I'll mail you them.., if you don't mind your homeland security watching you ie.,

Alternatively: compress it, encrypted it, and upload it.

[Penguinclaw]

I'd personally recommend Luckybackup. It's in the repositoties and you can configure it to do incrememntal backups ie only backup those files that have either changed or added since the last backup. It's a gui application so no command-line if that isn't your thing and is highly configurable (you can ask it, for instance to not backup .iso images).

I think this is far safer than copying and pasting as files can become currupted and permissions lost. I am almost certain you can backup to ntfs as long as you use the superuser install.

I hope this helps.

[stevea]

IMO a 'copy' is NOT a backup in a meaningful sense. If you do weekly 'copies' and you accidentally delete a needed file without noticing, then a week later you've lost your file completely. That's not a solution. Many incremental backups are the right approach. I've got ~2 years of daily incremental backups (I've deleted a few days) and a base - so I can restore any directory to it's state on nearly any night in the past 2 years (with a few exceptions).

Look at safekeep.
- you need to create config (from a template) for every system to tell which directories to include/exclude
- you have to setup ssh keys for the 'safekeep' onetime.
- maybe setup a cron script (optional)

safekeep does reverse incremental backups (uses ssh, rsync, rdiff-backup) from a current copy that is updated. So it's pretty painless to do nightly incremental backups. You can do local backups as well as across the net (far system requires sfekeep-client).


safekeep isn't perfect.
- Decent documentation
- could use a restore script (you have to manually construct an rdiff-backup command).
- between F14 and F17 the safekeep account uid,gid changed, requiring an ugly chown -R -h safekeep:safekeep .
. across the backup directory (~250GB on an old disk, took hours)
- could use better documentation about deleting incrementals & directories you no longer needs.


Maybe there is a better tool, maybe penguinclaws luckyackup is better (it's certainly newer)., but you DO want incrementals. Copies are a very limited(*) idea.

*- limited is a kinder gentle term for dum*ss loser-tarian.

[sidebrnz]

Depending on how much you need to back up, you may be able to back up to a flash drive, as I do. Personally, I use Back in Time because it uses links to save space when a file hasn't changed from one backup to the next. Of course, to make that work I had to reformat the flash drive as ext4, but as my house is a Windows Free Environment, that's not an issue. If you are going to use an NTFS partition for your backups you need to know that permissions there aren't the same as they are in any Linux filesystem. (Have it backed up to a compressed tar file, with permissions stored and you're OK.)

[kona0197]

I have a flash drive yet it is only a 2GB drive. Good idea, I just need a bigger drive.

[CrimsonKing]

Why not use rsync?

[sea]

Kona, i had figured that if you dont backup blindly, you can save ALOT of space.
This said, i refer to folders like: Videos, Pictures and Downloads or VirtutalBox in specific.

Those folders can be stored 'as is' without the need of compression, hence, leave them on a NAS and execute from there, and you'll save lots of space, special if your NAS is running wiht a raid.
The actual important files, your Documents, /etc as a whole, can be saved easly into a tarball less than 1 gb large, for me that fits at least.

My 2 gb flash sd card, has a partition of 100mb, which i use to backup my scripts without compression, so i can call them right from the flash drive, the other 1900 mb, are reserved for actual backupfiles, like Documents, and as well as all hidden/configuration files of/in $HOME/.*

Larger files, such as Music, Videos, i have stored/saved/located on the NAS as well as on a 16gb usb key.

However, th following script will save:
/.s (my script mount)
/etc
/home/simon
If no argument (path) is provided, and sve the file on the NAS (if nas=true) or to a local folder.
Hope this helps your task:

#!/bin/bash
# |
# | Variables & Paths
	nas="true"
    curDate=$(date +'%Y.%m.%d')
    toSave="/etc 
            /.s 
            /home/simon
            "
    bkuptmp=/tmp
    bkuppath="/priv/backups/$(hostname)"
    naspath=/home/simon/nas
    if [ "true" = "$nas" ]
    then	bkupdir="$naspath$bkuppath"
    		if [ "" = "$(ls $bkupdir)" ]
    		then	echo "make sure NAS is mounted.."
			# Script-Tools, Device NAS LABEL mount-all
			st dev nas 42 ma
    		fi
    else	bkupdir="$bkuppath"
    fi
    [ ! -d $bkupdir ] && mkdir $bkupdir -p
# |
# | Subs
	backup() { # PATH|LIST
	#
	#
		echo "Backing up: $@"
		#declare -a args=( "$@" )
		#tarfile="${args[@]:0:1}"
		SOURCE="$@"
		
		for each in $SOURCE
		do	bn=$(basename $each)    # Basename
			dn=$(dirname $each)     # Dirname
			if [ "$bn" = "$dn" ]
			then	echo "Backing up $each"
			        sudo tar -acf $bkupdir/$curDate-${each:1}.tar.gz	$each
			else    echo "Backing up $bn"
			        sudo tar -acf $bkupdir/$curDate-$bn.tar.gz	        $each
			fi
		done
		
	}
# |
# | Output
    args="$1$2$3$4"
    if [ ! "" = "$args" ]
    then	backup "$@"
    else	backup $toSave
	fi

[beaker_]

Areca scratches many needs.

[flyingfsck]

Most backup utilities are GUI wrappers around rsync and end up making rsync more difficult to use, instead of easier. For example backintime, flyback, luckybackup and a zoo of others.

So, do read the rsync man page. A typical backup script is a one liner and making that 'simpler' with a GUI wrapper is usually not possible.

[Smoking Tux]

+1 for backintime

@sidebrnz, take a look at the backintime documentation:

Starting from version 0.9.24 permissions and user/group are stored in a special file. This way you can even save/restore files from a NTFS/FAT drive without losing this informations (NOTE: FAT don’t support hard-links).

So there is no need to use a special filesystem anymore..

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by stevea

Maybe there is a better tool, maybe penguinclaws luckyackup is better (it's certainly newer)., but you DO want incrementals. Copies are a very limited(*) idea.

*- limited is a kinder gentle term for dum*ss loser-tarian.

Not sure if that was aimed at me

But to clarify, I copy files and folders (projects) that have changed in my home directory once a month and sensitive work (files and folders) daily. Annually, I copy to dvd's.

I have 14 years of data stored in this manner and access it with no trouble. I have my data on 3 different disks and on dvd's, maybe a bit overboard, but I have lost no data. If you were to look at any given disk, the data is labelled simply by date and project. My network is fast, so pushing large chunks of data is no problem.

It is a basic storage system, but has worked well over multiply OS's (Linux, Mac, Windows). My last mac machine (eMac) is a file server, and my workstations are Linux. My Wife uses the eMac (file server) to back up her Windows machine and share files with me.

This basic method of storage started for me with Mac OS 9, Red Hat Linux and some Iomega zip cartridges. And I can still access those Iomega zip cartridges with my current machines

[kona0197]

@Sea: I have no idea what a NAS is, and i don't know how to do scripts, sorry. If NAS is some sort of server setup I don't have any way of getting a server setup. Sucks when your broke.