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27 Comments
- ShyGuy91284, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11haven't looked at the article, but it's uber-simple. "tar cvfj ". It's that easy. You can just use a normal compression/archiving utility to back up Linux stuff Just do the home directory for a general backup of data (you'd have to reinstall stuff of course). This isn't Windows. You don't have to hunt around everywhere to get your files backed up, and deal with errors with it not letting you access some stuff. Including package management, I've always seen Linux as extremely user friendly for backing up/restoring stuff, and also for installing software. I once backed up my entire directory structure onto a spare disc using this (and a LiveCD of course), and was able to restore it painlessly (tar xvfj
- spydor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is a great guide on what to back up. I used to use this method of full once a week then incremental, but I've changed to using the rsync method as describe at the following link.
It gives you a full snapshot and only takes up a small amount of disk space. It's usually much faster too.
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ - kdehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2if you have a home network and multiple machines,you might as well use rsync instead.
- mygaffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just yesterday I was searching around for this exact topic but nothing I found was this in depth. I will definitely read through this.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I use Fedora (though this technique applies top any distro with a command line package management system), and as I add software that's not in the base install, I add it to a script (which gets backed up regularly).
As a result, I only have to back up /home files and /etc files. If I have a catastrophic failure, I re-install the system, then run the script to re-install ALL the added software in one shot. I can then restore /home and /etc (selectively, if I choose).
I use this technique when upgrading to new releases with a clean install (instead of in-place upgrade). It saves a lot of time. - snypa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very useful, I was managing well with this untill now, but this is much easier.
- arizonagroove, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A simple backup method is 'Copy the files you would hate to loose to another disk on a regular basis. Files you may wish to consider worthy of back up are anything in your home directory and any system configuration files which you have altered'.
A method which requires an explanation as long as that article cannot be described as simple. - BionicBeefpile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know who dug you down, but I hope it was only for the "I haven't read the article" comment. I agree that backups in Linux could not get easier than using tar...
The nice thing about the program ITA is that it schedules them automatically for you, and it also makes some good points about backing up the /etc and other directories that may be helpful - ddales, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3This probably is Ok for the US. Most people in Europe turn off appliances when they are not actually being used so cron won't work here. No big deal though. I suppose you could follow his methods and launch it manually.
Also kinda cool, I had no idea there is a GUI for cron. - knightnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1cremate - What kind of clock do you use!!!! I have a 550watt power supply in my PC. Although it is not all being used, I would guess that my clock uses milli-watts of power. After all, I can run my clock of batteries for a year or more even when using the the alarm most days.
Turn off your kit and stop wasting the planet.
Of course, you can easily set up a script to back-up and then turn off the PC. Don't bother to cron it though. Just have it on a handy icon and run it instead of logging off/shutting down. - rushdy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use DAR myself. It's very handy - split, encrypted, incremental backups and only needs the disk space for the next slice to burn to DVD. Simple to backup to a remote machine too.
http://dar.linux.free.fr/ - BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1rsnapshot. Learn it, use it, love it.
- cconnett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1rdiff-backup is a nice program. It mirrors any files you give it to another directory, and every subsequent run updates the mirror and stores reverse incremental diffs. A restore from the most recent backup is as simple as copying the file from the mirror back to the original location, and I can look at any file I've backed up as it was each day for the past 3 months (when I installed it), and for this I'm only using about 33G to backup 20G of files.
http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/ - rpdillon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was going to post this, until I saw yours.
To the folks out there who haven't done this before: check out the above link! It is very fast, automated, incremental backup that is only very slightly more complex than the posted article. You can keep an arbitrary number of backups and the system makes great use of rsync and hardlinks to store ONLY the changes between each backup.
A great read, especially if you're new to the rsync and/or hardlinks. Very clever approach. - TristanTee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why not use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home its just like Norton Ghost, you can take an whole image of a linux partition.
- cabazorro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hear you. Backups should be hassle-free. What less hassle free than a mirror copy of your files somewhere else. Specially when you want to peek at stuff or retrieve something quickly.
- freehand, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2LOL "...non-technical Linux users..."
- iamjay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was going to post this too.
I've been doing this for a few years. It works very good especially the hardlinks trick. - intangible, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There's also gnome-schedule if you prefer a gnome crontab editor: http://gnome-schedule.sourceforge.net
- orbea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0man dump....
All you should ever need. - steveingbg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yup, it's VERY simple. I meant it to be that way -- it's really intended for people who don't want to or feel like they can't use the command line. I had automated this on my home systems with a simple script, and I wanted to share that with people.
-- Steve (article author) - steveingbg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0True, you could use a commercial product such as this. I'm not adverse to using commercial products myself, but others might be. Also, it costs $49.95 more than my "product!!" It's Windows-only, which only works for Linux users who dual boot. And it's proprietary vs. open source.
Other than that, it looks fine. :-)
-- Steve - iamcanman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Personally, I prefer 'cp -Ru [source] [destination]' in a script run via a cron job. Not elegant in the least, but highly functional.
- frazelle09, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Steve // thanks for such a great job!
Now, all i have to do is see if i can implement it. Have tried KDar and several other backups but they don't seem to either have enough features -- select directories and subdirectories to backup and deselect ones not to, or just plain crash and burn when i finally get everything set up and selected and deselected and...
Even tried Ark, trying to keep it simple, but it, too, couldn't access it's 3.5 Gg tar.gz which it had finally created. Arg.
Is there anyplace to ask questions once i start trying to implement this? i'm on Freespire and have two computers, a main Freespire and another one friends who come over use, both connected through a wireless Linksys. Just want to backup the main to the "other" one whenever the "other" one becomes available.
Again, thanks for so much work. It's also a great primer on backups... Have a great day! - steveingbg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The article only discusses using KCron in detail, but it does mention gnome-schedule and vcron. Also, the related software can use any of the three tools.
-- Steve - cremate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you shut down your monitor your computer uses about as much electricity as a clock. There is actually a bigger spike when you start it up.
- steveingbg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I almost rewrote the article to talk about using KDar, a KDE front-end to DAR. But I've used the "tar" method for a couple of years now, and I felt it wouldn't be right to talk about a method (DAR) that I really haven't used much. I'd like to experiment more with using DAR, however, as it has some superior features to tar. Who knows, maybe I'll write a followup article in a year that talks about using DAR!
-- Steve
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