I cannot back up.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Glad to hear that! Have you tried using kup-backup again or are you set with Back In Time for now?

The backup structure of Back In Time is a bit cumbersome, but there is worse in life… ;-)
Fortunately I only have to look something up/get something back from there every few months - you can either do so by using your file manager (e.g. Dolphin) or use the GUI of Back In Time if you want to copy back an old version of a file (avoiding the "Russion doll").

[nicrnicr]

Thank you Schwarzer Kater for your message.
I don't intend to use Kup-backup, because I find this software too simple.
It may work if I don't surf on Vivaldi, but when I use my computer, it is to surf on Vivaldi. So how can I backup with Kup-backup? I should launch a backup when I'm finished and let the computer on until I use it again.
With Back in time, I can launch a backup and thereafter the computer turns off automatically.
Do you understand?

But it seems that there is the possibility to have a synchrone backup with Kup-backup and not with Back in time, which I find sad.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
But it seems that there is the possibility to have a synchrone backup with Kup-backup and not with Back in time, which I find sad.

You can create additional new backup profiles in Back In Time settings and let them run synchronously (or prohibit this behaviour in tab "Options") or let every single backup profile run whenever you want.

[nicrnicr]

Hello schwarzer Kater,
You might not have understand what I meant.
With Kup, you can synchrone a backup as the picture shows.
With Back in Time, I just noticed, that it might also be possible, if you add -delete at the end of the last tab of the settings.

[nicrnicr]

Hello Schwarzer Kater, I didn't succeed to make a synchrone back up with Back in Time.
I will try it with Kup Back Up.

[nicrnicr]

I found a script that is working.

Please, how can you change it

#!/bin/bash
####################################
#
# Backup to NFS mount script.
#
####################################

# What to backup.
backup_files="/home /auie"

# Where to backup to.
dest="/s/Nikolaus/Sauvegarde"

# Create archive filename.
day=$(date +%A)
hostname=$(hostname -s)
archive_file="$hostname-$day.tgz"

# Print start status message.
echo "Backing up $backup_files to $dest/$archive_file"
date
echo

# Backup the files using tar.
tar czf $dest/$archive_file $backup_files

# Print end status message.
echo
echo "Backup finished"
date

# Long listing of files in $dest to check file sizes.
ls -lh $dest​

to avoid compression?

[Schwarzer Kater]

If you want to avoid compression with gzip remove the "z" option: tar cf $dest/$archive_file $backup_files

[nicrnicr]

Thank you very much Schwarzer Kater!

I now try

#!/bin/sh

quelle=/home/auie
ziel=/s/Nikolaus/Sauvegarde_17_3_23
heute=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)

rsync -avR --delete "${quelle}"  "${ziel}${heute}/" --link-dest="${ziel}last/"
ln -nsf "${ziel}${heute}" "${ziel}last"

exit 0​

but I get approx. 10 times:
"Error
Invalid server response.
Please try again"
and I have to click on OK.
This doesn't shine to disturb the copy.

Please, how can you avoid the copy of the .files, like .cache for instance?
The copy of .cache lasts very long.

[jlittle]

Please, how can you change it
...
to avoid compression?

May I ask why? Maybe it's because the NTFS volume already has compression?

[nicrnicr]

Dear jlittle,
Thank you for your interest.
Because the copy of .cache lasts way too long. Indeed there are "millions" of files. Each file has a number like 632468782234675432234565436544.
I stoped the copy as I closed the terminal, therefore I have nothing to show you. If I do it again, I would have to wait very very long...

"Maybe it's because the NTFS volume already has compression?"
Case you mind that the backup volume automatically compresses. No.

[jlittle]

That's ~/.cache? That is $HOME/.cache?

If so, IMO don't back that up, clear it out. You should be able to delete all the files in .cache periodically. I have often done so.

As I pointed out in June last year, I see little point in backing up browser caches. If 632468782234675432234565436544 had hexadecimal digits I'd say "that looks like a firefox cache file".

[nicrnicr]

Thank you jlittle for your piece of advice.

That is /home/auie/.cache which has 1,9 GB. Now I understand why it lasted so long.

Should I just delete the .cache folder?
I'm afraid that deleteting it would prevent all my passwords to be written automatically, which would annoy me.
The best would be a script where I could choose which folder or file not to copy.

" If 632468782234675432234565436544 had hexadecimal digits I'd say "that looks like a firefox cache file".
firefox is in .mozilla. I didn't find firefox in .cache.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
Should I just delete the .cache folder?
I'm afraid that deleteting it would prevent all my passwords to be written automatically, which would annoy me.
[…]

I delete $HOME/.cache/* on a regular basis and for sure in situations like system upgrades to the next major release (e.g. from 20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS) and/or GUI upgrades to the next major release (aside from system release-upgrades the latter can happen more or less often in e.g. KDE neon, Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed or if one uses the Kubuntu Backports).

I don't know of any program that stores passwords permanently in $HOME/.cache/ - so your saved passwords should be safe.
I only store passwords in my head or in KeePassXC if it gets too crowded there, though.

[jlittle]

Should I just delete the .cache folder?

Ideally, delete the contents, but leave the empty folder. As Schwarzer Kater, says

rm $HOME/.cache/*

That could conceivably fail will "command line too long" if there's too many files there. In that bad case, it's especially desirable to clear it out, I'd suggest

rm -r $HOME/.cache
mkdir $HOME/.cache

[nicrnicr]

Thank you Schwarzer Kater and jlittle for your writings.
I deleted the .cache.

The problem with
"but I get approx. 10 times:
"Error
Invalid server response.
Please try again"
and I have to click on OK."
Occured again.

Would you know what is going on?


All .folders have 36 GB together which is big for me (and much more than just the 1.9 GB of the .cache).
It seems that the first script copies only the real data.
Would it be possible to use it incrementally like in the second script please?