Backups and restore

[Oberiko]

Hello.

I'm quite new to Linux and I've already had to re-install Kubuntu several times since things would occasionally get stuck (primarily around my USB hub and external hard drive).

Right now it seems to be working somewhat and before I go any further I'd like to be able to have a restore back-up to go to if I get messed up.

This is something I'd like to do frequently (like, every time I do something which I think it a net benefit) and would like to keep 3-4 back-ups (in case I jam something up without noticing).

What would be my best option to do so?

[penguin.ch]

Re: Backups and restore

http://www.penguin.ch/dokuwiki/doku.php/debian:save

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Postscript: reference updated

[dibl]

Re: Backups and restore

I agree with Mr. Birdy -- copying your data is by far the easiest thing you can do to back it up. Being a graphical kind of guy, I use Krusader, and simply copy my DOCS, PICS, or whatever folder from my /home directory to a like-named directory on a second hard drive, whenever I've been adding or changing data. Periodically I put a DVD-RW into the drive and copy my stuff onto that. Simple, safe, and effective.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Backups and restore

One annotation to copying by means of a ("graphically oriented") file manager: make sure you do not lose sight of hidden files - which, for example, by default are not visible in Konqueror et al.

[Retsel]

Re: Backups and restore

I'm new at Linux too, and would also like to do backups to avoid starting from scratch when things go wrong. "Partimage" looks, from its propaganda, to be a good candidate for a program to do backups. I've tried it now several times, and have run into various road blocks each time (but I'm still trying). You might want to give it a try. If it works as advertised it will do what you want.

[podunk]

Re: Backups and restore

In the repositories is a program called Kdar. It's graphical simple, fast and ex and soon to be ex windows users will feel right at home. If you have an external USB drive it's extremely fast, even at it's highest compression rating.

Unlike partimage, mondo and others you can verify your back up by doing a partial restore to an alternate folder then compare the files. If you only need to resore a few files it's easy and fast to do.

A drawback - it will not restore from bare metal. Supposedly you can use a dar rescue disk from someone - but the documentation was a little dry.

I did a test run on an older machine, and the whole resore took less than an hour. What I did was make a plain jane Kubuntu install, installed Kdar and restored my backup. As far as I could tell it overwrote anything it found and I had my original set up (including all my 3D stuff) back

[dibl]

Re: Backups and restore

Birdy brings up an interesting philosophical question: Are you trying to back up your system setup, or just your data ? My lazy way only backs up my data -- I guess I'm assuming my system will be trashed by whatever cataclysm takes out my primary hard drive and everything on it. But I know there are more elegant approaches to back up the full system with all its structures and pointers intact -- that's great if you can pull it off, and will certainly get you back up and productive faster, if the only problem is your hard drive.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Backups and restore

The baseline, from my point of view (exemplified in this script):

- "cp /home" daily, i.a. "cp /data" weekly
- "dd /" weekly, incl. "/etc/mtab" and "fdisk -l"

Remark: from my experience, by far more systems die from updating / upgrading / improving that from hardware failures - which makes "clone copying" (aka "dd") look so interesting ... to backup and restore my personal stuff, however, ordinary copying (aka "cp") is faster and easier to handle than any elaborated tool ... a severe downside: incremental backups are painful (at least to those trying - I prefer buying additional disks).

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Postscript: reference updated

[Oberiko]

Re: Backups and restore

I should probably specify.

I'm looking to back up my system and configuration (drivers, applications, settings etc.). Basically an image file so that instead of a complete reformatting and re-installation when (I've learned it's not a matter of "if") I mess something up that's beyond my limited ability to repair, I can just pop back to the previous setting and try again.

Considering that my next task is going to be on mounting drives (my first attempt at this was a disaster which, by chain of events, somehow caused Amarok and all my other media players to stop working), I definitely need the restore capability.

My data I'm usually pretty good at keeping segregated.

[Oberiko]

Re: Backups and restore

Hello again.

I tried the link above and used the command

sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 | gzip -c | split -b 2000m - /media/backup/sda1.img.gz

But that ended up creating 164 GB worth of files... I'm pretty sure that's a lot more then what I require.

Can any one shed any light on why that occurred? And this "Backup System - Keep" application, is that worth looking into?

Thanks.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Backups and restore

But that ended up creating 164 GB worth of files... I'm pretty sure that's a lot more then what I require.

Could you please post the output resulting from the console commands fdisk -l and df -h -x tmpfs -x usbfs, respectively ... with this additional information, I should be able to answer your question.

[Oberiko]

Re: Backups and restore

Hi.

I deleted the files and closed the window already. Is it possible to do a limited version of that command so that it will do, say, max 10 GB? I only have ~6 in total on the entire computer.

If not, I can redo it again if you like and post the results when it finishes tonight.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Backups and restore

O.k., let's try to sort things out: if, for example, on a partition of 10 GB there were merely 1 GB in use (making 9 GB free), in the absence of additionals commands,

- dd "all" would result in a copy of 10 GB;
- cp "all" would result in a copy of 1 GB.

In other words: while dd clone-copies the file system as a whole, cp copies it's contents "as applicable".

[Retsel]

Re: Backups and restore

Podunk, thanks for the Kdar suggestion. I installed it and did a full backup. It took about 1/2 hour, and generated 5 files (640 MB each so I can burn them to CDs). I'm a bit surprised at the amount of ouput since I compressed it (gz at compression level 9). It handled saving the files to a separate partition (that I share with the W98 that I have dual booted) without any problem at all. That was where I was having some trouble trying to use partimage.

Your suggestion of doing a "plain jane" Kubuntu install, installing Kdar, and then restoring the backup also solves my concern of being able to restore even after a major problem with the Linux install.

As soon as I get brave enough I'll try installing the Kdar backup.

[Oberiko]

Re: Backups and restore

I'm not going to lie Penguin, you've got my head all fangled up now. But, I'd like to figure it out, so please have patience with this formally-Windows-only newbie.

if I understand correctly, 'dd' will also copy 'free' data? I've got a 300 GB hard drive and I'm using 6 GB, the 'dd' could very well end up significantly larger then 6 GB?

If that's the case, why would I want to use dd over this cp?