Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Thanks for that (takes notes for future reference)
I ended up reinstalling again as it was easier than mucking around.. :) - but I gradually getting the hang of this and am making fewer mistakes now.. - Have got my favourite windows file manager (total commander) working under wine now, so can use that to do any backups I want as it zips files on the fly..
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Hey guys,
I just tried to use my backup file to restore my system and I get this error:
sys/module/rfcomm/sections/.strtab
tar: sys/module/rfcomm/sections/.strtab: Cannot open: File exists
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
Here are some details, let me know if you need to know anything else:
Running Breezy
Command to backup was
>sudo tar cvpjf backup.tgz.bz2 / --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys --excldue=/media
Command to restore was
> sudo tar xvpfj /backup.tgz.bz2 -C /
Let me know what you think. Any help would be greatly appriciated.
-Greg
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
this method always worked for me in ubuntu 5.04 but yesterday i tryed
it in ubuntu 5.10 breezy and i noticed that although i used you exact command tar cvpzf backup.tgz / --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys
it still tryed to back up /mnt so i had to cancel it because /mnt is where i have my second hard drive located with about 85gb of data.
could you tell me, is there something deferant i have to do in breezy?
thanks.
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by sal
this method always worked for me in ubuntu 5.04 but yesterday i tryed
it in ubuntu 5.10 breezy and i noticed that although i used you exact command tar cvpzf backup.tgz / --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys
it still tryed to back up /mnt so i had to cancel it because /mnt is where i have my second hard drive located with about 85gb of data.
could you tell me, is there something deferant i have to do in breezy?
thanks.
This didn't work for me in Breezy either. I posted a thread about it and the solution was to put the source directory at the end of the command. Using the command you have above, you would change it to read as follows:
Quote:
tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /
Here's a link to my thread if you want more detail, but this change should take care of it. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=70566
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthew
This didn't work for me in Breezy either. I posted a thread about it and the solution was to put the source directory at the end of the command. Using the command you have above, you would change it to read as follows:
Here's a link to my thread if you want more detail, but this change should take care of it.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=70566
thanks!! big time!!
i just installed breeezy the other day and now have it just the way i want. so i want to make the backup so in case anything gos wrong, i can recover very fast. ill look into your thread as well.
thanks again.
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthew
This didn't work for me in Breezy either. I posted a thread about it and the solution was to put the source directory at the end of the command. Using the command you have above, you would change it to read as follows:
Quote:
tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /
Here's a link to my thread if you want more detail, but this change should take care of it.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=70566
Will this also fix my problem when I try to "unzip" it?
My Problem:
Quote:
Originally Posted by fireboxtester
Hey guys,
I just tried to use my backup file to restore my system and I get this error:
sys/module/rfcomm/sections/.strtab
tar: sys/module/rfcomm/sections/.strtab: Cannot open: File exists
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
Here are some details, let me know if you need to know anything else:
Running Breezy
Command to backup was
>sudo tar cvpjf backup.tgz.bz2 / --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys --excldue=/media
Command to restore was
> sudo tar xvpfj /backup.tgz.bz2 -C /
Let me know what you think. Any help would be greatly appriciated.
-Greg
By the way, is there any way to test that my backup will in fact work without overwriting my whole filesystem?
-
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by fireboxtester
Will this also fix my problem when I try to "unzip" it?
My Problem:
I'm sorry, I have no idea. Your problem is unfamiliar to me, but hopefully someone else will chime in on it. I suppose if you want to live dangerously you could erase the whole hard drive/filesystem while Ubuntu is running and then restore the archive to that disk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fireboxtester
By the way, is there any way to test that my backup will in fact work without overwriting my whole filesystem?
I don't think so. With a smaller archive you can just click on it in nautilus and see the contents. With something this big (my backup is 6Gb) it will either take a long time to open or just not work...it really is a huge file. You might be better off doing your backup in smaller bits if you have critical stuff that you need to be super safe and certain with, then you could test the backup archives easily.
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
What is the best way to encrypt a backup before ftp-ing it offsite?
Thanks.
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Could I install ubuntu on a spare HDD in an external USB enclosure, then copy everything under root from my main internal drive to the usb drive (with overwrite) to create an (almost) identical bootable copy?
Loksipan
Re: Howto: Backup and restore your system!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonrkc
Using that method, will you have boot capability from the newly created Linux drive? That's the part that worries me about trying to transfer to another drive. I suppose if need be the boot record could be created later on, but it sounds to me like a golden opportunity to really mess things up. And I'm normally not afraid to experiment!
It's just that I lack practice and experience in transferring a whole system, and I don't want to have to spend days recreating all my stuff (even with backups of the home directory in a safe place, there's plenty more that's been customized and apps added, etc.)
will this back-up method preserve customizations to the system (thems, new apss etc.) ?