Howto: Backup and restore your system!

[Kypdurron5]

Long story short- the restore didn't work for me. Specifically, after doing a full restore some things just didn't work like sound and internet, and I couldn't figure out why/how they were broken.

The long version is this....I have a ubuntu box with mythtv running as an HTPC. It was a real pain to setup because I had to do some video driver trickery and manually map channels (where switching to one that doesn't work crashes the frontend) to get the whole thing setup. SO, I really wanted to back it up exactly as-is so that I never had to do that again. Well, I upgraded to Karmic and found out that LIRC is broken with no fix as of yet (with my specific capture card). SO, I thought...no problem, I'll just load the backup. At first I tried the restore from within the OS using the overwrite option (I know, probably a rookie error), but the terminal froze half way through. So I formatted the partition from the Live CD and ran the restore and everything was fine (well, not exactly- I had to edit the menu.lst just to get it to boot because for some reason the HDD UUID wasn't the same...). Once I got it up and running though I realized the sound driver was messed up as was the internet. So I tried it again, this time using the Karmic backup I made before doing the restore and had the exact same problem.

Any ideas? This leads me to believe that there's some flaw in this backup method where it's not copying every file exactly as-is. I've resolved the problem by manually reinstalling and reconfiguring everything all over again...but now I need a backup solution that I KNOW will work because really, I'd commit suicide before doing this all over again .

[Ron_]

I read the front of this thread, but even as a newbie I was extremely wary of sudo su. Too many tales of woe around that one. I am similarly afraid to sudo nautilus.

I elected instead to try SBackp for my LVM2 Ext4 system. I (think I) want to be able to restore individual directories rather than my whole /home partition.

SBackup produced root-owned files that reside on the same physical volume as the rest of my home/office system. Not much protection against fire/theft/head crash.

Can anyone provide a "safe" command line that I can use by rote (with deeper understanding later) to transfer sbackup output to dvd? Or is this a bad choice because of file size limitations?

[newb85]

I read the front of this thread, but even as a newbie I was extremely wary of sudo su. Too many tales of woe around that one. I am similarly afraid to sudo nautilus.

I elected instead to try SBackp for my LVM2 Ext4 system. I (think I) want to be able to restore individual directories rather than my whole /home partition.

SBackup produced root-owned files that reside on the same physical volume as the rest of my home/office system. Not much protection against fire/theft/head crash.

Can anyone provide a "safe" command line that I can use by rote (with deeper understanding later) to transfer sbackup output to dvd? Or is this a bad choice because of file size limitations?

If you've opted to use SBackp instead of the method in this tutorial, you would probably have better luck getting help in a thread related to SBackp.

If you only want to back up directories within your /home directory, you shouldn't have to sudo su to tar these files, unless you're backing up files for multiple users.

[Ron_]

Thanks, newb85. Actually, I have tried other threads with no success. I am not the only one who has asked this question, and I am frankly astonished that I can find no answer amid years of replies.

This thread seems to be not of a single mind on the value of using tar. (See, for example, reply #948.) Other replies recommend SBackup (e.g., #174, #597) or other tools as better alternatives.

Thanks for pointing out that there is no need to use sudo for /home. True, of course. Just a bad example on my part. (I actually ended up with some root-owned files under /home, but it is not a generalizable problem.)

[brendanpiater]

Check out "backintime" in the repos for Karmic. Apologies if it's been mentioned before.

[slakkie]

But it's a commercial application....

Then use clonezilla.

I don't get this howto tbh, use clonezilla and you don't need to tar anything... And it is a lot easier too.

[TryingLinuxAgain]

First of all, THANK YOU for the great article.

I am using a simpler version of this just to backup "my" files:

tar cvpzf backup.tgz -exclude=backup.tgz ~

This seems to work fine, but it gives me a message "file changed during write". I suspect it is referring to the fact that my home directory (~) has changed because of the creation of backup.tgz

does the command above look OK to you guys as a command for a basic backup of everything in my HOME directory?

Signed: A complete linux Noob,
Thanks!

[Ishachaitanya]

Backing up by AptonCD and restoring packages offline.

First one have to install aptoncd in the offline computer or the computer which has no internet connection.

The AptonCd can be downloaded with all dependecies in a folder of a internet computer and then can be installed in that internet computer and in any other computer which have no internet connection. To do this one has to be a superuser or administrator with password for the internet computer.

the command is as follows

root@ubuntu:/# apt-rdepends aptoncd 2>&1 | grep "^[a-zA-Z0-9_].*$" > /tmp/x1

apt-rdepends to be installed first in the internet computer if not already installed.
The above command is for creating a list for all dependencies for aptoncd with the main aptoncd package.

Next commands are

root@ubuntu:/# for f in `cat /tmp/x1` ; do apt-cache show $f | grep Filename | cut -f 2 -d ' ' ; done >/tmp/x2

mkdir mycache
[to keep the downloaded aptoncd package with all dependencies in the mycach folder under root]

root@ubuntu:/# cd mycache

root@ubuntu:/mycache# wget -B http://np.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ -i /tmp/x2

[if wget is not already installed then it is to be installed first before executing the above command]
this command will start downloading packages & all dependencies of aptoncd application.

Now copy the mycache folder to the home directory of the computers which have no internet connection and install it in those computers.

In the internet computer also install the aptoncd and make backup of all packages with upgrades and dependencies and make a CD/DVD/ISO image. Carry them to the computers having no internet connection and by using aptoncd application restore the packages and upgrades with all dependencies.

So by using only one computer with internet one can install applications in other computers having no internet connection at all.

[newb85]

tar cvpzf backup.tgz -exclude=backup.tgz ~

does the command above look OK to you guys as a command for a basic backup of everything in my HOME directory?

Should be "-cvpzf" and "--exclude=backup.tgz".

Be aware that if you've mounted any other drives to folders in your HOME directory, this command will also back them up.

Also, I recommend additionally running a command to create an index of your backup:

tar -tvzf backup.tgz > backup.index.txt

Keep this index with your backup; it will make it a lot easier to find individual files later.

[joes7]

Thanks, this is extremely useful!