Howto: Backup and restore your system!

**RootFish** · May 26th, 2009

Does this work well when backing up systems that are running a database like a LAMP server or mail server? Will I end up with corrupt files after a restore?

**oldefoxx** · May 30th, 2009

Alright. I've seen some worthy discussion on this topic, but in reading through the thread, I can't get it in my head exactly how to do this. Let me esplain my situation a bit further:

Two large hard drives and multiple partitons. This includes three bootable Ext3 partitions with Ubuntu, three Ext3 partitions for future use or temporary storage, one NTFS partition with XP installed, one NTFS partition with Windows 2000 Pro installed, tws NTFS partitions with applications and data on them, and three swap partitions. Now I have True Image version 11, which sort of works. And I want to back up onto an external USB hard drive with a good amunt of compression. And of course I need to consider the cases where I may have to do one of the following:

(1) Completely restore one or both hard drives, which may not be bootable bwfore the restore starts. These may also be replacement drives, meaning they need to be partitioned and formatted to agree with the backup layout.

(2) Restore specific partitions back into their original locations. Two modes involved, either just a system restore with data left intact, or a full restore if need be.

(3) Restore specific folders and files back to their original or a different partition. Also have the option to only overwrite older files, or skip ever existing files.

I bet that someone is going to say that I really need a commercial package. I would like to see if someone else can think of a way to do all or most of this with the tools available to Linux

You might think this is overkill, but I'm not throwing away what I already have as I move forward to something new. Moving on to higher capacity drives means I should not have to.

Okay, decide who is first at bat, and give it your best shot!

**JoelMay** · June 3rd, 2009

Good guide. After you compress it if the file is too big to fit on a DVD or something you can use the split command to make it into smaller chunks, then use the cat command to combine the files later.

Code:

split -b 650m -d - "largefile.tgz"

Code:

cat < largefile.tgz.*

**all_gears** · June 10th, 2009

thanks for the tip. hopefully, I won't have to use it, but I'm making the backup right now.

two things I've noticed:

first, it might be nice to exclude /var/cache/apt (if I remember the directory correctly... most people know what I mean). I ended up with 400 megs of already-installed .deb files in my backup. not tragic, but slightly inconvenient.

as far as excluding the home folder, I wonder if there is any way to exclude everything except the hidden/config folders like .kde, etc. It would be nice to keep all the settings whenexcluding home.

also, what's the verdict on /dev ? I read about 6 pages of discussion about it, i don't want to read another 40-something

.

**SilverSnakeEyes** · June 15th, 2009

If you wanted to say...backup to external media and exclude it from being in the backup how would you do it? I tried it just now and it does not work. My external media's name is "Ninja Drive".

**happyhacker** · June 16th, 2009

I have now done a backup using the original set of instructions. This post is quite old and have searched all the subsequent posts for any major corrections to it and found none so I used the original.

Comment welcome on that just in case I've missed something?

My command is:

tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys --exclude=/office/backups --exclude=/backup.tgz /

I've excluded my office directory because that is where I store networked windows backups and the fact that this is an hdb mount point for the servers 2nd drive which I assume if I tried to restore by untarring would give problems.

Comment welcome if I'm not thinking correctly there?

Has a new method arisen since the original post? I use webmin and this has a tar command but assume it is something different.

**rohitfeb14** · June 17th, 2009

If i have no other operating system and just ubuntu how would i restore the folders when i lose it.. so i need to install windows or so and then copy it and install grub...

Or can it be done by a live CD or something on Pen Drive....

Anyways if i want to make a media that would do everything copy install grub and all such stuff, how can it be made...

**rohitfeb14** · June 17th, 2009

similar to changing the installation script that after installing basic system it copies my files to the required location... how to do that?

**rohitfeb14** · June 17th, 2009

Suppose i have no other operating systerm and i need to restore my backup

then how can i restore it...... assuming i have no os installed at present..

i mean using LIVE CD or so...