Howto: Backup and restore your system!

[danerben]

Yes, it is as I have thought. There is no need to re-create the directories, they are already there. Even if they are not, it is a pointless thing to do so I think.

And for the /dev and /sys, SURE you can exclude both, it would be a kind of a CrazyThing not to. It is much better to leave that out and there will be NO problem with that.

What I don't get is why nobody noticed in all the thread.

Well, a good guide anyway.

[petteriIII]

What I don't get is why nobody noticed in all the thread.

That might be because it is not entirely true; when you exclude some directory from tar it ought to be done so that you exclude <dir>/* ( note the /* in the end; it is because if you delete something it is impossible to be sure that you create new one with the same rights and so on. If you exlude dir without /* you can undo some of the damage by re-creating directories but that is not the correct way).

[grndslm]

Perhaps you guys could consider using Remastersys to make backing up and restoring a system ridiculously easy!! You can use backup mode to backup your /home directory, too... or you can use dist mode (like me) to make a customizable distro that can be installed on any machine!!

Here's some ideas and hints on how to tweak Ubuntu to your liking once and for all...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1073838
-OR-
http://geekconnection.org/remastersy...hp?topic=406.0

[zander1013]

hi,

i have not read all 100+ pages for this thread. but i like the thread and the tutorial.

i tried option 1 with gzip. i got this error eventhough i don't think that i ran out of disk space.

gzip: stdout: No space left on device

the file size is showing...

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7548760064 2010-02-28 19:53 backup.tgz

showing .85tb free without the file but the file is only .75tb.

is backup.tgz good? i am moving it to a external drive to perhaps see if it will unpack there.

like you i am considering the application of divide and conquer here by doing two backups one of /home and the other excluding /home in the hopes that i can get a clean finish or at least a finish with the inconsequential error you reported.

please advise.

[giner]

...

tar cvpjf backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

...

Hello everybody,
I suggest using --one-file-system instead of several "--exclude".
for example:

sudo tar --one-file-system -cvzf /backup.tgz --exclude=/backup*.tgz --exclude=/lost+found /
sudo tar --one-file-system -cvzf /backup-home.tgz --exclude=/backup*.tgz --exclude=/lost+found /home

[zander1013]

hi,

i have divided the job into two parts the first part excluded /home.

i started the process with this...

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

it finished with this...

/root/Mail/new/1266532568.V801I1131beM524999.bubba
/root/Mail/tmp/
/root/Mail/cur/
/root/.bashrc
/root/.bash_history
/root/index.html
/root/.fwc_xml
/root/.ssh/
/root/.ssh/known_hosts
/opt/
tar: /: file changed as we read it
bubba:/#

backup.tgz is .579tb.

i am now proceeding to backup /home with the line...

tar cvpzf homebackup.tgz --exclude=/home/homebackup.tgz --exclude=/home/lost+found --exclude=/home/storage /home

i think that this will take longer time to complete though.

[asharpham]

I backed up Ubuntu to my Windows HD and ended up with a .ful file plus a few .inc files on subsequent dates. How do I restore this? It is an archive and I can read the contents but I can't remember how I created it in the first place.

Ubuntu was installed on a usb stick but got corrupted since I made this backup. I'm logging in to Ubuntu from my installation CD. I'm guessing I need to reinstall Ubuntu onto the stick first and then do a restore?

Alan

[freeztar]

Thanks for the tutorial!

One question...

I'd like to find a way to make this process easy, so I made a script that copies the backup file to another partition called share.

tar cvpzf /media/share_/UbuntuBackup3-3-2010.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/media/share_ --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

I'm wondering if there is a way to change the date automatically, perhaps with something like: UbuntuBackup%date%.tgz

Is there a way to do this so the script will automatically append the date to the end of the backup file?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[psusi]

If you don't use --one-file-system then you will want to exclude /proc, /sys, and /dev since they are all not real files on disk. They are created by the kernel in memory only so there is no need to back them up ( and trying to restore them later can cause serious problems ). You also will want to exclude /media if you have any other media mounted that you do not want backed up.

To put the date in the name you want something like:

tar czf backup-`date +%F`.tgz /

Those are back ticks by the way, not single quotes.

[freeztar]

Thanks!

Ok, so I have:

tar --one-file-system -cvpzf /media/share_/UbuntuBackup`date +%F`.tgz --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/media --exclude=/mnt /

Look good? Any other suggestions or recommendations?