I’m looking at an efficient way to backup the critical directories and files of my system. I came across Back in Time in YAST which seems to use rsync. It looks like it will do the job well but I’m wondering if there is something better out there as there are a few features lacking.
I don’t really want a command-line solution and it must be able to be scheduled to run automatically at regular intervals.
Making a good backup strategy is not that easy. Especialy not for us as we do not know any of your requirements like:
. off line storage
. how many version to keep
. several levels (e.g. monthly full backup and daily incrementals)
. databases that must be exported or backuped in a special way
. you could name a few yourself.
And that is only for a good strategy, not for the best lol!
Only when you know what strategy you want you can start searching for the software that does what you want.
suse tpx60s wrote:
> I’m looking at an efficient way to backup the critical directories and
> files of my system. I came across Back in Time in YAST which seems to
> use rsync. It looks like it will do the job well but I’m wondering if
> there is something better out there as there are a few features lacking.
>
> I don’t really want a command-line solution and it must be able to be
> scheduled to run automatically at regular intervals.
Take a look into this article:
10 outstanding Linux backup utilities
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=895
THT.
Greetings,
–
Camaleón
Point taken. I was referring to backing up my laptop so I think Back in Time snapshots written to my server will be sufficient for the moment.
For my XP desktop which also acts as the server I have a strategy using Acronis but I’ll be looking to find something at least as good but preferably better when I migrate it to openSuSE.
Out of interest is there any Linux equivalent to the backup and restore utilities that can be scheduled to write to hidden partitions often found on laptops, e.g. IBM / Lenovo’s Rescue & Recovery?
Cameleon, thanks for the link. Some interesting options there.
I would use rsync (may be hidden in rsnapshot), but I read that you want to backup to a Windows system. Cannot advise on that, no Windows knowledge here.
What is a ‘hidden’ partition?
Out of interest is there any Linux equivalent to the backup and restore utilities that can be scheduled to write to hidden partitions often found on laptops, e.g. IBM / Lenovo’s Rescue & Recovery?
I have a ThinkPad with a Windows Rescue partition. It might be hidden as far as windows is concerned, but it is just a vfat partition, easily mounted from linux. (‘fdisk -l’ lists it as Compaq diagnostics, type 12)
Yes, you’re right. Backing up to windows system probably isn’t very clever. I’ll just backup to a USB drive for the moment until the windows box is migrated.
Hidden partition may only be a windows thing. It’s a partition that is not visible from within windows and is where the factory restore and backups are kept. I guess I could mimic that in Linux using standard Linux tools.
Yes I guessed as much.
I had of course heard of a restore partition. I had one myself on the system when I bought it with vista. There was nothing “hidden” with it. It was just partition 1 in the partition table.
I removed together with partion 2 when I installed openSUSE lol!
hey thanks for that , interesting and glad this came up because I have been looking for something new myself . But anyone have any experiences in backing up critical/sensitive data with encryption techniques ? TFA listed Box Backup as the only one . Anyone here experience with this or another product that uses encryption?
In that same url above, there’s a link to this article. I found it practical and simple. I did it here only for /home and it worked almost well, aparently.:\
If anyone knows about it, I would like to know if it’s a good option.
Hi,
I personally use a script that I build for a long time.
I have an external usb drive with the filesystem encrypted with Luks.
That is very simple to make.
Right now I am on the “next level”. 
I made a RAID10 4 hdd (1TB/each) Backup/NAS server from an old PC.
The disks are raid level 10 and they contain a single encrypted partition.
I have not done any tests so I can not really post here very much, but so far it works great! I still need to set it up in a way that it runs as a NAS server with no problems (network services and so on …).
This PC also only has a cd rom drive so I made an OpenSuSE install directly to a usb flash pen.
I am still concerned that is a disk fails as the partition is encrypted I could not recover from it … I am currently studying this possibility …
About my script: It is a combination of tar, gzip, rsync and gpg.
As my backup is made to an encrypted hdd there is really no need for the ggp command. I Just let the encryption there for the sake of old times when the external hdd was not encrypted.
It takes a long time to make the script and study all the consequences of the commands.
But today to actually run my entire backups including databases and web servers, app server and so on I just run a single command and then wait until all the passwords are asked (some command run as other users and databases backup requires a passwd )
This as never failed me before.
Going for a app could be easy to use but …
It takes away some flexibility on your backup.
For example: I have very large directories with a lot of files. They do not need to be encrypted so I use on this ones a rsync command in order to just up-date the backup.
Some other dirs I want them to be stored has they are.
So I use tar and gzip and Replace the one on the backup for the new one.
Some other dirs contain sensitive data … tar and gpg will do the trick.
In this manner I can have the best of both worlds … ever type of backup has his own proper way to be stored on HDD.
The same will be made on my new raid10 system.
If this goes smoothly I am even thinking about getting another 4 1TB hdd’s … and expand the backup policies.
Regards,
Pedro
You do realize that Acronis TI supports Linux file systems, don’t you? I wouldn’t necessarily throw it away.
True that.
I use acronis on my system and on many servers in the field that I work in.
Acronis is sweet when it comes to that sort of stuff. Its an absolutely a life saver.
I have Acronis Workstation rather than TI. I don’t think the workstation version supports Linux filesystems as it’s a windows specific app… What I don’t like about Acronis is that it backs up using their closed none standard system so if you don’t have Acronis you cannot restore it. Also newer versions of AW are not backwards compatible so if you have old backups you’ll not be able to restore them.
On Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:06:01 GMT, suse tpx60s
<suse_tpx60s@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
>chief_sealth;2017577 Wrote:
>> You do realize that Acronis TI supports Linux file systems, don’t you?I
>> wouldn’t necessarily throw it away.
>I have Acronis Workstation rather than TI. I don’t think the
>workstation version supports Linux filesystems as it’s a windows
>specific app… What I don’t like about Acronis is that it backs up using
>their closed none standard system so if you don’t have Acronis you
>cannot restore it. Also newer versions of AW are not backwards
>compatible so if you have old backups you’ll not be able to restore
>them.
That is bad enough to drive me away from both product and vendor
permanently. Totally FUBAR.
That article did not list an app I have been using for awhile: SimpleBackup. This is different from Simple Linux Backup, which is listed in the article.
SimpleBackup is basically a gui frontend to write a script for a cron job that tars the files. Simple, but good enough for a desktop.
The article likes fwbackup, but it seems too complicated for me. Has anyone used it?
I did. I thought it was complicated too, but I decided to try and it’s not. It’s just one command to make the tar copy and a couple more for the cron. I only used a weekly backup, so one line only (after opening the cron).
The backup takes a while to be done, though. I’ll see how it is with a gui option too.
There’s also the key question: does it actually restore files it has backed up? 
On the first glance this seems to be a stupid remark, but it is not. Well the product may (almost certain) have such a funtion, but one should really make a restore scenario and test this before one needs it.
Scenario: system crashed, all man pages not availalble, how do I restore? >:)