YaST System Backup Question

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1

I am getting enough data on my openSUSE 11.0 machine to need to consider
backing it up.

Exactly what does the YaST System Backup save? Will I be able to
restore my system (heaven forbid) using it alone or will I need it plus
the original installation DVD?

In other words, is the YaST manual System Backup adequate for most
average users or is something more sophisticated recommended?

The wizard asks for a path to the backup file. Where should I put it?
What is standard?

How do more experienced users handle backups on a desktop machine?

Cordially,
TwoHoot

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TwoHoot

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2

Yast backup is ok but not great i would put the file on an external
disk.
However our guru swerdna has a more advanced way ‘here’
(http://www.swerdna.net.au/linhowtorescuecd.html)

/Geoff

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3

Thank you for the information. For now, I think I will stick to “OK”,
but I did make a note of the link you provided to investigate later when
I am more comfortable with the basics of openSUSE.

For the time being, my goal is to learn to make full use of the things
openSUSE provides out of the box. That learning curve is steep enough to
keep my feeble mind occupied for now. Once I get a fully functional
machine and am comfortable relying on it for everyday use, then I can
start looking for better and best ways to do things.

Would it be appropriate to provide a path to a USB flash dirve for the
manual backup?

What gets backed up and what does not?

Can I restore from this backup alone or will I need the installation
DVD to get running after a crash?

Cordially,
TwoHoot

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4

The YaST Backup creates a tar or equiv archive file with the contents of
the entire system. Go into the app module and you’ll see the options
and there is Help documentation with it. I haven’t used it, so I can’t
reply re what kind of filtering it allows; I suspect not much if any.

As far as a USB drive, yes; appears so if mounted. You’ll see a place
to indicate where the interim temporary tar files are created, as well
as the fully-qualified file name of the tar archive - that would be your
USB device. Note that with portable storage SuSE will automatically
designate a mount point (I think under /media), and will attempt to
re-use that later for the same device. The question is whether what is
mounted there will get included in the backup, which you would not want
(of course, if the device is empty, not an issue).

I suggest you open YaST Software Management and search on “backup”
adding “description” to the fields searched. You’ll see a range of
possibilities, from the very simple to industrial-strength. If you add
the Packman repository (you probably already have, for multi-media),
there is an app named “dargui” which is a gui front-end to the powerful
dar utility. This may be much more suitable for what you want to do.

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mingus725

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5

Thank you both for your time and information. It is exactly what I
needed.

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TwoHoot

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6

TwoHoot;1926374 Wrote:
> Thank you both for your time and information. It is exactly what I
> needed.

You’re quite welcome, glad to have been of some help. :slight_smile:

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mingus725

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7

I created my first backup to /home/jch/Backups

YaST System Backup created two files there: a 252.5 mb Tar Archive and
a 670 byte xml Document.

What is the xml document and if it is needed to restore, why isn’t it
in the Tar Archive?

Will I need both to restore?

Can I just copy these files to a USB drive or CD/DVD and expect them to
work from there if I ever need to completely or partially restore the
system?

Sorry to be a pest. These simple basics are probably irritating to
advanced users.

Cordially,
TwoHoot

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TwoHoot

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8

First, a correction: I played around a bit with the YaST Backup utility,
and discovered that you can in fact filter the contents. The utility is
setup as a wizard, so you can’t see all of what it can do/how it does it
without going through the process. I suggest you do that several times
as tests; I think most of your questions will be answered that route
(there are brief help links on each screen).

I don’t know the answer re the xml file. Again, testing the process
may yield the answer, ableit indirectly. A tar has its own archive file
index, but there could be reasons to store a catalog of sorts
externally. (Windows XP’s backup utility does this, for example.)

To restore, you use the YaST System Restore utility (and that may be
where the xml file is utilized). How any backup/restore works (or fails
to) is a consequence of its design plus the particular recovery
situation. For example, Windows XP’s “emergency recovery” requires the
machine have a floppy drive and that a recovery control file was written
to the floppy as part of the backup. The YaST Restore gui utility is
apparently designed for use only when openSUSE can be run (there is a
DOS-gui counterpart of every YaST module which can be run from the DVD
Rescue System command line; this is an “advanced” use of the system).
So, could you restore from external storage or from optical media - yes,
if the system is bootable and the partitions can be mounted. Actually,
a tar archive can be re-written to a mounted partition from just about
any linux bootable CD/DVD. “Bare-metal” recovery (e.g., a replaced
hard disk) as a rule requires more sophisticated tools and advanced
skills; only the individual user can decide what is best for
him/herself. For all these reasons and others, the backup/recovery tools
included with an OS (any OS) are always quite basic and definitely have
limitations - and this is why there are so many alternatives, free and
commercial, using any number of different technologies and techniques.
Google will return a huge amount of information. Personally, I like the
dar tool (dar-gui is just the grapical interface; the backup files can
be accessed via dar directly from the command line). Fundamental to any
robust backup/recovery solution is the ability to do so if the OS is
inaccessible, and better yet, can even handle broken partitions and
associated issues. In Windows-land, this is what the XP Recovery
Console or the Vista Recovery Environment (both off the retail CD/DVD)
are designed for, although those are limited. So complimenting the
backup/recovery solution is independent bootable tools; with linux, you
can get a whole OS and a wealth of tools all on one CD or DVD. Here are
a few links to look at:

‘Main Page - SystemRescueCd’ (http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page)

‘Main Page - Partimage’ (http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page)

‘KNOPPIX - Live Linux On CD’
(http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html)

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mingus725

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9

Thank you. With your help, I feel confident that I can just save the Tar
Archive to CD and probably get what I need if I crash.

I opened the xml file. It appears to be some information about keyboard
settings (language,layout, num lock, cap lock etc). If this was Windows,
I’d think it was part of the registry. I think I’ll just ignore it when
I move the Tar Archive to permanent optical storage.

Next on my to-learn list is setting up a HP OfficeJet 7110
printer/scanner/fax and setting up Samba Client to get on my little
household Windows peer-to-peer LAN. I’ll probably be bugging the people
on the Hardware and Network forums instead of the kind people here.

Cordially,
TwoHoot

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10

Coincidentally, ‘this page’
(http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20090105114152803/Backup.html)
appeared today. The title is -21 of the best free linux backup
software-.

I use Simple Backup Solution which is just a GUI for some linux command
line tools. Also of interest is Clonezilla which does a bare-metal
restore. I haven’t tried that one yet.

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If your gecko is broken, you have a reptile dysfunction.:eek:

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11

TwoHoot;1927017 Wrote:
> Thank you. With your help, I feel confident that I can just save the Tar
> Archive to CD and probably get what I need if I crash.
>
> I opened the xml file. It appears to be some information about keyboard
> settings (language,layout, num lock, cap lock etc). If this was Windows,
> I’d think it was part of the registry. I think I’ll just ignore it when
> I move the Tar Archive to permanent optical storage.
>
> Next on my to-learn list is setting up a HP OfficeJet 7110
> printer/scanner/fax and setting up Samba Client to get on my little
> household Windows peer-to-peer LAN. I’ll probably be bugging the people
> on the Hardware and Network forums instead of the kind people here.
>
> Cordially,
> TwoHoot

I would keep the file with the tar, until you know it’s function.
Can’t do any harm.

Printer:
‘http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-OfficeJet_7110’
(http://tinyurl.com/8hfpcr)

Network sharing: many howto’s and stickies.

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mingus725

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12

@TwoHoot -

One of the apps I could not remember nor find, was listed in the
article @Prexy cited. It’s “Keep” (if you’re using KDE), a simple gui
for the excellent rdiff-backup as the backend. Rdiff-backup is built
atop the superb rysnc, and adds incremental/differential backups. Worth
a look.

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mingus725

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13

I have been looking at Yast System backup and cannot understand it,
despite having read the Wiki on it at ‘YaST/Modules/System Backup -
openSUSE’ (http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Modules/System_Backup). So I
came to the Forum (nothing funny happened on the way) and found this
thread.

So I did a test backup of my entire system, telling it to split the
archive into CD size(700MB) chunks. It chuntered away for a couple of
hours and eventually produced seven tar files, total size 4.4 GB, yes
4.4 GB.

Now my total system is about 4 GB, it is supposed to be zipped and it
says it does not include unchanged package files (ie most of them). So
how come it’s so big ??

Then I burnt the first tar file and the xml to a CD, then used Yast
System restore to restore from this CD. It ran the CD for about five
minutes, then said “Cannot read the Archive file - this is not a tar
file”.

So Yast wrote the Tar file, but Yast can’t read it. What’s going on ?

Does anyone out there know enough about this backup system to explain
what is going on ? With respect to all the previous postings, I get the
impression that no-one here is very knowledgeable on the subject.

BTW Ark could not read any of the archive files either.

:frowning:

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14

Don’t know if this is what’s happening with you, but when I (ages ago)
did a trial run of Yast’s system backup tool, telling it to create a
backup of my root partition, it also tried to include every other
partition that was mounted at the time

I have partitions with mounts like /backups & /shares and there didn’t
seem to be any way of excluding them … at least not one that worked

Kbackup I find is great for the sort of backup you would use if you
could boot into suse or have freshly reinstalled it and don’t wanna go
through configuring everything from scratch again

Clonezilla is excellent for creating images of drives and partitions,
similar to ghost for windows, it can even resintall your bootloader

But there’s another tool that I’ve not seen anyone mention that can
often get your system up and running again if something’s happened to
render it unbootable, although it isn’t a backup tool but a system
repair one and comes on the suse dvd

When you boot off the dvd on the first menu you get a system repair
option, ignore that one and proceed as if you’re going to install suse
until you get to the screen where you are asked whether you want to do
an install or upgrade

There is a third option underneath called something like Repair
Installed System, I’ve used it successfully to get the system back up
and running without even needing to refer to any of my backups several
times

Does take a while to run especially if you use the automatic repair
function in it which scans everything including filesystem errors on
every partition, but I have found it to be a very handy tool

The benefit being that because it’s not restoring any files which may
be out of date with regards to any changes you’ve made since backing up,
if it does manage to fix whatever your problem is, you’re almost
certainly booting back into a system that’s configured exactly as it was
before it ‘went down’

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Ecky

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