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| After all of the options is the directory we want to backup. Since we want to backup everything we use '''/''' for the root directory.<<BR>> | The directory we want to back up is after all the options. Since we want to backup everything we use '''/''' for the root directory.<<BR>> |
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== From the Desktop == If you go to Applications > Add/Remove, and search for 'backup' there are multiple items available. === Using Simple Backup Suite === Simple Backup Suite is a program that was created during the Google Summer of Code 2005. Using a familiar GNOME interface, you can specify how often it backs up, the destination, what to exclude and what to back up. Simple Backup Suite also makes incremental backups, after creating the initial backup, only the files that have changed are backed up. For more information see: BackupYourSystem/SimpleBackupSuite === Duplicity === DuplicityBackupHowto === BackupPC === [[BackupPC]] == From the command line == === Using the TAR command === Suitable for backing up your home directory. Open a terminal and enter the command: {{{ tar cvfz output input }}} The compressed image created can be broken into smaller chunks for copying to removable media using the split command. |
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| <<BR>> == From the Desktop == If you go to Applications > Add/Remove, and search for 'backup' there are multiple items available. === Using Simple Backup Suite === Simple Backup Suite is a program that was created during the Google Summer of Code 2005. Using a familiar GNOME interface, you can specify how often it backs up, the destination, what to exclude and what to back up. Simple Backup Suite also makes incremental backups, after creating the initial backup, only the files that have changed are backed up. For more information see: BackupYourSystem/SimpleBackupSuite === Duplicity === DuplicityBackupHowto === BackupPC === [[BackupPC]] |
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Backing up your system is important, since you never know when your hard drive will die or some other disaster will strike. Several backup methods are listed below.
Archival backup
There are many options available to back up your system. You can either use the command line or download a program with a fancy GUI.
From the Command Line
When backing up from the command line TAR is often used.
Depending on what you are backing up superuser access might be needed. To begin open Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal and type the following command.
sudo -s -H
go to the root of your filesystem (we use this in our example, but you can go anywhere you want your backup to end up, including remote or removable drives.)
cd
Below is the command to make the back up (please read on so you understand what all the options mean).
tar cvpzf my_backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/my_backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /
What is all that doing?
tar is the program we are using to do a backup
cvpfz are the options we give to tar
c - create a new backup archive
v - verbose mode, tar will print what it's doing to the screen
z - compress the backup file with 'gzip' to make it smaller
f <filename> - specifies where to store the backup, /my_backup.tgz is the file used in this example
- We want to exclude some files, including the file itself.
- Make sure you don't include the file itself, or else you'll get weird results.
Don't include the /mnt folder if you have other partitions mounted there.
If you have Partitions in /mnt that require backup, you will need to exclude the folders you do not want backed up
Make sure you don't have anything mounted in /media.
Remove CDs/DVDs and removable media that you don't need backed up. You can selectively exclude directories in /media if you want removable devices backed up.
The directory we want to back up is after all the options. Since we want to backup everything we use / for the root directory.
When the command looks good to you hit Enter. When the process is complete you will have a file named my_backup.tgz in the root directory of your file system.
Alternatively, you can use Bzip2 to compress your backup. This means higher compression but lower speed. If compression is important to you, just substitute the z in the command with j, and give the backup the right extension. That would make the command look like this:
tar cvpjf my_backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/my_backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /
More information can be found here: BackupYourSystem/TAR
Creating disc images using dd
Suitable for backing up entire disks. Open a terminal (in the examples you will need to replace hda with the partition you wish to backup).
Create a hard disk image:
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/hda1.bin
Create a compressed disk image
dd if=/dev/hda1 | gzip > /home/hda1.bin.gz
Back up the MBR
dd if=/dev/hda of=/home/hda.boot.mbr bs=512 count=1
Restore MBR (from a Live CD)
dd if=/mnt/hda1/home/hda.boot.mbr of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
Backup a drive to another drive
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb conv=noerror,sync bs=4k
The command:
dd -if /dev/hda1 > partitionimage.dd
will backup "/dev/hda1", the first partition on hda1. A whole drive (including the MBR) could be backed up using just /dev/hda as the input "file". Restoring is done by:
dd -if partitionimage.dd -of /dev/hda1
If you have a complete new harddrive and want to restore the backup (or copy your old system to the new drive). First, the new drive has to be bigger or exactly the same size as the old one. First go superuser and switch to runlevel 1 so that you can fumble around with the harddisk without other services interfering:
sudo su init 1
restore either the whole disk to the new drive or one partition (depending on how you made the backup):
dd -if partitionimage.dd -of /dev/hda1
If you restored the whole drive (/dev/hda), the system will not automatically create the devices (/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2) if you just restored the whole drive. If you know how to make the devices show up without reboot, write it here, otherwise this is a good moment to reboot.
If you restored the system to a new drive, and your device names changed (for example from /dev/hda to /dev/sda) then you must adapt the bootloader and the mount points. While still on runlevel 1, edit these files:
/boot/grub/menu.list /etc/fstab
Update your drive mappings to the new devices there. Grub may be setup with numberish IDs for your drives, then you need the command blkid to read the new identifiers of your disk.
After your system is able to boot and runs again, you can resize your partitions to fill the rest of the new harddisk (if you want that) as described here:
You can use the "loopback device" to mount this partition image, making it easy to read the old version of files and still keep your current version untouched. Mounting disks with Linux's loopback device by Jason Boxman
From the Desktop
If you go to Applications > Add/Remove, and search for 'backup' there are multiple items available.
Using Simple Backup Suite
Simple Backup Suite is a program that was created during the Google Summer of Code 2005. Using a familiar GNOME interface, you can specify how often it backs up, the destination, what to exclude and what to back up.
Simple Backup Suite also makes incremental backups, after creating the initial backup, only the files that have changed are backed up.
For more information see: BackupYourSystem/SimpleBackupSuite
Duplicity
BackupPC
Incremental Backup
rsync
Rsync updates the copies the files that have changed and even then only transfers the parts of those files that have changed. That is useful for saving bandwidth when backing up over the network. For safety, transfer between two machines is done via SSH. Rsync is especially good for backing up home directories.
The command for transferring to a remote machine is:
sudo rsync --delete -azvv -e ssh /home remoteuser@remotehost.remotedomain:./backupdirectory
-z compresses the data --delete deletes files that don't exist on the system being backed up. Maybe you want this, maybe not. -a preserves the date and times of the files (same as -t), descends recursively into all directories (same as -r), copies symlinks as symlinks (same as -l), preserves file permissions (same as -p), preserves groups (same as -g), preserves file ownership (same as -o), and preserves devices as devices (same as -D). -vv increases the verbosity of the reporting process
rsync has several graphical frontends: grsync, Backup Monitor, QSync, Zynk, rsyncbackup, TKsync
For more options, there is a separate page about rsync
See also
You might also want to check out these backup programs which will help you to make automated backups of your system:
nice.
Other wiki discussing various Linux backup techniques:
See the full discussion in these threads on the Ubuntu forums:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087 Howto: Backup and restore your system! (very long thread; but all the good bits have (hopefully) already been summarized on this page.)
"Backup and Restore Your Ubuntu System using Sbackup" has nice step-by-step instructions (with screenshots) of using sbackup.
A personal blog listing many open source backup solutions: List of Free Open Source Linux and Ubuntu Backup Software
Versioning File Systems
These will be very useful when they mature. For example, ext3cow file system states it, "provides a time-shifting interface that allows a real-time and continuous view of the past. This allows users to access their file system as it appeared at any point in time." This feature is automatic -- nothing (meaning no backups, manual copies, etc.) need be done to have this benefit when using a copy-on-write file system.
They let you see *every* change to a file. But they don't help when the hard drive fails, so they are complementary to these other forms of backup that only store occasional snapshots, but also survive hardware failures.
Versioning tools such as Subversion could also be useful while we wait for versioning file systems to become mature and fully supported.
Other Early Stage Ideas
ContinuousBackups and HomeUserBackup and MigrateAndBackup have some interesting ideas about making backups completely automated. BackupOfPackageUserData and UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/SimpleBackupSolution also still needs help.
What exactly does SessionBackup do?
Are there more user-friendly solutions than the destroy disk command (dd)? Is there another way to backup the MBR?