From LQWiki
Backups are part of a sane recovery scheme that should help recover lost data. They can be thought of anything that is done to archive important system and user data.
Contents |
Backup tips
- offsite backups
- Step By Step Backup Tutorials with all different types of backup applications.
- List of backup applications
How to do it
Backup your home directory
From the command line type :
tar -cvzf myhomebackup.tar.gz ~
~ stands for your home directory. The z option packs your file in gzip format.
Then copy myhomebackup.tar.gz onto some other medium: CD, DVD, removable drive etc.
Hint: Using tar with the --newer option will allow you to save only files that have changed since your last backup. This is known as incremental backup, compare rsync.
Backup your computer
To backup your computer including all system configuration and kernel modules, but excluding everything that is mounted (e.g. /proc) use
tar -cvlf slash.tar.gz /
The l option says "local filesystems only". You need it because you do not want to backup /proc.
Backup/Sync several computers
If you have several computers (maybe because you have several flats), you can upkeep an eternal archive on USB disk that you can transport. For data security, you synchronize your USB disk with your computers then. Let's say the USB disk is mounted on /mnt/sda1 and your archive is in /root/archive. You create your archive with
rsync -e ssh -avz /root/archive /mnt/sda1
You can then show the differences between your archive on USB disk and on your computer with
rsync -e ssh -avz --delete --dry-run /mnt/sda1/archive /root/archive
And you can update your computer's archive from USB disk using
rsync -e ssh -avz /mnt/sda1/archive /root/archive
You can add the --delete option behind -avz to delete all content on the target that is not on the source.
Backup strategies
For home users
Keep a folder with files that you want to keep even if your hard disk crashes. Everytime when you do a backup, sync this folder with a USB disk. Syncing should be done based on file contents to identify corrupt files. If you have multiple computers, you can sync bidirectionally. A good choice for content-based syncing is unison.
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