Recommend me backup software

hongman · 10-20-2014, 04:10 PM

Hi all

After playing with Debian for a few days and loving it so far, after the 3rd (or was it 4th) reinstall due to me being a twat I think the sensible thing to do is to get some kind of backup running.

With so much choice, I figured I would be wise to ask for some recommendations to at least narrow down the choices.

What I am looking for (ideally)

1. Backup to network location (Windows Share)
2. Would be nice to support incremental/differential backups
3. Online (not as in cloud, but as in while system is running)
4. Easy / Well documented restore process from CLI (as I will probably need it from recovery boot, cant rely on X)
5. Free!

Thanks all

evo2 · 10-20-2014, 04:39 PM

Hi,

I think that backuppc (package with same name) meets all your needs.

Evo2.

hongman · 10-20-2014, 05:04 PM

Thanks!

I have installed it but I'm getting so confused with setting it up properly, could you help? I havent made any changes yet in case I mess them up, it's just a few basic things.

For now lets keep it simple - say I want to backup my whole system to an external USB hard drive.

I cant find where to specify the backup location?!

evo2 · 10-20-2014, 05:40 PM

Hi,

you need to read the documentation. See /usr/share/doc/backuppc/BackupPC.html and the files in /usr/share/doc/backuppc/examples/

You'll need to configure /etc/backuppc/hosts, /etc/backuppc/config.pl and create various hostfoo.pl files.

Evo2.

evo2 · 10-20-2014, 05:45 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by hongman

I cant find where to specify the backup location?!

That is $Conf{TopDir} in /etc/backuppc/config.pl The default is /var/lib/backuppc. You can either change that variable or make your /var/lib/backuppc a symlink to your desired location.

Evo2.

hongman · 10-20-2014, 06:18 PM

Thank you

hongman · 10-21-2014, 12:05 AM

Ok, 2 part question. On running the job I am immediately getting a Tar exited with error 512 () status error.

I googled this and as a result performed these steps:

I have edited the config.pl file as per this doc http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/faq/localhost.html

The backup destination is set to /mnt/backups which is my windows share.

my sudoers file looks like this, I believe this is correct?

Code:

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
backuppc ALL = NOPASSWD: /bin/tar

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

I am currently running a manual tar which is working...

Code:

cd /mnt/backups
tar -cvpzf 21-10-14.tar.gz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/media --exclude=/dev /

2nd question is - are those exclusions sane, and are there any others I can omit?

evo2 · 10-21-2014, 12:49 AM

Hi,

your /etc/sudoers looks ok to me. Regarding the excludes, I would probably instead be tempted to be explicit about what to include. Eg

Code:

tar -cvpzf 2014-10-21.tar.gz /home /etc /var/log

However, your needs/wants may vary.

Cheers,

Evo2.

hongman · 10-21-2014, 12:56 AM

New problem! *sigh*

I rebooted just to make sure it wasnt something simple like that (windows habit).

But now the backuppc service will not start?

Code:

root@lynx:/mnt/backups/backuppc# service backuppc start
[....] Starting backuppc...2014-10-21 06:53:52 Can't create a test hardlink between a file in /mnt/backups/backuppc/pc and /mnt/backups/backuppc/cpool.  Either these are different file systems, or this file system doesn't support hardlinks, or these directories don't exist, or there is a permissions problem, or the file system is out of inodes or full.  Use df, df -i, and ls -ld to check each of these possibilities. Quitting...

I have checked and /mnt/backups dir exists, and I can write to it, all seems ok?

evo2 · 10-21-2014, 01:55 AM

Hi,

the error message explains what to do to work out why making the hardlink failed.

Evo2.

hongman · 10-21-2014, 06:48 AM

Well I changed the backup path to a USB drive, same error. Changed it back to default /var/lib/backuppc and it works...

However still failing with tar.

In any case I have discovered a program called TimeShift which seems to do what I want it to do!

qrange · 10-23-2014, 01:38 PM

usb is (probably) FAT32? if so, it doesn't support hardlinks.

hongman · 10-23-2014, 11:47 PM

I'm not even sure what hard links are haha.

Still, timeshift is really quick and has saved my hindside a few times now, I'm going to stick to that

widget · 10-24-2014, 02:10 PM

OK, I just have to know. What the hell is the timeshift you are using?

I just ran, in Sid;

Code:

sam@lounge:~$ apt-cache search timeshift
kradio4 - comfortable radio application for KDE
timeshift - Bash script for doing timeshift TV.

There is, as you can see, a timeshift package listed. Don't think it has much to do with backups.

So, where are you finding and using the timeshift you have.

hongman · 10-24-2014, 02:37 PM

http://www.teejeetech.in/p/timeshift.html

So so so easy to set up and install, and does exactly what I want.

Each snapshot is incremental as well so it takes little space!

Good retention policies, and has saved my ass a few times already from messing about with things.

Only things left for when I can be bothered is to suss out command line operation (mainly in case X fails) and also how to set it to launch as root when logging in as normal user.

If I just add it to startuo menu it errors on log in with permissions, so I have to remember to start it as root manually otherwise it doesnt do the scheduled backups.

Compared to bacula, backuppc, etc its just so lite and hasle free!