Can anyone recommend a program to back up my data? I use Ubuntu 9.04 at the mo. I want to make back-ups on to an external HD, just in case. No state secrets are involved, so I don't need anything fancy. Just something to save me dragging and dropping each time. Something like 'if this folder changes, back it up'

Thanks!

Hi,

It all depends on what you want the backup progam to do. If it's just for some personal data or like your home directory, then you could just use a simple backup script which can be found on the internet and run it via cron on a specific time. You could also use a file synchronizer like rsync or Unison to run on a regular basis to synchronise any changes to your external device.

An easy to change example of a backup script: http://www.xs4all.nl/~voorburg/backup.html
More info on different backup possibilities: http://www.linux-backup.net/App/

Kind regards,

Eric

Hello Pedroski,

I'm using flexbackup. This is a Perlscript. One can define so called "sets" with the files or directories to be updated. Also flexbackup can handle full-, differential-, and incremental-backups.
If you chose an incremental backup, only the files which have been changed are backed up. This will meet your needs.

I have second internal harddrive as my backupdevice and flexbackup is started (daily after an amount of time when computer is started) by the anacron-daemon.

Here a useful link: http://www.edwinh.org/flexbackup/

Markus

A back up script sounds good. But, as the external usb drive is not always present, I will need to call it manually, or build in an error handler if it starts without the drive plugged in. The script shown in the link xs-4all is very old, he talks about 6MB HD! Will it still work?? Also, being root in Ubuntu is a problem, they have a UUID whatever that is, and of course sudo.

Hi,

I know the link is pretty old and mentions small HD, but that doesn't change what the script does. It's in my opinion a very easy script to adapt to your needs. Building in a test to check if your external harddisk is mounted and if not then mount it, wouldn't be to hard to do.

You have two options as I see it when taking into account the sudo 'problem'. Either you run the script manually or via crontab as your user putting sudo in front of it, or you add the script to the root's crontab.

That script only uses things like tar and find to make a backup, so nothing special lurking around the corner.

Kind regards,

Eric

Hello,

for an external HD as a backupdevice you may associate udev-rules to start the backupscript always when the drive is connected to the PC. http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html

Be aware that the cron-daemon is more useful on servers (which run day and night) and the anacron-daemon is a useful alternative for desktop-PCs. anacron starts programs after a specific amount of time after starting the PC.

Markus

Thanks! Can I ask you if I run into probs adapting the script?

systemrescuecd.

Hello,

That of course depends on the changes you make to the script but normally if you test the commands you put in there, you shouldn't encounter problems. If you do have errors, just post them here and someone will help out for sure. If you want to you can also post your changed script here so that others may look at it and point out errors if any exist. Also take into consideration the post of markush about the udev rules and using anacron instead of cron. He made some good points there.

Kind regards,

Eric