I confess that I haven't backed my system up since installing Debian last August, just my files in /home. I've always used k3b to burn my backups and in Slackware etc, I could log in as root to backup my system files. However, I find that in Debian kdm won't allow root logins so I can't burn my system files in K3b as I don't have permission as user. How can I backup my system files (eg. /etc) using K3b as root in debian?

aptitude install gksu and then gksu k3b from the command line. On my etch box, gksu is already installed by default...

@pljvaldez: Your reply was bang on the money. Sorted,

Cheers

Mikie

Have you tried using Mondo for you system backups? I use it once a month and its always done a great job.

It creates bootable CD/DVDs that will restore your entire system (much like Norton Ghost does for Windows).

@BillyGalbreath:

Have only just read your post. I spent yesterday evening on my Sarge to Etch upgrade and most of today shopping and other mundane stuff. I haven't tried Mondo but I shall definitely take a look at it. My backup protocol is hit and miss to say the least and I should be more organized in this respect (I guess I've been lucky so far). Thanks for the recommendation,

Mikie.

If you truly feel the need, edit /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc and look for the line AllowRootLogin=false ...

And a great way to backup your world is backuppc. It is an awesome application that is a great way to put an old pc to excellent use. It makes backups via samba mounts, tar, rsync, ssh+(tar or rsync), and rsyncd. I added it to my main box at home, backing up itself, my laptop, my brother's laptop, and another desktop, all daily with no human intervention. I currently have about 140 Gb of data saved on 40 Gb of space due to compression and pooling. It has saved me several times. Of course it is open source and free.

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net

You can also make it extremely easy and install the newest version with apt-get. Version 3.0.0 is in instable,and will probably move to testing soon. Might take a while to hit stable, but anyone can install any version of debian. There is nothing that 3.0.0 needs that the version in stable (2.1.2) doesn't provide.

Peace,
JimBass

Originally posted by JimBass:
Thanks, I'll check that out too! I happen to have an old P111 with a burned out hard-drive so fixing that up for the purpose is a possible solution.