I,m using Ubuntu 10.10 with Gimp. Ive got a lot of photos etc and need to back these up. Can I anyone suggest a good backup solution which does not require e to keep copying the same files? IE: Once the files are backed up I only want to back the files used since last back up? Appreciate suggestions

Take a look at rsync or grsync
http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/
http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/documentation.html

Kind regards

I love Luckybackup. Basically a gui front end for rsync. Really easy to use and it will sync directories. It is available via the "software centre" or synaptic.

Hi, I would grateful if someone could show me a good way to back up and restore my personal data. I prefer to work from the terminal purely for learning purposes. I will certainly look at the apps suggested above. Initially I was thinking of creating a script containing to create tar ball the compress with bzip2


I would then extract in a single line

But this is obviously inefficient if I was to backup every three days. I want a way to backup only files that have been changed and leave the unchanged alone. I don't want to save the whole home directory which will include unnecessary system settings. Can anyone help?

You should start your own thread.
However,
rsync can do this, you can exclude directories, compress the files, and backup only new or changed files.

Kind regards

Hi Repo, wpeckham suggested I should NOT create a new thread and tag onto a similar one. Since posting I have installed luckyback and it seems to be good application. I still would appreciate the core shell commands to create my own script.

He meant you need to update the thread you started, not to hijack another thread
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...estore-847076/

Kind regards

He said 'repost' and update an existing thread as apposed update 'this' thread which threw me off. I do my best to work with everybody. I think you will agree that in all my threads I am careful not to make personal remarks even if the responses are unsatisfactory. The term hijacking was uncalled for.

1 members found this post helpful.

Unsure if this thread is hiijacked or not in the right place -- but I do have the answer to the question that was asked.

If you are looking to backup your User Directory, which on linux is /home/some-user-name, the easiest way I know of is using Rsync.

rsync -varh --progress --delete /home/some-user-name/ /media/some-destination/

Basically rsync (from) (to)

Notes:

DO NOT USE WILDCARDS. /home/some-user-name/ with the trailing forward slash will copy *all* contents including . hidden files and weirdly spaced names.

-v = verbose
-a = archive (keep attributes and permissions)
-r = recursive (go into directories)
-h = human readable (1.6m rather than 1691982)
--progress = readable progress indication on screen
--delete = delete any destination files that are not on the source. (For example, if you run this command, then delete a file from your home directory, and run this command again, rsync will notice that the file is not in your home directory anymore, and delete it from the destination media.) You can leave this option out, if you want to keep an ongoing archive of files, even if you delete them from your home directory, but this might cause certain programs to run weird or not at all.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, actually I am not bothered by the settings. All I want is to backup personal data stored in the home directory using shell commands as described above. I have already installed luckybackup which seems to be a good GUI app, I just want the command line solution.


Cheers

Maybe make a script to find by date or some and then port the output to a tar or gzip command and then to some storage area. Since you know pretty much what you want it ought to be similar each time.

Rsync can be used too from command line.

Thanks!