Issues with automated deja-dup backups on my server
 

I have a headless Ubuntu server that I'd like to put on a backup schedule. I can run an X session via VNC (over SSH) and run deja-dup to backup my files. Since I'm backing up files in my home directory and other system files (conf files in /etc, webroot, maildirs, mysql databases, log files, etc), I run deja-dup with gksu.

That works great to run manually from a terminal in a VNC session, but even though I have it set to run daily (set using "gksu deja-dup-preferences"), the backup is never run automatically.

I could set up a cronjob to run the command, but it won't work if not run from a GUI. I briefly looked into duplicity, but I can't figure out how to have duplicity use my deja-dup configuration, and would like to be able to restore files through Nautilus if needed (works with deja-dup, but not sure if this would work with duplicity?).

Any suggestions? Ideally I'd like the backup to be run automatically, without having to worry about logging in to an X session, but have the option to restore files via Nautilus if I need to.

Sounds like a backup solution Rube Goldberg might have come up with.

Surely all your travails should have indicated you are going about this the wrong way. There are innumerable (better) backup options under Linux - especially for servers. Personally I make sure anything I use can be restored if/when the environment it was created under is unavailable. rsync is usually top of the list.