Does anyone know of a site explaining how to verify a backup? I could not find anything that gives an answer to my problem. Alternatively, does anyone know of a simple backup program (see below) that verifies the backup? The backup programs included in Debian 7 look far too complex for my needs.

I found too many unreadable files on both CD/DVD and USB sticks (sometimes an entire directory) after backing up with "tar" or the archiver provided in the Gnome Debian 7 distro (I do not know what program that is), this is on an Asus laptop about 4/5 years old with text backed up to a single CD or DVD or USB stick, no sound or video.

I have recently discovered that the option in tar only which means it could as well be removed.

There are suggestions to make a hash but this is no good in my case because it can only be used when the time to restore files has come and one wants to make sure the contents of the backup have not changed. What I need to do is insure the files that have been backed up are in the backup and I can do a complete restore if necessary. It is not possible to make a hash of the files backed up to compare to a hash of the backup because I have an "xclude" file containing a lot of file-type to ignore. Or may be it's possible but too involved for my level of experience. I have used K3B under Debian 5/6 and just reinstalled it to do my latest backup and it looks (insist: looks) OK.

Thank you for your help.

There are commands to verify an archive file (details depend upon what kind of archive file) used for backup, but most of those only test that the result is valid and consistent. The best verify backup files against what is on disk. all of those good thing, but ..

The only complete verification of a backup is a restore.
We once maintained DR systems (in another building, three valleys over and about 7 miles away, still to close by today's post-katrina post 9/11 standards) that we used to restore backups from the most critical production systems monthly. We could bring up and entire production network replacement in a few hours, and did once a year. This tested our backups, our DR plan, and our procedure manuals ability for ignorant peasants (usually played by non-technical managers) to get the entire operation functional in the event of a real disaster.

For home backups this might be a little (ok serious) overkill. I still believe that a full restore to different iron, and full function testing, is the only complete and valid backup verification procedure.

We always, after the first time, pulled two backup sets from off-site storage for the DR testing events. We rarely needed the second set, but often enough found that backups that passed every lessor test were not always good enough to give us a working system. Also, media fails: tapes go bad, drives die, there is no backup media that is invulnerable to the ravages of time.

So: how much of that should you take to heart? Do your own risk analysis and business survival analysis of your network. What can you not afford to lose, and what level of risk are you willing to accept. Trim that down or add to that as you test and verify, adjust it as your network or business changes. Then find ways to secure it against such a disaster that your iron (machines), building, and possibly even most technical staff might be unavailable after a disaster.

And test it.
Secure is when you KNOW that a monkey that can read (even a manager) could follow the book and bring up the business in an emergency using your backups.

Does that answer your question, or perhaps the need behind your question?

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Thank you wpeckham for the good explanation, my understanding of the background is a lot better. If nobody suggests a software that could fall within my needs, I will assume there is none.

Can you be specific about what you believe your needs are?
That are a LOG of backup and recovery applications available, as well as tools to build your own from pre-existing software.
It is difficult to advise if we are not sure what you are looking for.
Almost every program that does any kind of backup includes SOME kind of verification.

I have been using rsync a command line program.

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Thank you for your answers.

I need a simple backup I can preferably start from the cli, a backup that can give a warning if some files are not readable or are not copied. This request comes from the fact I have found that files that were backed up using "tar" were not readable on the backup medium, this happened on CD/DVD as well as USB stick (I/O error) and this is new medium created a few weeks before. As far as degradation of the medium is concerned, there is the possibility of it being affected by the local heat getting well over 40C in the shade and substantially more in the car in summer, if that could make a difference although the USB sticks are supposed to be indestructable.

I got the following message:
but this may be unrelated and may have been the delayed result of something else, I must insist on that.

"tar" has an option to verify (--verify) but I have recently found it only "attempt to verify" and I have not been able to find what it does if this attempt fails. May be I should try the tar command with the -v switch but this seems to only list the files processed.

There has never been anything in the logs to attract my attention.

I remember "rsync" as a copy from one machine to another, I'll have a look if I can try it. I missed that possibility.

What type of backup are you trying to create? Just a backup copy of your files that you can access, or an entire filesystem image that you can restore and boot into?

For the former I usually just use rsync and check the exit status. For the latter, my feeling is full disk clones are painful to maintain and completely unnecessary for a home user, so I avoid them.

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Re your kernel msg: the ext3 & ext4 filesystems come with journalling built-in. An error like that would indicate to me that the HDD is possibly dying.
You could try http://linux.die.net/man/8/smartctl to check.

Re backups: rsync checksums as it goes, but you can also do a post-facto check with it as well - see https://serverfault.com/questions/32...sync-transfers

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Yes, that is what I want, I do not need ever to do a restore, I usually backup my user files and a few configuration files which I want to be able to recover from a backup, if the problem is more severe, I usually reinstall the distro then the user files (if necessary) and so on.

I have used rsync with the verify option and it seems to do the job, I also have a new hard drive (SSD) on order since it is a bit pointless to report my result if my hard drive is faulty. The main question turned out to be whether or not the verification system included in any backup could be relied upon and I will definitely come back if this is not the case with which seems to have a better reputation than .