Hi all-

I have been running Slackware on my Thinkpad since version 10 of Slackware came out and I am looking for the best way to backup my important information. I have done some googling (or googleing?) and I like the idea of just using Tar, but I am confused as to witch parameters to use. Can someone give me a little help. I would like to back up to an SMB share on my home network. Also is this the best route to take or would you recommend a better solution.

Thanks for your help

Mr. Slappy

tar -cf /smb_mounted_dir/backup.tar /path/to/files_you_want_backed_up/*

or some variation thereof

You can use the -P switch in addition if you only ever want to restore the files to their current location, but I've never used it.

An idea, make an +x script and drop it in your /etc/cron.daily. mkdir /var/backup. /var is where this type of things should go if kept locally.
My laptop hostname is mustang.

#!/bin/sh
backupwhat="/root /home /etc"
backuplocation="/var/backup/"
backupname="backup-mustang-$(date +%m-%d-%y)"
backupexclude=""

tar cvzf $backuplocation$backupname.tar.gz $backupwhat --exclude=$backupexclude

# This is up to you to add.
# if you are always connected to your samba share.
mv $backuplocation$backupname.tar.gz /mnt/samba
# or mount the samba share and move/copy whenever you want to.

My mirrored server stores all backups. I have a script to remove backups > 2-weeks.

Thanks for the assistance. I will give it a try when I get home. One more question because Gnome is confusing me -
I am using Gnome as my desktop and I use it to view my windows network and transfer files that way. What I cant find is where this is mounted (looked in /mnt ). Or is this mounted?

Mr. Slappy
Still a slave of the GUI
lol

try 'mount' without argument on a terminal to see what is actually mounted in your system

also look at your smb.conf, it is the file where samba mount points are configured

keep in mind the op is wanting to look at a Windows box. The smb.conf sets up the server side, (*nix box). The samba client is usually built in the kernel and the samba server isn't needed to look at Windows.

For *nix -> Windows;
smbmount //<hostname>/share /mnt/<something>
ie: smbmount //corvette/me /mnt/corvette

Don't forget to;
smbumount /mnt/<something>

I haven't used gnome in a while, but in nauti??? file manager you can type in the location bar;
smb:/
or
smb:///

edit;
One more cool thing, to see what's on the Windows box, or on the network, you can enter ;
smbtree

then enter the the user's password and you see everything available.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned rsync

is what I use to backup a copy of my home directory on my laptop to an external USB hard drive. The "exclude" option skips the 10-15Gb of Linux distros I keep hany to burn copies for our monthly InstallFest.

You can add the "--delete" option if you want files that are deleted from the home directory to also be deleted from the backup.

Even though my laptop doesn't have the faster USB 2.0 ports this works quite well.

Dennisk

Thank You all.

I like the rsync option and will give that a try. Does this work in reverse. Let's say I make a backup and end up hoseing my home directory can I

Also this is uncompressed right?

Mr. Slappy