Re: Testing Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

My "roll your own" backup is similar to this, consisting basically of
rsync instead of tar, and to a removable hard drive (all on one line):

/usr/bin/rsync -av
--exclude-from=/home/leskh/files-to-exclude-from-rsync-backup
/home/leskh/ /media/ExtBackup/,

and a few similar lines for some other choice trees/locations.

Rsync is a godsend for freeing me from having to keep track of changes
and dates, and for efficient copying. External hard drives are cheap and
recovery is as simple as drag and drop, which my kids or wife can do if
necessary, even if they just deleted a file accidentally.

It's not very complex, but for a home setting, fits well.

      Les...

Lance Levsen wrote:
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> I use dirvish at work for our backups. If you don't want to use some of
> the standard backup Debian/Ubuntu packages like dirvish or amanda then
> you may like this little roll-your-own.
>
> My home "backup program" run from a cron once a week. I have a cron that
> emails me once a month to throw in a blank dvd and so I get a dvd burn
> of the tar once a week. It backs up everything in /etc, /root, /boot,
> various dirs in /var and where files or directories _do not_ match what
> is in a 'backup-exclude' text file. I don't bother with the */usr or
> */bin dirs as I don't really compile a lot of packages and I do a dpkg
> - --get-selection into a file in root if I lose the system. The beauty of
> this is that instead of being an 'opt-in' program, it's an 'opt-out'. So
> chances are you'll have too much in there . . . always better than too
> little. :)
>
> Note: the TAR line is all one line. Once it's running you could get rid
> of the -v in the tar command as it's very verbose. Also, I think the -p
> is redundant with the --preserve-permissions.
>
> If you use something like this, it's best to run it a few times to build
> your backup-exclude file and to get an idea of how big a tar you're
> talking, i.e. will it fit on a dvd, should it be gziped/bzip2'd.
>
> I copy the tar to a separate HD in the machine, but if you don't have a
> separate HD then this may not be to your liking.
>
> ####################
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> # Backup program.
>
> # Set vars.
> DAY=`date +%A`
> LABEL=`date`
> OUT=/archive/backup.tar
>
> TAR='tar -c --atime-preserve --one-file-system --preserve-permissions -X
> /home/lance/backup/backup-exclude'
>
> cd /
>
> echo "Backup Started."
> date
> # Burn to tar
> $TAR -vjpf $OUT etc home root boot var/www var/spool var/log var/mail
>
> # Burn to dvd
> growisofs -speed=1 -Z /dev/dvd -R -J ${OUT}
> eject /dev/dvd
>
> ##########
>
> The backup-exclude file, throw regular expressions in here if you don't
> want them backed up. ignore the ellipse as they're there only to
> separate the file into examples.
>
> #######
> etc/terminfo
> etc/gtk
> etc/modutils
> etc/logcheck
> etc/defoma
> etc/texmf
>
> (...)
>
> home/lance/.thumbnails/*
> home/.Trash-root/*
> home/lance/Desktop/RealBasic
> home/lance/News/*
> *~
> *.iso
> home/lance/archives
> home/lance/Music_Styles
>
> (...)
>
> *.tar
> *.gz
> *.tgz
> ######
>
>
> Les Klassen Hamm wrote:
>
>> I keep reading this "backup /home, reinstall, and away you go" thing,
>> and I think I must be doing things wrong. First, /home should always be
>> backed up, but that's another matter. The painful part of a fresh
>> install is making sure I had those mysql db's backed up recently too,
>> and the apache configs, and that php.ini and the system-wide settings
>> for vim, and the postfix configs, and the cron jobs, and the ... on and on.
>>
>> Am I missing some basic admin practices that make this more smooth? I've
>> played with making a ./configed folder and filling it with symlinks for
>> every file that I manually edit or adjust, but that becomes cumbersome
>> and usually abandoned after a while. It's a week of evenings before I'm
>> back to becoming functional after an install, at best. That's a major
>> reason I tend to stick with LTS versions of ubuntu - though you'll
>> definitely feel behind then, unless you manually adjust - the default
>> firefox for the current LTS version (606) is, I think, 1.5.xx.
>>
>> Anyone got some great tricks to deal with this? I've actually found
>> dist-upgrades to be the best upgrade... sometimes. Most often, I just
>> wait to upgrade when I move to a new box. Start fresh, migrate via the
>> network, gradually switch to the new machine.
>> Les...
>>
>> --
>> I'm interested in upgrading my 28.8 kilobaud internet connection to a
>> 1.5 megabit fiberoptic T1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP
>> router that's compatible with my token ring ethernet LAN configuration?
>>
>> To unsubscribe, send a message with the word "unsubscribe" (without the
>> quotes) in the body to linux-request@slg.org
>> Archives are at http://list.slg.org/
>
>
> Cheers,
> lance
> - --
> Lance Levsen,
> Catprint Computing
> Tel: (306) 493-2249
> Cell: (306) 230-8783
> Blog: http://www.catprint.ca/blog/
> SaskBlogs: http://saskblogs.catprint.ca/
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> --
> I'm interested in upgrading my 28.8 kilobaud internet connection to a
> 1.5 megabit fiberoptic T1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP
> router that's compatible with my token ring ethernet LAN configuration?
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message with the word "unsubscribe" (without the
> quotes) in the body to linux-request@slg.org
> Archives are at http://list.slg.org/
>
Received on Wed Mar 19 11:18:33 2008