A simple Linux backup method by Steven J. Rosen (Jul. 11, 2006)

A simple Linux backup method by Steven J. Rosen (Jul. 11, 2006)

Introduction

This article describes a simple backup method that I use every day to backup my home Linux systems. It's an easy method that non-technical Linux users can use to backup their important data. We'll discuss the decisions you have to make in order to do a thorough backup.

You hear it all the time from writers and your geek friends: "You should backup your computers." Well, here's one more geek to bug you about it again, but also to give some help.

One of the main strengths of my backup method is that it's simple, easy to set up and use, and can be completely automated. Since I use this method to backup my home systems, the method as well as the main backup programs presented here have been tested in my environment for a couple of years.

This backup method can be performed manually, but is better automated. I'll give you a couple of small programs that I've written to help automate this backup method, along with step-by-step instructions to use the software. We'll also briefly look at a couple of other good programs to help you backup.

What does it mean to backup something? It simply means making a copy of that something for safekeeping, in case the original becomes unusable. The copy should be stored on different hardware than the original -- for example, you might copy a document in your Documents folder (which is on your hard drive) to a USB key, a CD, or even an on-line service.

Why and what to backup

Why should you bother making backups? Because computers fail: hard drives fail, making it impossible to get your data from them; systems and software crash, sometimes corrupting or deleting your important documents. And people fail too: have you ever accidentally erased a file that you needed? I've done it too many times. With a backup, you're mostly protected: only the very latest changes, if any, are lost when you restore a backed-up file.

What should you backup? Your priority should be to backup those files that are most important and hardest to recreate. Here's my take on the importance of backing up certain data from the perspective of a general desktop user, from most important to least:

1. Your files -- This includes documents, spreadsheets, email, calendar data, financial data, downloaded music -- anything that you've created, recorded or received that has meaning and importance to you. These are clearly the most important and hardest to recreate, because you or others created them from imagination and hard work or because you paid for them.
   
   
2. Your settings -- This includes changes you've made to personal settings: desktop configuration (e.g., colors, backgrounds, screen resolution, mouse settings, locale) and program options, such as settings for OpenOffice, Gimp, your music player, and your email program. These are easier to recreate than your documents, but you'd hate to lose them -- it takes time to recreate them.
   
   
3. System settings -- Many people never touch their system settings -- the settings are created during Linux installation and stay that way. For those people, backing up system settings is less crucial than backing up their personal settings, since a re-installation would fix things. For people who customize their systems -- e.g., changing system configuration files in /etc -- backing up these settings can be at least as important as backing up personal settings.
   
   
4. Installed software (and everything else) -- This category includes installed system software (primarily Linux) and application software (such as OpenOffice, Firefox, and the Apache Web server). Such software can usually be restored by reinstalling, but not always.
   

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Don