Backup System?

[robyn001]

Hi,
I have my Fedora_FC3_64 all working perfectly, ATI is happy, NVidia is happy, and all the USB devices are content. ( I am very proud of myself) All of the files are updated. Now, is there any way for me to do a full system backup of the entire configuration in case I "over tweak" something and crash it all up? Or, what specific files and folders should I save in order to return to my current status in the event I need to reload everything. I have a screen shot of my file system and devices that I am willing to send to anybody who can help me with this. (I don't see how to attach the jpg here).

Thank you,
Robyn

MSI Neo Platinum/Nforce
AMD 3400
1 GB Corsair DDR 400
ATI 9800 pro
Samsung SyncMaster 213T
(2) SATA 180gb (non-raid)
Plextor 712 DVDRW
Epson 300R
Iomega Zip 100

[owakroeger]

Hi robyn001. There is an excellent backup program which I use, called 'rdiff-backup'. If you use apt-get, just type;
$su
password
#apt-get install rdiff-backup

for yum, type;
$su
password
#yum install rdiff-backup

rdiff-backup is an incremental backup system which can backup all, or any part of your system to tape, removable media, or another harddrive, or another machine. The man-pages are clear and concise. I have my crontab file setup to backup my /home/me directory every fifteen minutes, while the machine is on. It also backs up the entire system weekly. The cool thing about rdiff-backup is that, after the first time, it just looks for changes since the last backup, and only backs up those. Setting it up to run automatically in the background with crontab makes it really easy for this forgetful old noggin'.
Give it a try.
owa

[PeTzZz]

Check this thread:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=29397

Quick link to the suggested program:
http://www.mondorescue.org/about/about.html

[robyn001]

thanks for the suggestion Owa, but here is what I get after trying to install rdiff-backup:
Yum tries to download something and then says this:
"No Match for argument rdiff-backup"
Maybe it doesn't work on the 64 platform

Robyn

[robyn001]

Petz, thanks for the suggestion...but your links are a bit vague......can't find "Mondo"? or whatever it is.

Robyn

[kosmosik]

just cron yourself a job of putting entire /etc/ directory in tarball every night... or put your /etc/ dir in some kind of version controling system... rcs would not be an overkill, but probably svn would be much more feature rich and up to date...

http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/8416

[greatscot]

I have been using this cronjob for backups for a while:

01 06 * * * tar -czf /home/storage/`date +%Y%m%d-%I%M`-backup.tar.gz /home/username

This command creates backups with the date and time in the filename which, will most likely alleviate filename conflicts: ie. 20050122-0601-backup.tar.gz. Use the -cjf options instead of the -czf options if you want the backup to be compressed via bz2 instead of gz. This usually creates a smaller backup file but takes a little longer to finish.
Once a week I go into /home/storage and burn all the tarballs onto a CD-R or DVD-R.
Works for me and I don't have to worry about anything. It's an easy cronjob to set up:

# crontab -e

<INSERT>

01 06 * * * tar -czf /home/storage/`date +%Y%m%d-%I%M`-backup.tar.gz /home/username

<ESC>

:w <enter>

:q <enter>

Done!

You can use a double ampersand (&&) to run more than one command:

01 06 * * * updatedb && tar -czf /home/storage/`date +%Y%m%d-%I%M`-backup.tar.gz /home/username

Hope this helps :)

[RUSTY]

ok here is the question I'm looking for any program that can backup in real time, open files, basically do backups no matter what meanin if the system is being used by many users the program will still manage the backup, and hopefully it can backup both linux and win.

[PeTzZz]

Read this thread (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=41863) and please continue there if you have any future questions. More appropriate.

:)