What to backup?

[Steve Mysterious]

Mint 20.2 Uma
Cinnamon5.0.7

I am interested in what other people think might be good for me to make regular backups of.

The computer described above is my home computer. I use it for desktop end user things. It is not a server.

I recently updated to the OS mentioned above and it made it easy to set up some rudimentary backups via Time Shift.

Time Shift is backing up my "system files" and my home directory.

I keep all of my data on an external USB drive.

I'm not ready to put my personal stuff "on the cloud".

It seems to me all I really need is to backup my home directory to save all of my browser settings and other application settings.

I only install 2 - 3 applications beyond what comes with Mint Linux.

If my OS gets messed up I can do a fresh install, restore my home directory, reinstall those 2 - 3 applications, and be on my merry way.

Am I missing anything with that thought?

Should I back up other things?

Happy New Year

Steve

[Robert Heller]

There will be some system-wide settings under /etc/ that might be worth
backing up.

>
> Happy New Year
>
> Steve
>
>
>
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
hel...@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 30/12/2021 12:46, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Thu, 30 Dec 2021 02:41:29 -0800 (PST) Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Mint 20.2 Uma
>> Cinnamon5.0.7
>>
>> I am interested in what other people think might be good for me to make regular backups of.
>>
>> The computer described above is my home computer. I use it for desktop end user things. It is not a server.
>>
>> I recently updated to the OS mentioned above and it made it easy to set up some rudimentary backups via Time Shift.
>>
>> Time Shift is backing up my "system files" and my home directory.
>>
>> I keep all of my data on an external USB drive.
>>
>> I'm not ready to put my personal stuff "on the cloud".
>>
>> It seems to me all I really need is to backup my home directory to save all of my browser settings and other application settings.
>>
>> I only install 2 - 3 applications beyond what comes with Mint Linux.
>>
>> If my OS gets messed up I can do a fresh install, restore my home directory, reinstall those 2 - 3 applications, and be on my merry way.
>>
>> Am I missing anything with that thought?
>>
>> Should I back up other things?
>
> There will be some system-wide settings under /etc/ that might be worth
> backing up.
>

Yes. I tend to rebuild my desktop every 5 years or so, and there are a
few things I end up needing out /usr/local and /etc.

TBH I back the whole thing up, and my last installation is sitting here
waiting for me to be sure I don't need stuff off it before the SSD gets
wiped with a new install

>>
>> Happy New Year
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>>
>>
>


--

“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller

[david c]

On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 14:15:35 +0100, Yrrah wrote:

> Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Mint 20.2 Uma Cinnamon5.0.7
>>
>> (cut)

>>
>> It seems to me all I really need is to backup my home directory to save
>> all of my browser settings and other application settings.
>>
>> I only install 2 - 3 applications beyond what comes with Mint Linux.
>>
>> If my OS gets messed up I can do a fresh install, restore my home
>> directory, reinstall those 2 - 3 applications, and be on my merry way.
>

> I don't use Timeshift, but back up my home folder regularly with rsync
> (sudo rsync -aEuv) and do a fresh install of Linux Mint every two years
> or so.
>
> Yrrah

I use lucky backup for home. I do an occasional backup of system using
Redo a simple to use program. I do let TimeShift do it's thing, I have
used it to recover system, great program. I use Redo is if the whole HD
or SSID goes belly up. I've tried many backup programs, Macrium is the
best, but is more windows orientated. Clonezilla is the worst I've come
across, but they all do about the same job.

[Big Al]

I use Acronis. Started way back when I was only using Windows, but after I moved to Linux I discovered that Acronis will backup the ext4
partitions. The first versions 13 I used for Linux could only do binary backups (or sector by sector) but later versions seem to be able to
do files now. Either way I just use Acronis if the HD dies too, I have other backups of my Linux data inside Linux and don't go to
Windows but once a month.

--
Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.2 64bit, Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop
Quad Core i7-8550U, 16G Memory, 512G SSD, 750G & 1TB HDDs

[Nic]

As a bonus, if you have a Western Digital hd, Acronis iso is offered for
free at the WD website, works great.

[Richard Kettlewell]

I back up whole systems, with exclusions for caches and a handful of
other things that I know I can live without. If I lose a disk then
(having sourced new hardware) I can get back exactly where I was with
fdisk/lvm/rsync and a bit of fiddling with the boot loader. I have a lot
in /etc and /var that I don’t want to have to recreate, though.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Brooks Robinson]

On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 14:15:35 +0100, Yrrah <Yrrah...@aolu.invalid>

wrote:

>Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Mint 20.2 Uma
>> Cinnamon5.0.7
>>
>> (cut)
>>

>> It seems to me all I really need is to backup my home directory to save all of my browser settings and other application settings.
>>
>> I only install 2 - 3 applications beyond what comes with Mint Linux.
>>
>> If my OS gets messed up I can do a fresh install, restore my home directory, reinstall those 2 - 3 applications, and be on my merry way.
>

>I don't use Timeshift, but back up my home folder regularly with rsync (sudo
>rsync -aEuv) and do a fresh install of Linux Mint every two years or so.
>
>Yrrah

I've used Clonezilla Live for years now. Just image either the entire
drive or any individual partition as needed.

Brooks

[Steve Mysterious]

On Thursday, December 30, 2021 at 7:46:35 AM UTC-5, Robert Heller wrote:
> > Should I back up other things?
> There will be some system-wide settings under /etc/ that might be worth
> backing up.

It is my home box. I never make system wide settings myself.

Given that would there by anything time consuming in /etc that I would miss with installing the OS fresh and restoring my home directory from a backup?

[Robert Heller]

There will a number of things in /etc, including things like the hostname
(/etc/hostname), there will be user authentification info
(/etc/passwd,/etc/group,/etc/shadow). There might be other things under /etc
-- this is the location of a whole range of overall system coniguration. Most
of this is set up during the installation process -- Linux installers
typically ask a bunch of questions, like the hostname and what you want for a
username and password. Other things like network set up, including WiFi setup
are also stored under /etc/. Some of that info might be worth backing up,
even when you do a fresh re-install, since it can save some tedious work to
reconfigure.

[The Natural Philosopher]

depends on what you are running.
e.g. mysql apache php all have config files there and may have data in /var


--
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Richard Kettlewell <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> It seems to me all I really need is to backup my home directory to
>> save all of my browser settings and other application settings.
>>
>> I only install 2 - 3 applications beyond what comes with Mint Linux.
>>
>> If my OS gets messed up I can do a fresh install, restore my home
>> directory, reinstall those 2 - 3 applications, and be on my merry way.
>>
>> Am I missing anything with that thought?
>>
>> Should I back up other things?
>
> I back up whole systems, with exclusions for caches and a handful of
> other things that I know I can live without. If I lose a disk then
> (having sourced new hardware) I can get back exactly where I was with
> fdisk/lvm/rsync and a bit of fiddling with the boot loader.

I do whole system backups for the same reason, but it occours to me
that some people might have more trouble with the restore and
"fiddling with the boot loader" step if they're only used to their
distro's installation system. If they could never cope with the
restore process, then maybe it's not worth backing up the whole
system? Though it might be a good idea anyway, just to help answer
a "why did x stop working like before?" type question by looking at
files from the old system, at least in places like /etc,
/usr/share, /usr/local/share, etc.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Andrei Z.]

Brooks Robinson wrote:
> I've used Clonezilla Live for years now. Just image either the entire
> drive or any individual partition as needed.
>
> Brooks

It may be convenient to boot Clonezilla ISO from Hard Drive with GRUB.
This example works for me on Mint 20.2

DATA is filesystem label (ext4 on sda3 currently).

ls /media/UserName/DATA/bootable
cz.iso cz-iso.cfg gp.iso gp-iso.cfg test.iso test-iso.cfg

cz.iso, gp.iso, test.iso are renamed
clonezilla-live-2.8.0-27-amd64.iso, gparted-live-1.3.1-1-amd64.iso,
lmde-4-cinnamon-64bit.iso.

----- /etc/grub.d/40_custom -----
...
menuentry "Clonezilla ISO" {
search --label --set DATA
configfile /bootable/cz-iso.cfg
}
menuentry "GParted ISO" {
search --label --set DATA
configfile /bootable/gp-iso.cfg
}
menuentry "Test ISO" {
search --label --set DATA
configfile /bootable/test-iso.cfg
}

----- cz-iso.cfg -----
set isofile="/bootable/cz.iso"
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config
components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset enforcing=0 locales=
keyboard-layouts= ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general"
ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch="no" vga=788
toram=live,syslinux,EFI,boot,.disk,utils ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash
i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes
vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 findiso=$isofile
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img

----- gp-iso.cfg -----
set isofile="/bootable/gp.iso"
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config
components quiet noswap toram=filesystem.squashfs ip= net.ifnames=0
nosplash findiso=$isofile
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img

----- test-iso.cfg -----
set isofile="/bootable/test.iso"
set gfxpayload=keep
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live live-config live-media-path=/live
quiet toram=filesystem.squashfs findiso=$isofile --
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.lz

Data for xxx.cfg are from grub.cfg in xxx.iso

Clonezilla runs from RAM, filesystem on HD is released.
Some ISO may not correctly release filesystem it was booted from.
The filesystem check will produce "Dirty bit is set" (not with ISOs in
this example).

[1.AAC0831]

On 12/30/21 5:41 AM, Steve Mysterious wrote:
> Mint 20.2 Uma
> Cinnamon5.0.7
>
> I am interested in what other people think might be good for me to

> backup


EVERYTHING ... Several times over. Locally in one building,
locally in another building in case the first one burns down,
and "in the cloud" (preferably highly encrypted) too.

Servers - if Winders (yuk!) something like Macrium Reflect
at least twice a week. If Linux - a bit harder - but FileZilla
can make a mirror copy. (MX has a built-in utility that can
make an ISO of the existing situation).

Doesn't hurt to make completely separate backups of your
most important folders either.

Stagger the times. This increases the chance of having at
least one uncorrupted data set. There are some other
fairly simple tricks to detect if ransomware has been
active so you don't write trashed files over your
good backups.

In short, be paranoid - VERY paranoid - these days. Storage
space is CHEAP - your vital data/systems are NOT.

I currently have a Linux box that mirrors ALL changed files
on the NAS twice a day. That's about all it does. Rsync does
90% of the work. Dirt cheap - yesteryears motherboard, takes
about an hour. Even have SAMBA set up - just commented out -
so it CAN become the functional NAS pretty quick if needed.
Just run a a shell script and ............

[Robert Heller]

Yes indeed. Since I use LVM, I always just keep the whole root file system
and create a new one when I do a fresh install. I can then mount the old root
readonly and compare old and new /etc files to make sure things are configured
properly. If one is not doing that, it should be possible to restore the old
root FS to a spare disk or partition and mount that readonly to compare things
as needed to make things are configured properly or to get anything missing,
etc.

[The Natural Philosopher]

This is particularly relevant when porting old code to new
installations...when e.g. PHP has changed the defaults in the upgrade
and short quotes no longer work....or you forgot that you had changed
some other constant to get it all to work.


--
The biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 31/12/2021 05:24, 1.AAC0831 wrote:
> I currently have a Linux box that mirrors ALL changed files
>   on the NAS twice a day. That's about all it does. Rsync does
>   90% of the work. Dirt cheap - yesteryears motherboard, takes
>   about an hour. Even have SAMBA set up - just commented out -
>   so it CAN become the functional NAS pretty quick if needed.
>   Just run a a shell script and ............

*applause*. That's the right way... since you never know what will fail,
copy everything

It is in the end quicker and simpler than figuring out all the
dependencies...

[TJ]

That's what I do, except that I don't use Mint Cinnamon, or Time Shift,
or a USB drive for the job. :-)

I use Mageia Plasma, and Lucky Backup. I have a hot-swap tray-less SATA
drive rack that will accommodate either a 3.5-inch or 2,5-inch drive,
and will do data transfers at SATA speeds.

But, I back up my /home drive, except for caches and such, and don't
worry about the system. As a member of the Mageia QA team, I've done
hundreds of test installs over the years, and so one more would make
little difference. I tend to make minimal customization of my installs,
especially system-wide, so I'm not worried about restoring that.

One thing, though. Stuff I definitely want to keep private and can't
stand to lose, like financial information (I do my own taxes), isn't
kept on my home computer, and it is backed up separately on several
flash drives that are kept in several places. The data in /home I would
hate to lose, but it wouldn't be catastrophic if it happened.

TJ

[Jack Strangio]

Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com> writes:
> I am interested in what other people think might be good for me to make regular backups of.
>

Mint 20.2 MATE

I have a 'localhostbak' script that I use nightly to back up the following:

-- Personal /home/<user> directory -

This contains only stuff that I am actively working on, plus personal
documents. I try to keep this directory below about 12GB. These /home
backups are tarred and compressed and those are then split into 2GIG files
that are capable of being transferred on FAT filesystem thumbdrives.

I do not store stuff like photos, music, computer programs sources, magazine
PDFs, etc in my /home directory; they belong in an archive partition, and
are backed up separately on a daily basis.


-- /usr/local directory -

Contains some individual stuff that I like to keep, but not a lot.


-- /etc directory -

Contains most of the system's config files


-- Dump of mysql databases (mainly taxation data, plus a few others) -


-- Personal git repositories -

Contains personal source files


-- Mint/Debian list of installed packages -

Contains both the initial system packages plus my extra Synaptic-loaded
packages.


-- Crontabs -

Both root and personal crontabs.


-- Firewall configuration -


-- EFI partition backup -

I have been known to stuff up my EFI configurations rarely. This has been
worth its weight in gold at those trying times.


Partition table of main system disk -

Just in case I need to reconstruct a damaged partition table. But have never
done that yet.

-- Some other intrinsic info

Not really part of the backup, more for ID purposes when looking at the
backup directory at a later date.


I store these backups in numbered and dated directories that are aged and
removed according to a 'reverse exponential' (for want of a better term)
algorithm. There are more of the recent backups, and fewer of the older
backups. This set goes back almost 10 years, and is stored in only 13
directories:

11G 0000-120623centrepoint
11G 2048-180131centrepoint
16G 2560-190627centrepoint
14G 3072-201120centrepoint
9.6G 3328-210803centrepoint
7.7G 3392-211006centrepoint
8.5G 3424-211107centrepoint
8.5G 3456-211209centrepoint
8.7G 3472-211225centrepoint
8.6G 3476-211229centrepoint
8.6G 3478-211231centrepoint
8.6G 3479-220101centrepoint
8.6G 3480-220102centrepoint

Looking at the 3480-220102centrepoint backup directory, these are the
contents:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30 Jan 2 01:10 backup.time.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 43K Jan 2 01:39 debian.pkgs.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3M Jan 2 01:38 etc.centrepoint.220102.tgz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.3G Jan 2 01:39 git.220102.tgz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0G Jan 2 01:35 jvs.centrepoint.220102.tgz-a
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0G Jan 2 01:36 jvs.centrepoint.220102.tgz-b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0G Jan 2 01:36 jvs.centrepoint.220102.tgz-c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2G Jan 2 01:36 jvs.centrepoint.220102.tgz-d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.3K Jan 2 01:10 jvs_crontab.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 2 01:10 Linux_Mint_20.2_Uma
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 98M Jan 2 01:10 local.centrepoint.220102.tgz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 554 Jan 2 01:39 my_installed_pkgs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.3M Jan 2 01:10 mysql.centrepoint.220102.sql
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.6K Jan 2 01:39 new-system-etc-copy
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.9K Jan 2 01:39 partition_tables.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.5K Jan 2 01:10 root_bashrc.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.9K Jan 2 01:10 root_crontab.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260M Jan 2 01:38 sda2-EFI.centrepoint.220102.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.5K Jan 2 01:39 ufw_status.centrepoint.220102
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 109 Jan 2 01:39 uname-a.centrepoint.220102


With that stuff backed up, I can rebuild a crashed system disk within less
than 2 hours to get back to how things were at the time of that last backup.
I have done this several times, especially as I prefer to install a new
version of the OS 'from clean' rather than an OS version update.


I mentioned before that the archive directory is where all sorts of 'write
once, keep forever' stuff is stored. (music, photos, computer sources,
videos, print publications, etc, etc, etc) Those directories plus the daily
backups as mentioned above get rsynced daily to several external USB
drives.

Regards,

Jack.
--
"My mother says I don't know what good, clean fun is.
She's right. I don't know what good it is."

- Laugh-In, 1968

[Carlos E.R.]

On 30/12/2021 21.16, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Thu, 30 Dec 2021 11:11:43 -0800 (PST) Steve Mysterious <tink...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Thursday, December 30, 2021 at 7:46:35 AM UTC-5, Robert Heller wrote:
>>>> Should I back up other things?
>>> There will be some system-wide settings under /etc/ that might be worth
>>> backing up.
>>
>> It is my home box. I never make system wide settings myself.
>>
>> Given that would there by anything time consuming in /etc that I would miss with installing the OS fresh and restoring my home directory from a backup?
>
> There will a number of things in /etc, including things like the hostname
> (/etc/hostname), there will be user authentification info
> (/etc/passwd,/etc/group,/etc/shadow). There might be other things under /etc
> -- this is the location of a whole range of overall system coniguration. Most
> of this is set up during the installation process -- Linux installers
> typically ask a bunch of questions, like the hostname and what you want for a
> username and password. Other things like network set up, including WiFi setup
> are also stored under /etc/. Some of that info might be worth backing up,
> even when you do a fresh re-install, since it can save some tedious work to
> reconfigure.

Setup of sound, printer, scanner.
Network settings, even for ethernet.
Credentials for wifi settings, in some cases.

In my case, I have postfix to setup, because I use it to send email in
background. And I also have a local imap server.

Ah, and I have an MySQL database of books.

--
Cheers, Carlos.