Creating a backup SD card

[Simon Still]

I had my first major failure yesterday.  I made a few changes to the config and the Miniserver went into a reboot loop which repeated power cycling wouldn't solve*.  I couldn't find the extra OS card I bought (I've put it somewhere 'safe' - make sure you know where yours is! but luckily had another 4GB card around I could format and I'm back up and running.

However, the Loxone instructions take you back to an 'empty' miniserver.  Is there any way to keep a card of 'last known working config' as a backup?  When you're formatting the card in Loxone it shows available backups but has an instruction not to copy them to the card. 

* issue appears to be with the Alarm Clock block.  Setting an alarm got a 'poor signal' messages in the iOS app.  I've just rebuilt my config to that point and it seems to be doing it again.  Updating config and firmware now to try again.

[Duncan]

as far as i can see, its a 2 step process

1) when you want a backup copy, use loxone config to create a backup - 'maintenance, backup'

2) format the spare sd card and choose the backup you just made - 'maintenance, format sd card'

stick it to the front of the miniserver with tape

[smartbusinesstools.be]

Using Loxone Config to create a backup is a manual process, while what we (an Loxone) really are trying to do is to automate everything. You can also not expect from every end-user to be able to use Loxone Config, or the installer/partner to connect to the client's system on a regular basis to create a backup. Loxone allows more and more configuration to be changed via the app by the and-user, so more frequent backups are needed.

An automated backup solution is to connect to the Miniserver's file system via an FTP client and copy over the required files. A NAS (we use QNAP) can easily do that and keep multiple versions.

Restoring to a blank new sd card would be to format the sd cards and create a blank install, and then copying over the required files via FTP from your backup versions.

I'll check with Loxone which files are required as a minimum (to make the backup fast and small)

[Simon Still]

Bump on this thread.  My miniserver has run for the last year without any stability issues but I still don't have a SD card backup 

[Zathras]

Another bump.

I'm interested in getting an automated backup SD setup, or at least an always up to date folder ready to create an SD.

A while ago I had a failure where the SD card corrupted, this was overnight while we slept which was not fun as we woke up late with a dead house - both dark and cold; no lights or working switches, no heating or hot water and no way to set the security alarm on leaving.   Not a good start to a work day morning...

On recovering my last SD backup I found that I'd lost a lot of configuration as I'd made major updates to the autopilots and things like schedules for heating via tablet app since last being in the loxone config.   It was really painful trying to work out what had changed, especially since it evolves over time and not easy to re-create in one sitting.  I also noted that we lost such items as the doorbell history / images etc. 

Although I'm much more proactive in making sure there is a new backup every time I use loxone config nowadays, I'm still aware that there can be some major changes worked into the system via autopilots and such that would be painful to lose again.   Thus have a desire to automate a backup.

[Aleš Berka]

Hi,
If you have linux pc or raspberry around, use this script (scheduled via cron):

#!/bin/bash

LOGIN=loxoneman
PASS=hurdlygurdly
LOXONE_IP=192.168.1.7

cd /home/MYLOGIN/backup/loxone

## http://stackoverflow.com/questions/113886/how-to-recursively-download-a-folder-via-ftp-on-linux
## mirror FTP to Loxone.dum folder
#  echo "Starting Loxone backup"
wget --quiet -r -N -l inf ftp://$LOGIN:$PASS@$LOXONE_IP

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    #tar cfj dump-$(date +"%Y%m%d_%H%M%S").tar.bz2 192.168.1.7/
    /usr/local/bin/rar a loxone-backup-$(date +"%Y%m%d_%H%M%S") -m5 -ma5 -s -r -y -idq $LOXONE_IP
else
    echo Loxone backup failed to download from FTP
fi

It is rather effective, it doesn't download unchanged files over and over again. First backup will take a bit longer, all others will be pretty quick.

Feel free to adjust to your needs, to use compression of your choice etc.

Best regards,
Aleš

[Zathras]

Works a treat, thanks!

Out of interest, why did you switch from TAR to RAR?