How to back up a system?

Question

If I want to make a backup of my entire OS (including but not just my home directory), how do I go about this?

Is it as simple as backing up everything in / and then when if I suffer a crash, just copying the files back over?
Will this cover grub, and how do I actually do this when the system is inoperable?

Answer 1

FILES

Refer to this howto: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087

In simple terms, the backup command is: sudo tar czf /backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz --exclude=/home --exclude=/media --exclude=/dev --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/proc --exclude=/tmp /. Add more --exclude= parameters if you need to.

It will create an archive of all your files at /backup.tar.gz, which you can then copy over to another computer/drive and restore your files if the install goes pear-shaped. You can do it from a LiveCD, by mounting the "bad" system under /media or /mnt and running tar xf /path/to/drive/with/backup.tar.gz -C /mnt (substitute for the actual path to the "bad" system).

GRUB

This will not cover GRUB, however you can easily reinstall it by following this guide here. You only need to do steps Three and Four.

Answer 2

Try Remastersys.
With that program you can do liveCD (just the same as Ubuntu installation iso file) of your system with ability to install it on hard drive. Works pretty simple (if you know how to burn iso to USB/CD/DVD).
Works perfectly on my 11.10 and 11.04, and older ones as well.

Installation:
edit file /etc/apt/sources.list
add: # Remastersys
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository karmic/ and save
Then run in terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install remastersys

Answer 3

You can use Remastersys to create a bootable live CD/DVD image. This will install like a normal Ubuntu CD.

To install Remastersys, you first need to add a repository:

deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository karmic/

You can then install it from the Software Centre as usual.

Once installed, use it to make a 'dist' backup. This means that user data will be excluded from the ISO image.

This is often used to create custom distributions but is still useful for the backup task you have in mind. One caveat is that it may fail if the contents of / (minus user data in /home) takes up too much memory because the ISO file format can only hold ~4GB data. Remastersys uses a file system called squashfs to compress your data so you should be OK with up to ~8GB.

Answer 4

Here is a good tutorial using PartImage.

Answer 5

go to ubuntu software center find Déjà Dup backup manger install it`` run it and give path where to backup your data select files to be backup make a back up

later on you can chose backup by giving location of your external hard drive gud luck source [https://launchpad.net/deja-dup]

Answer 6

To clone your system to another system.Or make a backup. In terminal type

      dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall > ubuntu-files

this command makes a file list of all installed packages in ur system(and stores it in present working directory).Backup this file in hdd,email, etc...(file is very small)

in the freshly installed ubuntu system

run

      sudo dpkg --set-selections <./ubuntu-files (will set it up and)

      apt-get -y update
      apt-get dselect-upgrade

will install only those packages you had installed (with apt-get) in the older system.

                                    (OR)

u could back up all the .deb packages from /var/cache/apt/archives/ and install them manually.

using

      dpkg -i *.deb

and after that running an update cycle later.

Answer 7

Crashplan will back up all your system files and data and allow you to recover it - either on your current PC or allow you to adopt it to another install.

You can back up to their online system, another computer or any attached hard drive.

Answer 8

If you hard-disk where Ubuntu is installed isn't too big, you can try booting from a live cd (any linux distro will do) and running:

    dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/external/hardisk/mybackupfile

This makes a backup of your whole hard-disk, not just Ubuntu, and it'll also do all the empty bytes, but it's the only solution I can think of. To restore the backup, use:

  dd if=/path/to/external/harddisk/mybackupfile of=/dev/sda

Answer 9

I have found you a detailed and recent how to on using Clonezilla. Clonezilla will let you make an image of your complete system including all hard drive partitions etc and later restore it.

The tutorial is at http://geekyprojects.com/cloning/how-to-use-clonezilla-tutorial/

Answer 10

Noone noticed clonezilla. It makes a complete image of your hard drive, so it backups absolutely everything. It's as easy as burning an iso or creating a bootable flash drive.

The actual backup takes a while, but is the most reliable.

Answer 11

I use a program called Back In Time that's similar to Apple's Time Machine.

It's easy to tell it where you want your backups to go and how often to do the backup.

Back In Time is in the Ubuntu repos.