Questions tagged [backup]

Backup is the activity of copying files or databases so that they will be preserved in case of equipment failure or other catastrophe. This tag covers restoring from backup as well.

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362 votes
6 answers
648k views

How do I make rsync delete files that have been deleted from the source folder?

I recently set up a machine with Ubuntu Server to host game servers. I installed a backup plugin for each game server that creates frequent backups of game world files in a particular folder on the ...
user254251's user avatar
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343 votes
38 answers
305k views

Comparison of backup tools

This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions ...
336 votes
15 answers
310k views

How to backup settings and list of installed packages

If I want to make a backup of everything I have done since the fresh install of Ubuntu, what are the possible options? What all should I backup? I want to get all the settings that I changed, all the ...
n1kh1lp's user avatar
  • 3,461
224 votes
12 answers
830k views

How to make a disk image and restore from it later?

I'm a new Linux user. I've reinstalled my Wubi from scratch at least ten times the last few weeks because while getting the system up and running (drivers, resolution, etc.) I've broken something (X, ...
Torben Gundtofte-Bruun's user avatar
198 votes
7 answers
188k views

What's the difference between .tar.gz and .gz, or .tar.7z and .7z?

Recently, I've been backing up a lot of my data, and I noticed that I can save files as .gz or .tar.gz, or .7z and .tar.7z, etcetera. What are the differences between the normal one and the .tar.* ...
Exeleration-G's user avatar
175 votes
21 answers
370k views

How to back up my entire system?

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 ...
Will's user avatar
  • 3,363
173 votes
10 answers
223k views

Mount single partition from image of entire disk (device)

I made an image of my entire disk with dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/external_media/sda.img Now the problem is I'd like to mount an ext4 filesystem that was on that disk but mount -t ext4 -o loop /media/...
Nicola Feltrin's user avatar
147 votes
1 answer
236k views

How do I extract a specific file from a tar archive?

Is it possible to restore a single file from the .tar backup? I don't want to restore total backup. I just want to restore one single file from the backup.
Raja G's user avatar
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114 votes
8 answers
328k views

Moving entire Linux installation to another drive

I have Ubuntu 14.04 with a lot of packages and work-related stuff that I am very happy with it. It is installed on my main SSD drive which is a 120GB one (I had chosen "/" when I installed ...
Dumbo's user avatar
  • 1,912
77 votes
5 answers
50k views

Where are GNOME keyboard shortcuts stored?

I usually load a new version for every release to keep my OS fresh while preserving the last version on another partition as backup. I also employ a lot of custom key mappings. I've figured out how to ...
Evan Plaice's user avatar
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65 votes
6 answers
20k views

What's a good back-up strategy for 1 desktop PC?

No, this is not a comparison of back-up tools, nor is it a solicitation on What to backup or Why and only a little bit about Where to backup and When to do it. This is basically a strategy question: ...
Fabby's user avatar
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64 votes
5 answers
144k views

How do I move (copy) my entire Ubuntu system to a different hard disk?

The HDD I have my Ubuntu installed is about to fail. I would rather not lose 3 years worth of data, customisation and apps. I am looking for a way to move the complete system (SWAP included, because I'...
boywithaxe's user avatar
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57 votes
2 answers
182k views

Command pg_dump not found?

I was trying to make a backup in a server and I got the error: pg_dump command not found I thought that if you had postgres installed, it worked. What I have to do to install this command? I do not ...
forvas's user avatar
  • 775
48 votes
9 answers
88k views

How to automatically archive a directory?

I want to do one way synchronization. I am having Folder A on my computer which is constantly updated with content. Another Folder B is used for backup purpose which is on external HDD. Now what I ...
BhaveshDiwan's user avatar
48 votes
5 answers
82k views

Encrypt tar.gz file on create

I have a script which creates a nightly backup of several directories. It is created using tar -czf, and the destination tar.gz file path is on a mounted network directory. The resulting file is ...
Joel L's user avatar
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47 votes
4 answers
24k views

What files and directories can be excluded from a backup of the home directory?

Duplicity does already a great job of making efficient backups, but I want still to minimize the amount of files being back-upped. What files or directories can be excluded in a home directory? ...
45 votes
9 answers
45k views

Which Folders To Include In backup?

I'm quite new to Ubuntu and want to create a backup. I'm really not sure what files and folders to include so that if I restore my system it will be as it is now. I can't seem to find good details of ...
Jason's user avatar
  • 451
44 votes
3 answers
54k views

How do I backup ssh keys?

I am planning to do a fresh install of ubuntu 11.10 in my system. Before that i have setuped key based ssh authentication in this machine. Is it possible to take backup of those ssh keys, so that i ...
karthick87's user avatar
44 votes
4 answers
10k views

What are the alternatives to Ubuntu One? [closed]

Since canonical is shutting down Ubuntu One, what are the possible alternatives? I currently use Ubuntu One as a backup service for my Documents folder and various other folders I deem important. Of ...
Gx1sptDTDa's user avatar
  • 1,673
44 votes
3 answers
26k views

What is safe to exclude for a full system backup?

I'm looking for a list which paths/files are safe to exclude for a full system/home backup. Considering that I have a list of installed packages. /home/*/.thumbnails /home/*/.cache /home/*/.mozilla/...
seb's user avatar
  • 2,341
42 votes
2 answers
58k views

Why can't I copy a 5G file?

I'm trying to backup my VirtualBox, but when I try to copy the .VirtualBox directory to my external hard drive I get an "File too large" error: [130 amanda@luna ~]$ cp -r .VirtualBox /media/LACIE/...
Amanda's user avatar
  • 9,363
41 votes
1 answer
19k views

What is the default 'backup' user for?

I am setting up multiple-machine backup plan and I was hoping to use a user called 'backup' on each machine as the backup destination. My problem is, there is already a user called 'backup' on my ...
Stephen RC's user avatar
  • 4,812
40 votes
6 answers
84k views

How to migrate the whole system to a new machine?

I use ubuntu to deal with daily job. Now I buy a new laptop, and I want to migrate my whole system(programs, packages, data, settings, etc) to the new machine. I know I can copy my home folder to new ...
Lai Yu-Hsuan's user avatar
38 votes
4 answers
96k views

Backup your home directory with rsync and skip useless folders

You can easyly backup your home folder on an external harddrive with rsync -a --exclude=.cache --progress /home/$USER/ /media/linuxbackup/home/$USER/ I excluded the .cache folder cause I think I will ...
rubo77's user avatar
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37 votes
4 answers
106k views

How to list user installed applications (not packages)?

Not packages and not all applications. Just the applications user installed by himself from whatever source (Software Center, manually added PPA, etc.). If the above is not possible - a list of all ...
Bucic's user avatar
  • 4,044
33 votes
2 answers
36k views

Rsync with special character files not working between Mac and Linux

I want to use rsync to backup my Ubuntu server with a disk residing on a Mac. But I do not get it to work properly, since every time I re-run the rsync operation after the initial time, the files with ...
Nick The Swede's user avatar
30 votes
4 answers
27k views

Where does Deja-dup keep its config files?

Deja-dup (now Ubuntu Backup) is just a GUI for duplicity, therefore it should store the config files somewhere. I would like to changed the backup volume size to something like 300MB and the increase ...
ECII's user avatar
  • 3,957
30 votes
5 answers
9k views

How can I backup my PPAs?

Related to this question. But my concern is that over the past year, most of my more interesting (or used) applications are from PPAs, and just backing up my sources list won't add the associated ...
Scaine's user avatar
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30 votes
3 answers
31k views

How to backup/clone Windows creating a recovery image using Ubuntu

I bought a new laptop with Windows installed on it. I'm going to wipe all partitions and install Ubuntu. One day I'll probably sell that laptop, so it'll be nice to recover it to the manufacturer ...
tomrozb's user avatar
  • 511
30 votes
8 answers
3k views

How to keep "dot files" under version control?

Etckeeper is a great tool for keeping track of changes to your configuration files in /etc. A few key things about it really stand out. It can be used with a wide variety of VCSs: git, mercurial, ...
andrewsomething's user avatar
30 votes
2 answers
63k views

Setting up LVM Snapshot as a backup/restore point in ubuntu

Setting up LVM Snapshot as a backup/restore point in ubuntu. Why? Well, as I see it, with all the great usefulness of Linux, its biggest drawback is with its mixed up way of installing apps. All the ...
rub's user avatar
  • 538
28 votes
3 answers
39k views

How to make a btrfs snapshot?

My /home partition consists of an entire physical disk. It is formatted as btrfs. I want to snapshot it. I'm confused regarding subvolume naming, in particular. I am aware that there are similar ...
MountainX's user avatar
  • 5,829
27 votes
5 answers
102k views

How do I create a bit identical image of a usb stick?

I have a usb stick which is unreadable for some reason. I want to make an image of it for storage purposes so I can try to retrieve the data from the image at a later date. How would I go about ...
oshirowanen's user avatar
  • 3,977
27 votes
6 answers
23k views

How to prevent deja-dup-monitor from running, or completely delete it?

My ubuntu is dead after a few minutes because a process called deja-dup-monitor consumes almost 7 GB memory. I searched the internet and found that it seems to be used for backups and related to the "...
user280121's user avatar
27 votes
5 answers
34k views

How can I backup my programs/applications, so that after I reinstall a new one, I can still use the backup-ed ones?

Is there a way, that I could backup all my programs, all apps, put them in a directory or something, so that I could install them quickly next time, without having to manually going over the app ...
VeXe's user avatar
  • 423
26 votes
1 answer
25k views

Is it possible to unset root password?

Is it possible to unset the root password once it has been set in ubuntu? Am trying to run a backup using Arcserve R16 backups agents. I run it as the admin user but of course it does not have root ...
user avatar
26 votes
12 answers
11k views

Can I ignore files by pattern in deja-dup (Backup)?

My Déjà Dup backups have become quiet large and I noticed they contain a huge number of unnecessary files (e.g. *.pyc files, **__pycache__ folders and other build related temporary stuff). I know ...
Brutus's user avatar
  • 864
25 votes
7 answers
16k views

Deja Dup`s "Back Up Now" button is not highlighted

I have setup my backup folder and put the Automatic backups switch to on. In the Overview tab I cant press the "Back Up Now" because it is grayed out. I am using Ubuntu 11.10 and here is the content ...
01BTC10's user avatar
  • 681
25 votes
4 answers
118k views

Backup files with rsync: error 23

I'm trying to make a backup of my /home to transfer all data from one computer to another. I wanted to save the backup on the same computer and than transfere it to another one. For safety reasons, I'...
maria's user avatar
  • 1,997
24 votes
5 answers
16k views

How can I back up my repositories?

I want to backup all the repositories I added to the Ubuntu Software Center, but apparently sources.list contains only the ones which belong to Canonical. So where do I find the other ones?
user avatar
24 votes
1 answer
5k views

How to backup/restore system custom keyboard shortcuts?

Is it possible to backup the custom keyboard shortcuts and restore them when doing a fresh install?
orschiro's user avatar
  • 13.3k
24 votes
8 answers
43k views

Why is this rsync + ssh cron job giving me 'Permission denied (publickey)' errors?

I make frequent backups to a local drive which I want to sync daily to a remote server. The target server is configured for SSH key (no password) access only. Since my primary SSH key for that server ...
Tom Brossman's user avatar
  • 13.1k
24 votes
2 answers
9k views

How migrate my keyring (containing ssh passprases, nautilus remote filesystem, pgp passwords) and network manager connections?

I changed the disk on my laptop and installed Ubuntu on the new disk. Old disk had 12.04 upgraded to 12.10 on it. Now I want to copy my old keyring with WiFi passwords, ftp passwords for nautilus and ...
con-f-use's user avatar
  • 18.8k
23 votes
3 answers
3k views

What can I use to automate backups of Gmail?

I'd like to automate the process of locally backing up my Gmail account, and am looking for a solution that: can be scheduled to run in the background does not cause messages to be marked as read ...
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.8k
22 votes
8 answers
15k views

Backup whole OS

I have to format my entire disk and reinstall Ubuntu. I have installed a lot of software on my current system. And I will have to reinstall all those updates, drivers and applications too. Is there ...
Avinash Sonawane's user avatar
22 votes
4 answers
166k views

Bash script not executing from crontab [duplicate]

I have the following bash script: #!/bin/bash mysqldump -u ******** -p******** --all-databases | gzip > /home/srvlinux01/MySQLBackups/database_$(date +\%Y-\%m-\%d).sql.gz which is located in /...
Mateusz Kapusta's user avatar
22 votes
4 answers
10k views

How can I set up hourly Deja-Dup backups?

Is there a way I get the amazing Deja-dup to make me hourly backups in addition to daily, weekly, biweekly etc? If not, is there something else that I could use instead?
jrg's user avatar
  • 60.6k
21 votes
5 answers
32k views

How do I open Deja Dup as root?

I wanted to backup /var/cache/apt/archives using 'Deja Dup' but it keeps saying >> Could not backup the following files. Please make sure you are able to open them. /var/cache/apt/archives/lock ...
Mohd Arafat Hossain's user avatar
21 votes
2 answers
34k views

what is the default location for backup files of another server

I have an Ubuntu Server and one of its "tasks" is to mirror/backup files located on another server in a different location using rsync/rdiff-backup. I know there are some conventions like web pages ...
andi's user avatar
  • 313
21 votes
1 answer
7k views

How to backup GNOME terminal emulator settings?

I made some custom GNOME-Terminal settings and profiles, and I want to preserve those after reinstalling Ubuntu. What do I have to save to backup my settings, and how do I reapply them afterwards? ...
red_trumpet's user avatar
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