Backing Up Ubuntu with default software

[BrownZeus]

Hey all, 

 

fairly simple question, is ubuntu's baked in backup software compatible for newer versions?

 

Basically 18.04 came out, and I'm on 16.04. The baked in version upgrader isn't working for whatever reason. I wanna backup my current 16.04 data, and do a fresh install. So I just wanted to know if anyone knew if the default ubuntu backup software can take data from a 16.04 system and restore to a new 18.04 system

 

TIA

 

PS. Googling just resulted in a bunch of posts saying to use clonezilla or something similar

[Wild Penquin]

Hi BrownZeus,

 

Haven't used Ubuntus backup software, and what do you mean with this "baked in" software? More specifically what is the utility / software actually called? Most probably it doesn't use any proprietary format, but just automatizes the backups.

 

I like to do my backups manually. I have been in the process of automating this for years, but I'm lazy ;-). Well, it is kind of automated, and when I had a file system crash (a Kernel bug!), I almost lost stuff, but in the end, didn't since the schemes I had in place specifically protected from a total (single) hard disk failure ;-).

 

What is you partition layout and what do you specifically need to back up? If you have a separate /home, just don't format it during install and you're good to go (it doesn't hurt to back up beforehand important data in any case).

[jde3]

It might be Gnome Backup now in ubuntu. It uses Duplicity in it's backend, and yes. You can restore Duplicity without Duplicity if needed. http://duplicity.nongnu.org/ (tho complicated, it's possible)

 

This only applies to Gnome Backup.. You can use that if you want and it does a fine job but it's intended for incremental remote encrypted backups. It's intended to be used every day or every week. etc.

 

If you just want a plain zip file.. Unless you've done modifications to the system all you need to backup is your home dir is a simple tar command like.

 

tar cjvpf username.homedir.tar.bz2 /home/username

 

will just create a tarball of the archive.

 

The options there mean.

C compress, J use bzip, V, be verbose, P retain permissions, F write this file.

 

Decompress with
 

cd /home

tar xjvpf /path/to/username.homedir.tar.bz2

 

 

A good offsite backup solution for Linux is Tarsnap. works pretty much the same as tar. (paid tho, this would be a better solution than writing gnome backup/duplicity images to dropbox)

[BrownZeus]

6 hours ago, Wild Penquin said:

Hi BrownZeus,

 

Haven't used Ubuntus backup software, and what do you mean with this "baked in" software? More specifically what is the utility / software actually called? Most probably it doesn't use any proprietary format, but just automatizes the backups.

 

I like to do my backups manually. I have been in the process of automating this for years, but I'm lazy ;-). Well, it is kind of automated, and when I had a file system crash (a Kernel bug!), I almost lost stuff, but in the end, didn't since the schemes I had in place specifically protected from a total (single) hard disk failure ;-).

 

What is you partition layout and what do you specifically need to back up? If you have a separate /home, just don't format it during install and you're good to go (it doesn't hurt to back up beforehand important data in any case).

The software is called simply "Backups", its installed with Ubuntu.

 

2 hours ago, jde3 said:

It might be Gnome Backup now in ubuntu. It uses Duplicity in it's backend, and yes. You can restore Duplicity without Duplicity if needed. http://duplicity.nongnu.org/ (tho complicated, it's possible)

 

This only applies to Gnome Backup.. You can use that if you want and it does a fine job but it's intended for incremental remote encrypted backups. It's intended to be used every day or every week. etc.

 

If you just want a plain zip file.. Unless you've done modifications to the system all you need to backup is your home dir is a simple tar command like.

 

tar cjvpf username.homedir.tar.bz2 /home/username

 

will just create a tarball of the archive.

 

The options there mean.

C compress, J use bzip, V, be verbose, P retain permissions, F write this file.

 

Decompress with
 

cd /home

tar xjvpf /path/to/username.homedir.tar.bz2

 

 

A good offsite backup solution for Linux is Tarsnap. works pretty much the same as tar. (paid tho, this would be a better solution than writing gnome backup/duplicity images to dropbox)

Thanks for the info!!

[jde3]

41 minutes ago, BrownZeus said:

The software is called simply "Backups", its installed with Ubuntu.

Ya, thats kind of Gnome's thing. In the About pane it might say Deja Dup.. Deja Dup=Gnome Backup.

 

Why two different names? The name changes when it becomes the default in Gnome.

[vargvikernes]

Just use rsync

[Fetzie]

I'd wrap everything up in a tar ball to preserve permissions and ownership and then stick that on a network drive or USB stick.

 

If you just use the backup software or rsync and it goes on a Windows server then you might find file meta data goes missing.