GSoC Proposal: Restore and backup utility

[Priyanka Sharma]

Hi
I am Priyanka Sharma, master student of Vrije University,Amsterdam.
I would like to work on gsoc2010 project : System restore and backup
utility.
For which I am thinking of DAR and UI something like Time machine in MAC.

Here is the draft of my GSoC applications. This is a initial draft about the
idea.
I would like to have some feedback on it.
================================================================================================
Name and Email Address:

Name: Priyanka Sharma
Email: sharmapriyanka5 at gmail.com,psa220 at few.vu.nl
IRC: pix1 on freenode
phone: +31619998626
Skype: sharmapriyakna


Institution and Location

School: Vrije University
Department: Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Address:

Resume,Bio, or CV

I strongly believe in learning through experimentation and am conscious of
my
responsibility to contribute effectively to my endeavors. I relish working
in
teams and am confident of my programming skills. I am always keen
to contribute to open source projects.  My interest towards research and
open
source projects led me to work on Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux,
Role-based
access control). I extended the SELinux framework and this project led to
two
international IEEE publication (for links, see resume).  This project
enhanced
my knowledge of the Operating systems,which will no doubt help me in this
project.
I have also have worked in GTK+ also for some other internal projects, which
would be
plus point for this project.

Currently, I am pursuing masters in "parallel and distributed systems" and I
have
been involved and worked on internals of many Operating systems like Plan9,
Linux .
Which makes me more familiar and experienced on OS related issues and
a good programmer also.

My Résumé can be found at
http://www.few.vu.nl/~psa220/priyanka_cv.pdf


Title

Ubuntu "System" Restore and Backup utility

Abstract

Why did I like the Idea?

I would like to work on the development of a restore and backup solution for
ubuntu.
This suite of tools would allow the user to take backups of specific
partition or
entire hard disks, in addition to being able to take snapshots of the states
periodically
for restoration at a later point. (like time machine in MAC)

Why will your proposal benefit Ubuntu?
This Utility would be very useful for Ubuntu users.Ubuntu currently lacks a
tool such
as this, and hence a user a user-friendly front-end to the tool would help
the non-technical
users in performing simple backups and rollback to their system(may be
similar to time machine).

Why are you interested in open-source?
I always been interested in working on open source projects. you can see my
open source
development in SELinux and other operating system called Plan9.

To see SElinux contribution:
http://pcss.sourceforge.net/

Papers:
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/ARES.2008.154
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/IAS.2007.17

For Plan9:
I have completed last year gsoc2009 project with Plan9 bell-labs.
http://www.glendix.org/gsoc/
committed code: http://bitbucket.org/kix/glendix-namespaces/

Availability

I am free for most, if not all, of the summer, and expect to be
free to work full time (40 hrs/wk).
I have completed my all courses and credits.
I will be in Amsterdam,The Netherlands and I will be just writing my thesis
in summer.

Schedule

Phase1: This phase involves interaction with mentor to identify the exact
requirements. What is
going to be done for rollback will be determined. Project infrastructure
will be decided in this
phase.

Phase2: In this phase I will improve the python binding to DAR and
PartImage, it will allow
python package to create backups and rollback in the DAR format.

Phase3: This phase involves the development of GTK+ frontend to the package
created in previous
phase, I will try to take idea from time machine in Mac for this. It may
also have a Daemon
running which provides regular backups or may be just reminders to take
backup.

Phase4: Now, we can add feature to use backup utility that can be invoked
before actually system
starts for "rescue".

Phase5: This phase includes testing all the aspects of the final tool.
Whatever is declared in proposal
and finalized with mentor is actually working or not.

References

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HomeUserBackup
http://dar.linux.free.fr/#pres
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page


Others

Have you applied for any other 2010 Summer of Code projects? If yes, which
ones?
Yes! I have participated and completed in Gsoc2009 with Plan9 bell-labs.

Why do you want to participate and why should Ubuntu choose you?
I am an active developer in several open source projects, the most prominent
of which are
mostly related to OS and distributed systems. My involvement with these
projects has brought me
an indepth knowledge of C, Gtk+ as well as general programming principles,
which I believe are
essential requirements for this project.
I have been dabbling around with Python for a few months and I have worked
in Python for my bachelor
internship projects also. I don't think you'll find me lacking in
any technical skills required for this project.

I would love to continue offering my services as a developer to Ubuntu even
after the Summer
of Code program concludes.
I have been participated last year Gsoc also and I have delivered all the
deliverable on time.
I believe my knowledge and experience definitely makes me an ideal candidate
for this project.

-- 
Thanks & Regards
Priyanka Sharma
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