backup

[NoOp]

On 07/07/2009 07:01 AM, Daryl Styrk wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 09:07:02PM -0700, NoOp wrote:
...
>> Why not just use an existing folder. But OK.
> 
> Because we are making something we can trash over and over again.  If they
> are here asking about backups obviously smoking /home, /Music or
> /Wedding_Photos while we learn might make for a bad week.  
> 
Makes sense.
> 
....
>> Sorry, but IMO your example provides no useful information on how to
>> actually perform a full system backup to an external drive.

> 
> rsync is a superior cp command.  In linux everything is a file. Including
> your CD/DVD drive, all hard drives, the kernel, everything.  Modify your /dest 
> as you see fit.  Be it /dev/null /dev/sda1 /media/disk /mnt/MYBOOK . 
> You pick, linux does not care. Its a file. 

Yes. Understood.

> 
> You can drag and drop if you'd like, but it doesn't make much sense to
> copy the same files over and over and over again.  I have 60G of music.
> Why copy all 60G everyday when I might only add one album or a single
> track?  Even a worse idea when you start to move stuff across the network.   
> Make some big files and see how it works.. 

I tend to use Samba or sftp for files across the network via Nautilus
(including remote systems w/sftp). I do use grsync as I tend to mess up
cli commands w/rsync via the terminal & grsync provides for easy
'simulation' for testing first. Of course it doesn't work as well as cli
rsync for automatic backup etc., but for one-off's it does pretty well.

> 
> dd if=/dev/urandom of=$HOME/BIG_1 bs=1M count=300
> 
> No, my example does not provide a full system backup for anyone. My example 
> wasn't even intended to start assembling a backup.  My example was, make 
> some files, find a tool, and use the tool with some junk files to see how 
> things work.  Come ask questions when you get stuck. 
> 
> cp -r / /media/disk?  # asking for problems... loop.
> rsync -avh --exclude /media / /media/disk # why get /proc, or /tmp?
> 
> Too many more to go into, but thats what the man pages are for along with
> good old google.  So now that you know about the tools, go ahead and play
> with them.  There is no single backup solution for everyone.  So look at
> your options, decide on what you need and what you want to do and start
> pulling something together. 
> 
> Might make more sense to use rdiff-backup instead of rsync on /home/Documents.
> rsync is probably a better tool to move music.  dd might be better to
> clone /etc or /home for a reinstall.  Don't really know.  All depends. 
> 

Agreed & Darren & Fred have provided some good info/suggestions that
I'll try also. I guess my point was/is that man pages are good
resources, but sometimes (often) only make sense to those who wrote
them, or to those that are already familiar with the command/utility etc.
  I can pretty well guarantee that the OP (John) will have a difficult
time going that route; hence my suggestion to provide simple
instructions to help him accomplish what he's attempting to do. Thanks
again.