Backing up Ubuntu

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 1 Jul 2019 14:25:34 -0600, compdoc wrote:
>On 7/1/19 1:51 PM, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users wrote:
>
>> I guess we need to clarify the semantic of the term "snapshot".  
>In this case, snapshots are what timeshift calls its backups. Its not 
>related to the file system kind.

IMO a backup should be idiot prove. At least using ext... or resier and
MBR - no LVM, maybe GPT instead or MBR - 'dd'ing MBRs - I don't know
what to do when using GPT - and avoiding incremental/differentila
backups, by using cp or tar is idiot prove. Backups of the MBR might
fail to restore the bootloader, but apart from this, you could restore
everything either on an equal drive or by not restoring the MBR, but
just copying back from a cp or by extracting from a tar, even to a
completely different drive, without the risk of an user error, caused
by a misunderstanding how rsync or a snapshot of something complicated
such as LVM works, let alone the pitfalls a "smart" but opaque backup
tool might inherit.

It's important, if we just want to backup data or a complete install
and perhaps partition symmetrie as well. Backups of data only, are a
little bit easier to achieve.

IMO basic command line tools, run with superuser privilegs are the best
thing to use, otherwise we risk to run into issues of pseudo-backups,
as we know from Android and iOS devices, where backups aren't backups
that could be used to restore everything, where "backup" is just a
misleading term for something more or less useless.