[Gllug] backing up an Ubuntu system.

[Philip Hands]

On Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:45:59 +0000, Gary Pocklington <gary.pocklington.t21 at btinternet.com> wrote:
...
> I would like to be able to do two things. Backup the system and data 
> separately. As an example before any updates are applied to the system I 
> would like to secure the system before applying. So, that I can restore 
> if there any problems. I would also like to backup my own personal data 
> on a regular basis.

Not what you're asking for, but perhaps what you want:

  etckeeper

It checks the contents of /etc into a git repository (oh, you said
Ubuntu, so that'll be bzr on there by default, but if you've got any
sense you'll set it back to using git as is proper ;-)

Anyway, it has hooks for committing the state of the files in /etc
before and after each lot of installs or removes of packages, and of
course if you're being diligent you can also commit your changes as you
go along, with useful comments.

Another nice trick is to rename the master branch after the machine, and
then if you want to set up a similar system you can fetch its repository
into the new machine's and do stuff like diffs and checking out specific
files from the other machine.  (obviously, this is a bit of a security
issue if the new machine is more vulnerable than the old, and because
you're effectively copying the shadow password around, but often that's
not really important).

It also lets you push the repository elsewhere, for what amounts to a
system backup in very short order, except that it doesn't include the
list of installed packages by default (I set up a cron job to drop the
output of dpkg --get-selections into /etc somewhere if I'm not using
cfengine for some reason)

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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