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Idea #18605: Ubuntu needs easy-to-use, effective backup software

Written by John Karahalis the 14 Mar 09 at 01:47. Category: Quality. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Ubuntu should ship with backup software that is easy to use and effective at creating "snapshots" of the user's system.

283
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Solution #1: Write a GUI for rsnapshot
Written by John Karahalis the 14 Mar 09 at 01:47.
rsnapshot is an excellent piece of software that (much like Apple's Time Machine) allows a user to take "snapshots" of his or her system. Using rsnapshot, a user can create snapshots at any interval he wants: hourly, weekly, monthly, every 6 hours, or anything else that cron supports. Restoring from a previous snapshot is as easy as copy and paste.

The problem is that rsnapshot is not the easiest software to use, even for people who are comfortable with the command line. I suggest that Canonical write a GUI for rsnapshot and ship it with Ubuntu.

rsnapshot: http://rsnapshot.org/
168
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Solution #2: Wait for TimeVault to go stable
Written by cheesehead the 14 Mar 09 at 19:07.
Currently in alpha, TimeVault is a snapshot backup solution integrated into Nautilus. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault
-21
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Solution #4: Use duplicity and create a GUI for it, or use duplicati
Written by mackstann the 15 Mar 09 at 04:20.
Duplicity is an excellent piece of backup software and allows one to easily do cheap offsite backups using Amazon's S3 service.

Duplicati ( http://code.google.com/p/duplicati/ ) seems to be the only GUI front-end for it, and it seems to be in early development.
-51
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Solution #5: integrate Dropbox
Written by stefano the 16 Mar 09 at 18:42.
Dropbox is an easy [1] [2], secure [3], cheap [4] [5], based on Amazon S3 [6] and, last but not least, the nautilus client is GPL [7] !!!

and, but it's only an idea, Canonical colud be compensated for paying Dropbox Ubuntu users.

[1] http://www.getdropbox.com/tour
[2] http://www.getdropbox.com/screencast
[3] http://www.getdropbox.com/help/27
[4] http://www.getdropbox.com/help/47
[5] http://www.getdropbox.com/help/15
[6] http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/11/dropbox-the-online-storage-solution-weve-b een-waiting-for/
[7] http://www.getdropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx
55
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Solution #6: LuckyBackup, a GUI for rsync
Written by salih.emin the 19 Mar 09 at 01:24.
Recently a new GUI was developed for the most known and reliable backup technology :rsync

luckyBackup is an application for data back-up and synchronization powered by the rsync tool.
It is simple to use, fast (transfers over only changes made and not all data), safe (keeps your data safe by checking all declared directories before proceeding in any data manipulation ), reliable and fully customizable.
Just take a look at this screenshots:
http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
-7
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Solution #7: Implement Back In Time by default
Written by wiewiur the 20 Mar 09 at 11:11.
Back In Time is a simple backup system for Linux inspired from “flyback project” and “TimeVault”. The backup is done by taking snapshots of a specified set of directories.

Back in Time provides GUI for GNOME and KDE >= 4.1

Project website and screenshots:
http://www.le-web.org/back-in-time/
http://www.le-web.org/back-in-time/screenshots/
-7
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Solution #8: Grsync for (X)ubuntu, LuckyBackup for Kubuntu
Written by danielrmt the 20 Mar 09 at 11:12.
Salih.emin is right, rsync is a powerful backup tool, but it lacks a GUI. LuckyBackup is fine for KDE, but for Gtk+ desktops (like Gnome and XFCE) a good interface is Grsync.
See more about Grsync here: http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/
-30
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Solution #9: Partner with an existing online backup provider for seamless backups
Written by FrankQuist the 20 Mar 09 at 20:11.
Many users do not make back-ups because you need multiple harddrives or more space for that, plus it takes time to set up. Backup should be as low-entry as possible. Online backup systems are a (partial) solution to that problem.

Adding a one-click-to-enable option for free (& cheap to expand) online storage through partnership with an existing vendor would be a major innovation and "selling" point. Yes, space might be limited, but just backing up certain default directories such as documents might do the trick.
40
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Solution #10: support btrfs filesystem for native snapshots and data integrity
Written by stefano the 20 Mar 09 at 22:17.
For local (not-online) backups btrfs 'll simplify files versioning (with native snapshot support) and data integrity (with native data chesumming).

btrfs is currently supported by 2.6.29 kernel.

as stated in the home page "Btrfs is under heavy development, and is not suitable for any uses other than benchmarking and review. The Btrfs disk format is not yet finalized, but it will only be changed if a critical bug is found and no workarounds are possible.". Ubuntu should support it as soon as possible after the 1.0 release (Q408).

this idea is complementary to #6 and #8 for local backups with rsync (with btrfs and rsync we'll not need other time-something solutions) but for online offsite backups we'll need ALSO one or more solution as #4, #5, #9.


references:
http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Development_timeline
7
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Solution #11: Support backup PLUG-INs
Written by Craig73 the 21 Mar 09 at 14:45.
OK - well we might get tired of the word plugins... but I see the request for a timevault style backup system, the underlying technology (file system or backup library), and the destination as being 3 separate part of the solution.

But whatever tool is selected - people should be able to add the options they want

1) Option to backup online. Make it easy to add different online services whether it is some random FTP site, S3, a free cloud service, or some other future solution (bit-torrent backups or replication with other machines?)

2) Allow encryption of data. Whether online or offline, we should optionally allow encryption of data. [I see opportunity here to leverage GPU or multiple core processing for stupidly high levels of encryption no?]
-6
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Solution #12: partimage for partition images
Written by daddo the 22 Mar 09 at 09:54.
Partimage for making complete images of partitions.
-1
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Solution #13: Incorporate SimpleBackup
Written by tchalvakspam the 27 Mar 09 at 23:07.
Simplebackup has pretty much everything needed:

Different schedules for the backup.
Specify which folders, files, etc are backed up.
Incremental backup.
Backups saved locally or remotely (ssh or ftp)
10
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Solution #14: Add Remastersys as extra option for backing up the installed system setup to DVD
Written by chappell101 the 30 Mar 09 at 19:01.
I'm not suggesting having only Remastersys or using it for a whole system back up of your files, but as another option to go alongside one of the above for files. It would be just imaging your choice of applications and desktop appearance preferences ect. To enable very easy system restore installation exactly to your liking from a worst case scenario that the HD fail and had to be replaced. The application is also very user friendly for new users to use.

Propose your solution

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Comments
John Karahalis wrote on the 15 Mar 09 at 01:05
Thanks for the comments, everybody!

Both solutions are good, but both have problems.

TimeValult isn't quite ready yet, as cheesehead noted. I haven't seen any major progress in TimeValult in probably a year. It doesn't seem this project will be going anywhere, at least not any time soon. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

grsync seems like the better solution of the two. I haven't actually used it, but from what I can see it looks mostly stable and usable. Unfortunately, it does not seem to support snapshots. If you were to accidentally delete an important file right before the sync runs, you'd be out of luck.

I would still argue that a GUI for rsnapshot would be the best way to go. It is tried and true, and does provide snapshots of the system (while taking up little more than 1x the size of the target directory to do so). It seems there is a GUI available called FlyBack (http://bernaz.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/flyback-a-time-machine-backup-utility-f or-linux/). I haven't tried it, but I would recommend that Canonical look into it.

Please keep the conversation going with any more ideas or resources you have available.

Thanks!

John Karahalis wrote on the 15 Mar 09 at 01:06
Correct link: http://bernaz.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/flyback-a-time-machine-backup-utility-fo r-linux/

Codeseer wrote on the 17 Mar 09 at 14:51
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see a problem with "waiting on" either Flyback or Time Vault. It appears to me that Flyback hasn't been updated since November 2007 and Time Vault (the actual program) hasn't been updated in 33 weeks.

I'm new to the modern Linux and have been spending a good bit of time looking for a solution to this issue. This is the first time I've heard of rsnapshot and I'm going to check that out before I vote either way on it; however, I'm not seeing Flyback or Time Vault as a real viable option because of the apparent "deadness" of those projects; yet, Time Vault does look like a really nice solution, if it was maintained.

Codeseer wrote on the 17 Mar 09 at 15:00
I wanted to also add that I don't see the online/cloud based backup services as viable either; perhaps under a different topic? I think the Amazon S3 service is paid subscription, which turns many off. Dropbox is free, up to 2 GB, I believe; however, most people have more than 2 GB to back up.

Also, a lot of people see these online/cloud based services as an invasion of privacy and insecure; they don't want to trust anything personal, private or even critical to services like these. Things can be encrypted prior to using those services, but this adds another step.

There are also going to be times when these services aren't going to be functional and times when people don't want to be connected to the Internet when restoring a backup.

ubby wrote on the 17 Mar 09 at 15:53
A GUI is under development but I don't know the status.
http://forum.ubuntu-nl.org/etalage/rssg_backup-(testversie)/

stefano wrote on the 17 Mar 09 at 22:57
@Codeseer
Hi,
my proposal for dropbox (and I hope other cloud solutions to give user choice) is intented for basic users (80%/90% of home pc users) who needs a simple, cheap and simply secure (=offsite) backup.

for advanced users command line rsync or unison are more than sufficient.

For my work/home needings I use a .sh script with rsync and a little python script written by me (http://md5diff.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/md5diff/trunk/) to compare/diff md5.


bye


PS
i'm going to rewrite extensively this script, adding more functionality (sha1/sha256, quick update of an hash file) and suppor for very large hash files.

astromme wrote on the 17 Mar 09 at 23:00
I'm working on a KDE rdiff-backup (similar to rsnapshot, more advanced imho) system called TimeVault. I understand that there is a gnome project with the same name. I first started there, but the lead developer seems to be missing and I am more comfortable with KDE tech and so I switched gears.
I have some basic blog posts about it at http://blog.chatonka.com Additionally, the (prototype) code is up at http://gitorious.org/projects/timevault
I'm interested in feedback and discussion, feel free to post a comment or to email me. I can also be found as astromme on irc.freenode (check the #kde-devel channel)

Adila01 wrote on the 18 Mar 09 at 23:39
I think what the Ubuntu developers are doing in terms of backup is perhaps the best solution to the current situation. They are planning to integrate Déjà Dup which uses duplicity as the back end. They recently packaged it into universe. Hopefully they will make it part of main during the Karmic cycle.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/jaunty-backup
https://launchpad.net/deja-dup

Endolith wrote on the 30 Mar 09 at 16:42
Simple Backup Suite was written just for this purpose. Currently it's under the name Not So Simple Backup Suite, but it will be merged back into the main branch soon:

https://launchpad.net/nssbackup

Endolith wrote on the 21 Apr 09 at 20:49
Is this really a duplicate of #1? Migrating settings is not the same as emergency backups.


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