Backup your Linux machine the smart way
Intelligent backup of your Linux machine’s valuable data doesn’t have to be complicated. Linux User & Developer’s Sukrit Dhandhania shows you quite how easy and effective rsync tool-based luckyBackup can make the process…
15 Test the remote backup
After you have completed the setup of the remote backup, it’s a good idea to test it out. Select the backup you just set up and hit Start. You should be prompted to enter the remote user’s password. If all went well, you should be notified that the backup went through okay.
16 Passwordless backup
If you want the remote backup to be automated, you would most likely not want to have to enter the password manually. In this case you will need to set up a passwordless SSH connection using the command ssh-keygen. Enter the key file address into the SSH details of the backup task configuration pane.
17 Create SSH key
To set the SSH remote login key, do the following. On your local machine, execute the command ‘ssh-keygen -t dsa’. Hit the Return key for the questions the system asks you. The public keys to log into your computer will now have been created.
18 Copy public key to remote host
The next step is to copy the newly generated public key to the remote host so that you can log into it without being prompted for a password. Execute the command ‘ssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_dsa.pub calvin@192.168.1.201’, replacing ‘calvin@192.168.1.201’ with the username and IP address of your remote host. Enter the user’s password one last time. Henceforth you should not be prompted to enter a password to log into this machine. Test it out.
19 Enter the key in luckyBackup
Open the luckyBackup configuration pane for the task you set up to back up to a remote destination. Now enter the path of the newly created public key. Hit Okay and run the backup. You should be able to take the backup to the remote host without being prompted for a password.
luckyBackup is a simple yet powerful backup utility. The great thing about it is that it uses a tool as solid and flexible as rsync as its backbone. It offers great functionality with good presentation. And it’s open source. What more can we ask for?
Let us know what you think of this tutorial using the comments thread below, or click the link to see what else featured in issue 90 of Linux User & Developer.
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Why not just do this?
rsync -ave ssh /path/to/source destination.server:/destination/dir
@Tony:
Is your syntax correct?
From “man rsync”:
If you need to specify a different remote-shell user, keep in mind that the user@ prefix in front of the host is specifying the rsync-
user value (for a module that requires user-based authentication). This means that you must give the ’-l user’ option to ssh when speci‐
fying the remote-shell, as in this example that uses the short version of the –rsh option:
rsync -av -e “ssh -l ssh-user” rsync-user@host::module /dest
Rsync does look good, but when you get to 70 yrs old (even after 40 yrs of programming) it becomes more difficult to remember the various command syntax and parameters of the CLI. I’ve even lucky to remember the names of commands I most commonly use! :-) For old, retired programmers and fresh newbies GUI interfaces (and their helps) are one way to keep trucking as ones gray cells slowly die off. :-(
I wonder if it is possible to do the following: In my HD I have three partitions, one with Windows 7, another with Ubuntu and one for data. Would like to copy the Ubuntu partition, save on CD, to restore it in case of failure in the future. Is it possible?