SUSE distro - what to back up

[sjewins]

I have decided that rsync looks like a good choice for backing up (suggestions welcome) but I am not certain what needs to be backed up.

/etc
/var
/home
/usr

I think are important but are there others?

My thought is that I will rsync the necessary directories to an external drive after every significant change to my system (new apps installed, major config changes, etc).

If there is a disaster my thought is that I can use the installation DVD to install a new base system then copy back my saved directories and I should then have back my system as it was.

Is this true? A good approach?

What about restoring directories that may have locked files or directories on a running system? Is this an issue with rsync? How does one usually do what I am trying to do?

Thanks in advance for any guidance here.

Simon

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

My own approach for total system restore is to make images of my partitions from time to time. I also keep spare copies of any important data just in case it should be needed after any partition images are restored. This has been working well for me for the last 4 or 5 years.

You can find some apps for backup/recovery here:

Backup & Recovery | Linux App Finder

For incremental backups, rsync is probably the better approach. In fact, rsync might be the best method for you, overall.

Do let us know how it goes.

[sjewins]

Thanks for your reply but I still don't know what directories I need to backup to facilitate my planned recovery strategy nor do I know how to resolve any 'locked' file issues when restoring to a running system. I need a running system to run rsync to recover in my scenario.

Simon

[oz]

Yeah, sorry that I'm unable to provide a better answer.

I never run into any permissions issues using partition imaging software and the working operating system needed for any recovery/restoring operations is on the liveCD that I use.

Hopefully, someone that uses rsync will chime in with more information for you.

[gogalthorp]

IMO you should not worry about backing the OS just the data.

So you need \home and any data areas you use such as databases web stuff like configuration files for the server.

The reason that it is unlikely that if your hardware goes south that you will be replacing it with the exact same hardware. So It is best to do a fresh install of the OS and then restore the important data.

Also for important data it is best to keep it on a separate partition. This allows you to wipe the OS partition and maintain the important data. The question is what data is important to you. If you don't know it is probably not that important In my case I use VMware Server and the images are somewhat important. So I put the VMWare images on a separate partition. Makes upgrading and backup a snap.

[njuguna]

I wouldn't advice yo to backup system files: You might end up messing up your whole computer's configuration! What I can tell you is to ONLY back upthe contents in /home(I suppose that's where your documents are, right?)

Next, though calamity is unavoidable and unpredictable, it's always good to play it safe; try not to mess up anything that you do not know.

Finally refer to the manual pages for nfo on what you need to do.
U can find them using the following steps:
1. right-click the mouse and select the "run command button(if using opensuse10.3), orselect the "terminal" icon from the first tab contents of the menu(mainly on many distros)
2. type in "Konsole"( if u used the run command option)
3. type "man (whatever)"[enter]

otherwise meditate more b4 you backup system files.