Acronis backup in Linux?

[Samuknow]

Daniel ~ is currently backing up his drives. Said there is about 4 hours left. He asked has anyone ever used Acronis to back up in Linux. I know that I have not. Anyone know if this will work or of any other thing that will?

I will look at the Acronis FAQ also.

[robbie]

Can't say that I have ever used it.
Wish him the best of luck!!

[dsio]

Typically, when I do a backup, I only backup the /home, /root, and sometimes the /etc directory. You don't need to backup everything, because all your programs can be restored from the repo if you have to reinstall.

So I would go: (in a terminal window)

su to root
cd /tmp

tar -cf homebackup-9-12-2007.tar /home
(this will take a long time to run most likely)

tar -cf rootbackup-9-12-2007.tar /root
(this will not take as long)

tar -cf etcbackup-9-12-2007.tar /etc
(this will take a fair bit of time, but is generally not needed, so I wouldn't bother)

gzip homebackup-9-12-2007.tar (could take some time)
gzip rootbackup-9-12-2007.tar (coule take some time)
gzip etcbackup-9-12-2007.tar (this is optional, if you didnt back it up above, dont bother gziping here)

and that will leave you with two compressed .tar.gz files containing your home directories, and also an /etc directory, if you included it (which I don't).

My main method differs somewhat in that I have an old Pentium 3 500E with a four matched 500GB Seagate disks in it sitting in the garage that acts as a media server, and also runs Fedora 4 (havnt bothered keeping it up to date). It has something called rsnapshot installed on it, which keeps an rsync copy (rsync is a copying method that only copies files if it can see that they have been changed, and is thus very efficient) of all my important files on its hard disks, one for every month for the last six months, one for each of the last four weeks, and one for each of the last 7 days. So I can roll back changes quite easily off of that.

There are some fairly simple linux backup utilities as well, but the command line approach always works nicely for me.

[Daniel ~]

Thank you guys! I'm looking to cut down on what I need to know/remember. It's starting to look like Acronis has a high probability of being able to let me boot to it's disk and click Restore. I have three back ups...LOL

One you (Dsio) walked me though and two complete backs of W@K and my Fedora drive by way of Acronis True Image.

But until I see them actually work...

BTW, just bought a 500 gig Seagate for back up myself!
reassuring that you did as well.":O}

[Samuknow]

The way I read it, Acronis does not care what is on the disk it is backing up or restoring. Once it has backed it up, it is just a compressed single fine. If you boot to the CD or use the F11 key, it should restore the drive to the time it was backed up.

[Daniel ~]

I read it that way as well... You first! LOL

[ccperf721p]

I'll go first. I'll backup and restore a partition tonight.

[Samuknow]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

I read it that way as well... You first! LOL

I will as soon as my machine is running.

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by Samuknow

I will as soon as my machine is running.

You still recovering from yourr last restore?":O}

[Samuknow]

Still waiting to get my bios chip and see if this thing is dead or not.

[Daniel ~]

To clone a Linux drive you have to Go interactive at boot and type in around 5 short lines of code. If there is something similarly involved in Backing up and restoring Linux drives... I would very much appreceate your copying down any in put you must make, hard enough for me to get right when I have "Known Good" code to work with, when both are in doubt, (My hand copying) I can melt into pure fustrated confusion! TIA!

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by Samuknow

Still waiting to get my bios chip and see if this thing is dead or not.

I haven't forgotten your troubles Sam. ":O}

[ccperf721p]

Originally Posted by Samuknow

Still waiting to get my bios chip and see if this thing is dead or not.

Is it on the way? I can have a bios chip to you by Weds if needed..

[Samuknow]

Smiffy sent it. It should be here any day. For some reason I am being quite patient. It's not like me at all. I usually pine away and obsess until I cannot sleep.

Daniel, did you install acronis? Did you create a managed partition on your drive. If so, acronis can boot right from the drive and reinstall you os.

[Daniel ~]

I've installed the Aronis Secure partition on my 500 giger (all of it) to receive back up from both W2K and Fedora, W2k is of course fine....

Upon reflection, you probably mean the quick restore option F12 thing, no, I don't like it, it really messed up some things in the past for me (partioning, may have been me, but had a devil of a time getting rid of it!).... but if that's the only way to restore Fedora, I'll reconsider. But as you say if it just creating Images and restoring them, it shouldn't be necessary..should it?

[Daniel ~]

Smiffy sent it. It should be here any day. For some reason I am being quite patient. It's not like me at all. I usually pine away and obsess until I cannot sleep.

When I was a child, I thought as a child... Your just putting away childish things....do so with affection they have brought you this far!":O}

[Samuknow]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

I've installed the Aronis Secure partition on my 500 giger (all of it) to receive back up from both W2K and Fedora, W2k is of course fine....

Upon reflection, you probably mean the quick restore option F12 thing, no, I don't like it, it really messed up some things in the past for me (partioning, may have been me, but had a devil of a time getting rid of it!).... but if that's the only way to restore Fedora, I'll reconsider. But as you say if it just creating Images and restoring them, it shouldn't be necessary..should it?

Your boot cd will take place of the managed boot partition. It was always F11 on mine. Maybe an older virgin...I mean version. The boot CD should not card what is backed up or what is on the drive you are restoring to.