Ongoing, automatic backups

rbarclay

Hi everyone,

I've included my UT phone into my normal backup setup (BackupPC), which bascially just rsyncs over ~phablet daily & automatically.
To have rsyncd automatically starting up, I remounted / read/write temporarily so I could edit /etc/default/rsync.

Questions now:

is backing up ~phablet enough, or are there other files I should include (note that I don't mind reinstalling OS+apps should I need new hardware, I just care about data like pictures, SMS and especially contacts)
is just remounting / read/write the intended way to edit etc-files?
will my edited /etc/default/rsync survive OS updates/-upgrades?

Or am I doing it completely&utterly wrong, and there's a much better way for doing automatic backups?

Grateful for any hints,
rbarclay

rbarclay

Ok, I can answer my first question myself: yes, backing up /home/phablet/ is enough for all the normal data, incl. SMS, contacts etc. Even all the 2FA entries in Authenticator survived.

(Got a new phone (Volla 22) today, installed all the apps, rebooted, dumped a tarball of /home/phablet from the old phone (FP2), rebooted again just for the sake of completeness and et voila.)

Keneda

@rbarclay said in Ongoing, automatic backups:

and there's a much better way for doing automatic backups?

I can't tell if it's a much better way, but i guess you can do something quite identicall using syncthing app from openstore ?

rbarclay

@Keneda syncthing sounds interesting for keeping some files/folders, well, synchronized between different computers (and I might just use it for keeping my pictures automagically synced to my desktop), it's not what I need from a "real" backup solution - especially keeping old backups around and so on.
And I tested that rsync'ing ~phablet into BackupPC works, so I'm good wrt. that.

Keneda

@rbarclay said in Ongoing, automatic backups:

syncthing sounds interesting for keeping some files/folders, well, synchronized

The main purose yes, but also, you can use it like a saving service, with only one device that is the "master" and another the "backup" (only filed from the master will be cloned on the backup, not the other way).

Also, it works not only on local network, you can use it with internet access (so you can save on your backup wich is at home, when master not at home).

Anyway, i just mentionned it so you know about it, i seems your skills are way above mine in using Linux possibilities, and syncthing is more for people like me lol.