Backup and restore (TWRP-style)
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Hello forum,
before 24.04 noble I always mounted a USB stick in my cell phone and synchronized the folder /home/phablet to the USB stick using:rsync -rtvP --delete --modify-window=5 --delete /home/phablet/ /media/phablet/STICK/phablet/
or
rsync aP --delete /home/phablet/ /media/STICK/phablet
Unfortunately this doesn't work with 24.04 because rsync has been removed from ubuntu touch.
Best regards
CharlyGreetings
CharlyUT 24.04 on Volla X23
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I have seen one post seeming to say that it was restored in the most bleeding edge version, I can't vouch for it as I use stable, however if you install crackle you can use nix immediately and you can get the nix version of rsync (more up-to-date than the Ubuntu 24.04 version).
https://gitlab.com/tuxecure/crackle-apt/crackle
https://gitlab.com/EricHeintzmann/ubuntu-touch/xiaomi-surya/-/wikis/Install-with-crackleOnce you have crackle running, run 'crackle install rsync' and you are there
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I also got some suggestions from the main Telegram group, here is a summary:
(in the case of a broken Ubuntu Touch installation)
- you can run the installer again
- untick the 'wipe userdata' box
- you don't need to reinstall any other ROM
This is ideal for my use case as I will actually be setting up software mainly on Libertine, Waydroid and Pocket VMs, which are containerised anyway, while the 'host' OS is for day-to-day essentials such as calling and reading documents.
I am sure taking snapshots/backups of containers is a lot more straightforward than the entire OS (which can be reinstalled to a guaranteed working state anyway): I haven't tried it yet, but with similar tools (Waydroid on Raspberry Pi OS and VirtualBox on MacOS), it was simply a means of copying the files somewhere else and moving them back when needed, so I'm sure it won't be any harder.
I will write again here if I find a way of performing incremental snapshots (a great storage space saver), or for any other useful information on this topic
- you can run the installer again
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@Charly
rsync is back in the latest 24.04-2.x -
rsync -rtvP --delete --modify-window=5 --delete /home/phablet/ /media/phablet/STICK/phablet/
or
rsync aP --delete /home/phablet/ /media/STICK/phablet
Did this preserve the Waydroid directory and its rights?
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The first one is for fat32 fs because it has no rights.
If you want copy the rights you need a linux file system like ext4 as target.
If you copy to an ext4 usb stick and use rsync with sudo, all different rights should be applied correctly.
Thanks for the info of the return of rsync.
Will it be possible to have ext4 on the internal micro SD card in the future?
Greetings
Charly -
@Charly Hmm that sounds like a good question for Ubports Core, SD cards still remain immensely helpful for storage - let us know if you happen to find out more about it!
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Hello,
I'm not really well informed. When I put the micro SD card into my cell phone, only fat32 was possible as a file system. Unfortunately, that's not so good because of the lack of a rights system and the limitation to file sizes of a maximum of 4GB.I hope ext4 will be possible at some point.
Best regards
Charly -
@Charly I see, could this be a device-specific issue? It seems to have been done before here for example: https://xdaforums.com/t/tutorial-howto-convert-your-external-sd-card-from-fat-exfat-to-ext4-3-ways.2480963/
Or did you mean Ubuntu Touch specifically is unable to deal with ext4-formatted SDs?
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@GooglyBear
Hello.
On my Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro (24.04-2.x), I inserted a 64GB SD card formatted in ext4 by my Fedora 43 desktop.
The card is visible in FileManager+, I was able to add a file to it, and I imagine it would be usable for your rsync...
I run this one as root and it's look good
rsync -avh --size-only --checksum --ignore-times /home/phablet/ /media/phablet/f6466442-e8e6-46bb-b918-89996720569e/phablet-backup/ -
Hello forum,
I have had the micro SD card in my x23 cell phone for 3 years. I think back then only fat32 was possible. I don't know if anything has changed.
I will try out whether an ext4 formatted memory card is possible.
Best regards
Charly -
@Charly
Hello.
If I understood correctly, UT formats the SD card in FAT, but on my phone, it was able to use ext4 without any issues. Let me know if it works for you too. -
@Vlad-Nirky said in Backup and restore (TWRP-style):
UT formats the SD card in FAT
I'd think that using a command line tool it could be possible to use other formats.
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@gpatel-fr
Yes, I was thinking to the SD app present in Lomiri panel. -
looking at the 'ciborium' code, it is hardcoding only exfat at one point, when checking on dynamic insertion of a sdcard. I will not be able to do any tests on that since my phone can't accept a new sdcard without removing the battery.
